Rats Drowned In Boozy Soup Paraded As Answer To Rodent Problem

DOWNTOWN, BROOKLYN — A few months ago, walking out of Brooklyn Borough Hall at night would mean watching eight or nine rats scamper out of garbage piled on the street and run passed your feet.

Even during the day, walking around the building could mean seeing one of the nocturnal vermin peaking out of the bushes looking for food, Borough President Eric Adams told a crowd while showing a video of the rat sightings at the municipal building Thursday.

But now, those days are over, Adams said, thanks to a new high-tech device he believes could be the start of solving the "rat crisis" across the borough and the city.

"We used this building as a laboratory," Adams said. "We had a rat infestation...but you don't see that any longer because of the month that we had this rat trap here."

Four of the traps, rectangular boxes that trap the rats in a deadly alcohol-based solution, were put around Borough Hall about 40 days ago and have caught more than 100 of the rats so far. Adams said those 100 caught rats saved the building from the 34 million-rat infestation that would have happened had they been allowed to keep breeding.

The pilot program's success, he contended, proves that it is a vastly better method than the "rat candy" bags the city has spent $5.6 million on for the five boroughs. The video of rats at Borough Hall shows the critters going inside the bags that are meant to deter them.

"To rats this is a joke, to us its an expense that we continue to pay," he said, holding one of the bags up. "We don't have a current rat plan in this city."

With 6,500 sightings reported to 311 last year, Brooklyn has the most rat complaints of any of the five boroughs.

Neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy and Bushwick are particularly plagued by the vermin, with rat sightings going up as much as 24 percent last year even though they were both part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's $32 million plan to tackle rat problems.

"I find myself at the epicenter, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, of rat infestation," Council Member Robert Cornegy said Thursday. "Having an opportunity to have many ways to trap and dispose of rats is incredibly important."

Adams said that a "comprehensive rat plan" should include funding for the devices, called Ekomille traps, and better control of trash put out on the streets that "feed the problem."

Borough President Eric Adams and Anthony Giaquinto with Rat Trap show the two parts of the Ekomille device. (Anna Quinn/Patch)

The devices for Borough Hall were provided for free by Rat Trap and Adams said the company is figuring out pricing for an expansion into Bed-Stuy and a city housing complex. Each machine costs between $300 and $400 per month.

The traps, a Rat Trap representative said, are different than traditional methods because they trap the rats inside the bottom of the machine and prevent the carcasses' smell from discouraging other rats to climb up to the food on top. The machines also come with a counting device on the outside so users can tell if there are rats inside without actually seeing the dead bodies, he said.

Adams said he plans to share the Borough Hall results with the city's Department of Sanitation and with other City Council members.

"Then, we want to get City Hall on board," Adams said. "If they're not willing to implement a program such as this when they were willing to spend $5.6 million on mint bags, something is wrong."