[HN Gopher] NYC Rat Sightings (Daily)
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NYC Rat Sightings (Daily)
Author : kmdupree
Score : 55 points
Date : 2024-04-11 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (realtime.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (realtime.org)
| tekla wrote:
| Who the hell has the free time to bother report rat sightings to
| 311.
| otoburb wrote:
| Exactly -- this chart exhibits massive undercoverage bias for
| the actual proxy measure (number of daily rat sightings),
| except the skew in this case likely means the actual value is
| much higher.
|
| Somehow, I'm thinking that this won't come as a surprise to any
| NYC resident.
| bagels wrote:
| I was surprised when I visited to see piles of garbage left
| out on the sidewalks, seemingly with no purpose other than to
| breed rats.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| The purpose is so that garbage trucks can collect the
| trash. NYC has very few alleys.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Other large cities manage to have trash bins on wheels to
| collect trash without making it a garbagefest for the
| rats and other vermin.
| tekla wrote:
| Good thing that NYC doesn't have a large driving
| population that might as well threaten to start riots if
| they lose free parking spots
| otoburb wrote:
| There was a NYT article recently asking this very same
| question[1] with some background information about the
| pecularities specific to NYC which make the problem more
| complex. Obviously, this could be fixed, but would likely
| meet with fierce resistance from many constituents.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/02/upshot
| /nyc-tr...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > but there's also a growing number of bins chained to
| bike racks and sewer grates to prevent people from
| stealing them.
|
| This is fucking wild. Who in their right mind steals
| trash bins? What would one even want to do with trash
| bins?
| nsp wrote:
| As someone who lives in Brooklyn and moved into a place
| where I was responsible for trash a couple weeks ago, it
| took ~1 week for someone to swipe my rolling trash bin,
| graffiti it, burn a couple holes and leave it a few
| blocks away. No idea why, but it definitely made putting
| bags on the street more appealing
| jerrysievert wrote:
| my recycling bin got stolen multiple times in Portland,
| but mostly because they are handy totes.
|
| locally, garbage companies (not sure if just some, or
| all) scan the barrels and verify they are both at the
| right address and paid before picking them up.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The options seem to be:
|
| - Sacks of rubbish left on the street, potentially for
| many hours (e.g. cafe closes at 18.00, rubbish is left
| outside until collection at 05.00-07.00). London has this
| in some central areas. [0] (took about 3 tries to find
| this.)
|
| - Individual bins (usually with wheels) for each
| property, which must be left at the front of the
| property. It can seem excessive if there's not much space
| to store them, you end up with a road cluttered with
| bins. Many towns in Britain have this. Literally the
| first place I looked [1].
|
| - Almost-individual bins. I saw this somewhere I stayed
| in Sweden, where one house had the recycling bin, and the
| next had general waste, and so on. Half as much bin
| clutter on the street.
|
| - Larger bins, shared between several properties. Much
| less street space, much less effort for collection. [2]
| (also London). In many cities in Europe these take up one
| parking space on each street/block.
|
| - Larger _underground_ bins, which are neatest but
| presumably the most expensive solution. [3]
|
| [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.522472,-0.1188006,3a,
| 75y,50....
|
| [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@53.8093732,-1.5728046,3a
| ,75y,10...
|
| [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4893475,-0.1432088,3a
| ,90y,22...
|
| [3] https://www.elkoplast.eu/underground-containers
| Quinner wrote:
| - Also in NYC (Roosevelt Island) have every building
| hooked up to pneumatic tubes and suck it all into a
| central collection location.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539304811/how-new-york-s-
| roos...
| otoburb wrote:
| I think you're being sarcastic, but the purpose of leaving
| the garbage bins outside is so that the garbage trucks can
| pick them up, as their contract stipulates that they pick
| up from the sidewalk and not from inside the (numerous)
| buildings.
|
| Even in the suburbs, residents of single-family houses
| typically need to bring their garbage/recycling bins to the
| end of their driveways. I think the only time that this
| isn't the case is when there's a special contract for
| certain isolated apartment buildings or complexes where the
| rubbish is stored in larger garbage dumps for the
| sanitation crews to pick up.
| BadHumans wrote:
| There is a difference between a garbage bin and a pile of
| garbage. NYC has piles of garbage bags just on the
| street.
| otoburb wrote:
| NYC has both, because I generally consider compost a type
| of garbage and that is definitely stored in bins and
| hauled to the sidewalk, at least for the buildings that
| have opted into the composting program.
| aetherson wrote:
| New York City only recently got the memo about putting
| garbage into bins.
|
| (Really!)
| bagels wrote:
| Not being sarcastic. Every other place I've been uses
| containers (wheeled bins, cans, dumpsters) to prevent
| rats and to make collection cheaper.
|
| What is the purpose of piles?
| djtriptych wrote:
| > What is the purpose of piles
|
| We like to keep out-of-towners rattled.
| bagels wrote:
| At the cost of rats everywhere? I guess it works. At
| least I have an alternate explanation for why it's
| tolerated, even though I don't think this is a serious
| response.
| outworlder wrote:
| > I think you're being sarcastic, but the purpose of
| leaving the garbage bins outside is so that the garbage
| trucks can pick them up, as their contract stipulates
| that they pick up from the sidewalk and not from inside
| the (numerous) buildings.
|
| Uh. Where I live - on the other coast - we just place our
| trash in plastic containers. We place them on the street
| the same way. Garbage truck picks them up and the driver
| doesn't even have to get out of the vehicle. No rats,
| more efficient, no people cutting their hands because
| they are picking up plastic bags and there's glass shards
| in them. Nobody has to even touch the containers.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > the driver doesn't even have to get out of the vehicle
|
| Does everyone orient their bins correctly and precisely
| enough for the truck's pickup device? Is the pickup
| device so flexible that it doesn't matter?
| sethhochberg wrote:
| This is (at long last) rapidly changing:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/nyregion/nyc-trash-
| contai...
|
| DSNY is pushing hard on getting all trash containerized.
| Food-related businesses were required to start last summer,
| all commercial trash's requirement hit just a couple of
| weeks ago, and residential is rolling out.
| tetromino_ wrote:
| The bags of garbage are a historical relic. The city
| allowed trash in bags during as an emergency measure during
| the 1968 garbage collectors' strike: the metal trash bins
| were overflowing and garbage on the street in bags was
| better than garbage on the street raw. The strike ended,
| decades passed, but the rules were never updated until the
| last couple years when the city has finally began strongly
| incentivizing, and in some cases mandating, bins.
| screenoridesaga wrote:
| That explanation sounds real, but it isn't. Really weird,
| why make something like this up?
| tetromino_ wrote:
| I did not make it up; I read it at
| https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/03/22/trash-city-new-
| york-i... (see "Hooked on plastic" section in the
| article).
|
| If you believe that this account is wrong, I am
| interested in hearing the true story, and seeing some
| sources if you have them.
| dtjb wrote:
| You can see this in the large outlier on Feb 12 2017, which
| coincided with a storm that delayed trash pickup.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_12%E2%80%9314,_2017_
| N...
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-snowstorm-cleanup/
| jareklupinski wrote:
| i wish citizens could tap into the network of nypd cameras so
| we can run these kinds of analyses ourselves
|
| maybe the Rat Czar can help make that meeting happen :)
| psychlops wrote:
| Ever have rats suddenly show up in your building? I have.
| That's when you speed dial the city to fix their problem.
| tekla wrote:
| Yes, never bothered. Caught them myself.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Foxes were made for that
| psychlops wrote:
| Very true, but then how do you get rid of the foxes?
| psychlops wrote:
| Envious. That wasn't possible in my case although I also
| did it myself. I killed hundreds using 30 lbs of dry ice.
| The city parking lot nearby had dozens of nests I mapped
| and sealed.
|
| Btw, how did you "catch" them? Were they Norwegian rats?
| litoE wrote:
| How do you kill rats with dry ice?
| psychlops wrote:
| Dry ice is frozen CO2. Rat nests usually have two holes,
| an entrance and an exit. Close one, place dry ice in the
| other and close the other hole to seal it. The dry ice
| melts and floods the chambers with CO2, no more rats.
|
| It's considered more humane and safe than poison. Some
| cities use this method.
| spacecadet wrote:
| 100% lol, NIMBYS
| Grazester wrote:
| There is an recently abandoned building down the street from me
| that has been taken over by rats(and people legally dumping
| outside of it). Those rats then sometimes nest in the vehicles
| parked on the street next to the building. Rats tend to chew
| through wiring harness. I am about to file a complaint on 311
| about it.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Anyone from NYC know what phenomenon causes the short period up
| and down?
| otoburb wrote:
| When the weather is colder in NYC, there are fewer rat
| sightings. But don't be fooled -- it's not because there are
| magically fewer rats, but instead likely due to several
| confounding factors such as being darker more often while
| people are rat-watching, colder weather driving rats to stay
| indoors more often, and more rain/snow/slush making the furry
| rodents harder to spot.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| trash (rats' food source) is usually picked up twice a week in
| most places in the city, it never lines up perfectly to 'half-
| way through the week', and sometimes the 'other' collection is
| 'just recycling' (less organic matter to feast on)
|
| I'm guessing the most frequent submitters send consistent
| reports when they can see rats on their block going after the
| trash (twice-ish a week); if more people in different areas
| reported as consistently, it might even out (some places have
| trash pickup monday, some tuesday, some wednesday...) (assuming
| all areas have equal concentrations of rat)
| xvedejas wrote:
| Could it also be that in NYC you just put trash bags directly
| on the sidewalk/street? It's very unusual to see, as a
| visitor.
| spacecadet wrote:
| I live in Brooklyn and we have seen alot of construction around
| our block, which has also led to more rat sightings and a huge
| jump in trash can/bag attacks from hungry rats.
| fluxic wrote:
| Relatedly, Transit app is doing real-time analysis of rat
| sightings in the subway: https://transitapp.com/rats
| spondyl wrote:
| Oh neat, as a Transit user, I always wondered if they were
| using data from those train/bus stop questions
| HotGarbage wrote:
| It's a shame NYC 311 doesn't include attachments from reports.
| I'd love to create a ratty version of https://poolette.pages.dev/
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Why would someone ever make this?
| porphyra wrote:
| The seasonal changes in rat count are likely due to rat behavior,
| but do we have any evidence that the long-term change over the
| years reflects an actual increase of rats rather than more people
| using 311 to report them?
| CephalopodMD wrote:
| Can I get a San Francisco poop graph?
| sharksauce wrote:
| All my times visiting NYC I never saw a rat.
|
| All my life living on the river around Boston I saw them all the
| time. And man they were the big ones.
|
| I have added nothing to the discussion.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| I was once standing outside a night club in Brooklyn, next to a
| construction site, when a rat came charging around the corner
| being chased by a cat. The rat smacked straight into my ankle
| and bounced off, briefly stunned. The cat also froze, trying to
| take in the situation. A split second later they charged down
| the sidewalk into the gloom.
|
| The rat was so big my ankle hurt the rest of the night.
| tomphoolery wrote:
| POV: you're the foreground art in a Tom & Jerry cartoon
| peterleiser wrote:
| When my wife lived in NYC she was walking home one night when
| there were an unusually large number of rats running around.
| She noticed that Fred Armisen (actor, comedian) was walking
| down the middle of the street next to her, and he looked at
| her and said something to the effect of "What's with all
| these rats?!".
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Who is responsible for picking up a dead rat in NYC? The
| biggest rat I ever saw was a dead one on William St and as an
| alien I wasn't really sure what the protocol was. No one else
| around paid any attention to it.
| kevindamm wrote:
| Call 311 or use their online form.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That would be DHMH[1] or Sanitation, maybe. You may be able
| to put a report in via 311, but I wouldn't count on a timely
| response (unless you count "a bigger rat eats the already big
| rat" as a response).
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Department_o
| f_He...
| standardUser wrote:
| I don't think I ever saw a rat on my dozen plus trips to NYC,
| but since moving here several years ago I have seen more than I
| can count. Many of those were in 2020 when I would see large
| groups (5-10) roaming around at night in search of dwindling
| food sources.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| From a subway platform, look carefully at the tracks. I'd say a
| ~ 75% chance to spot a furry friend.
| nestorD wrote:
| This is a very nice website! I would love some Baye Area graphs.
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(page generated 2024-04-11 23:01 UTC)