After a short hiatus from sounding off against quality of life issues, my latest rant renews all of the flavors and sentiments of an angry New Yorker just trying to make sense of this crazy city...
Now that I travel on New York City Transit every day to work in the city, I understand the real difference between rats and rats. You have the small animal rodents, which scurry out of street openings, train tunnels and subways looking for food/water/garbage...Then you have the human rats, which travel through the streets and subway system - depositing their food/water/garbage.
With a new "plan" proposed by the city to invest $32 million in anti-rat receptacles, it's hard to say who's ratting out who when it comes to trash and the blame game.
To be honest, I don't get freaked out when I see rodents in the subway. Yes, I DO flip out when a mouse is in the clean space of my apartment! However, the world of the underground and the dumpy disasters that exist on our streets in our disgusting city has plenty of dirty, dark pits with feces-ridden crevices for rodents to camp out and multiply. Despite reports that the city will buy 336 solar-powered trash cans that supposedly keep out rats with a mailbox style opening, it's humans that are at the root of many sanitary problems - and that's not something a fancy garbage bin will change.
I've considered a few points that make the city's initiative a go-nowhere plan:
- New Yorkers are filthy litterbugs. Okay - maybe you're not a litterbug...Maybe you take your trash with you to dispose of in a garbage pail. Maybe you have..um..manners! From what I've witnessed, commuters and city folk have NO problem leaving their garbage on the street, "accidentally" dropping paper wrappers or left over foodstuff somewhere in their travels. I've seen people leave empty bottles on the streets and others take bags of bulk trash from THEIR OWN HOMES and leave it on a street corner for the city to collect. Don't get me started on illegal dumping! Those piles of refuse from God knows where attract vermin and other critters to make a perfect home.
- New York City is one big toilet bowl. An exaggeration, perhaps - but not really. In my travels, I've seen more people use our public streets as bathrooms than I should have. One day while I was on my way into a train station, I saw a young woman crouching down by the subway stairs with her pants halfway down, urinating right there! To make matters worse, she had a youngster with her, obviously showing the child that it's okay to defecate public property in our city. And you know the offensive phrase "men are dogs?" Well, in one sense I can say it's true. I've seen way too many men in our community sidle up to a tree or against a building and empty their bladder as if they were an anxious dog on a short walk! With all of the human waste that uncouth citizens deposit onto our city, is it any wonder why the stale and funky conditions of our streets DO NOT deter rodents from joining what I call the "defecation parade"?
-Rats aren't bummed out by people. With the homeless population increasing, the number of people rats can get food from is also increasing. When you see a homeless person with their bags laying in the street, chances are, the bum is also harboring food and liquids somewhere in their makeshift "home." Perfect places for rodents to curl up and find a meal! I'm no exterminator, but rodents don't need much to thrive other than food and water. Whenever I see a homeless person on the street laying in a corner with bags of food or bottles they probably found in the garbage, I also see a perfect opportunity for vermin to join them and have a nice meal.
The Daily News reported last week that the city's prior efforts at wiping out rats simply weren't combative enough. Poisoning and blocking their burrows? Come on! That's like using cotton balls to fight heavily-armed military troops!
Other efforts to battle the beady-eyed monsters include requiring buildings in the city's most infested communities with ten or more units to put out their trash for collection after 4 in the morning instead of in the evenings.
With a few other alterations in the works to fend off the furry creatures - including cementing the basements of city buildings that have foundations made of dirt (yeah, okay - they can't even allocate a budget to make structural repairs for their tenants!) - NONE of the plans include enforcing HUMANS to be cleaner. There aren't many residents who even see the value in being clean and sanitary. Why don't residents care that THEY are the reason rodents are overpopulating the city? Why doesn't that guy throwing his food onto the streets care if his filth attracts vermin?
In a world where so many diverse cultures - clean and unsanitary - live among animals, New Yorkers simply represent another population of humans that must learn to live with the critters we've enticed.
