Rat Resistant Trash Cans On Tap For Some Area Residents

In response to an outpouring of complaints that rats fleeing the construction at Atlantic Yards been , the developer of the site has promised to give out free rodent-resistant garbage cans.

Each nearby home would be given one can, though vouchers redeemable at area stores. A spokeswoman for Forest City Ratner, however, said the developer wouldn’t be providing poisonous “bait stations,” for nearby homeowners, nor would they be offering the cans to area businesses, said MaryAnne Gilmartin FCR’s executive vice president in charge of the 22-acre mega project.

Details, such as what streets the giveaway would apply to and how many cans multi-unit buildings would receive have not yet been determined.

But, she added, “We’re not buying trash cans for the entire borough.” 

Gilmartin made the announcement at yesterday’s bi-monthly meeting of the Atlantic Yards Project between FCR, state and local officials.

At the meeting, Ratner officials also laid out other steps they’ve taken to address the rat problem including:

• Hiring a private exterminator to help with the problem, Colony Pest Management;
• Placing 16 trash containers in the construction site for workers’ food waste, which would be emptied daily. Before this workers had been throwing out food waste with construction debris, which is emptied less frequently;
• Hiring four workers who would not only empty the cans but also pick up litter on the site.

 Prospect Heights Councilwoman Letitia James, as well as the district managers of the Community Boards for Park Slope/Boerum Hill and Fort Greene, asked officials to also provide help for the rat issues in the other three neighborhoods bordering the project.

“Atlantic Terminal Public housing, they sent me a very, very disgusting video and the rodents were in the hallways, and in the parking lot. And they were large and it was scary,” she said.

Despite the overtures, officials may have rubbed some Prospect Heights residents the wrong way by suggesting that they were literally feeding the rat problem.

The Department of Health’s Rick Simeone did an inspection of nearby Prospect Heights streets with renown rat expert Robert Corrigan, who consults for the city, before the meeting.

“What Bobby and I noticed is a tremendous amount of trash and garbage in the neighborhood: bags of trash outside the buildings, garbage cans with no lids,” Simeone said. “Block after block, house after house, just piles and piles of plastic (garbage) bags outside the houses.”

He urged residents to put their garbage out as late in the evening as possible and to refrain from feeding feral cats. 

Though Simeone also blamed businesses for putting out their garbage hours before they were allowed to, and Colony’s representative fingered abandoned buildings such as Bergen Tile on Flatbush Avenue as contributing to the issue, Dean Street Block Association president Peter Krashes said he felt like the neighborhood was being unfairly blamed. 

“I don’t think Prospect Heights is any different than any other neighborhood in Brooklyn,” he said.

But, he added, he was still pleased that Ratner officials are giving more attention to the rat problem.

“There’s no question that Forest City Ratner took this very seriously,” he said, pointing out that this was only the second time that Gilmartin and Ratner Executive Vice President Robert Sanna had come to the joint meetings.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen Forest City Ratner dealing with an issue in a focused way," he added.

James, who had requested that rats be the topic of yesterday’s meeting, also praised the “focus and coordination” displayed at the meeting, but said how much good the garbage can giveaway would do depended on how many residents ultimately were eligible for the cans.

“The devil is in the details,” she said.