Ask Habitat: Help! I Saw a Rat in the Stinky Basement!
June 29, 2015 — A READER ASKS: I live in a midsize co-op building in Brooklyn. We have a new super and porter and while we often see them cleaning up the lobby, they aren't keeping the basement as clean as it should be. The trash bins overflow and it smells, and last week I was horrified to see a rat scurrying around. Where there's one there's many. I don't want to make trouble for the new super and porter with the board, but I feel like I need to say something before we're overrun with rats.
HABITAT ANSWERS: Unfortunately, summertime in the city often means dealing with an increase in pest activity. Rats aren't picky eaters. Their main food source is garbage, which they'll gladly chow down on until kingdom come. To keep them out of your trash, plastic bags won't cut it. Garbage must be kept in sealed containers: plastic bins, steel sheds — whatever makes sense for your building.
Since you've seen a rat, you should report this to the board, along with suggestions on how to nip a potential infestation in the bud. Doing so doesn't mean you're suggesting the super and porter are doing a bad job overall, but rather that they need to take extra steps to prevent the pests from overrunning your building.
Flush them out
With a source of food and a place to nest, rats will multiply. Poison alone is insufficient: to solve the problem you must make your building rat-proof.
Nowhere to hide
To flush the rats out, you have to eliminate their hiding places. Outdoors, shrubbery hugging the building gives them cover; indoors, they're most likely to nest in the basement. A cluttered subterranean storage room can harbor rats, and when cleaning it up you may find evidence of their presence, such as droppings or chewed-up boxes.
Spread the news
To starve the rats out, you should advise residents to keep their garbage covered and not leave edible materials such as pet food out overnight. You may also want to ask neighboring buildings to do the same, creating a rat-unfriendly environment on your block.
Lock it down
The next, and ultimately crucial, step is to seal up your building, stopping rats from getting in and trapping the ones that are already there. A good exterminator will be able to identify and block possible entry points — they aren't always evident, since a rat can squeeze through a space the size of a quarter. Little things such as installing sweeps on doors can help, but severe problems may require major work (such as pouring new concrete to eliminate crevices).
Rat Academy
If all else fails, check out our coverage on the city's Rodent Academy program, which helps buildings rid themselves of these nasty vermin.
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