I contacted the Dept. of Health about the rat infestation at the Chelsea Health Clinic. Sara Markt, Deputy Press Secretary, responded via email, saying, "The area in front of the clinic is a City park. Please contact the Parks Department about this issue as they handle rodent control in those areas."
So I took Sara's advice and made numerous calls to various Parks Department offices. I actually spoke to one manager for the park in front of the Chelsea Health Clinic. She told me that they put baits out for the rats, and the park is cleaner than it has ever been. The main problem, Nicole Morgan said, is the trash. The trash is put out every evening and that's what the rats eat. This was confirmed by the exterminator who I invited to visit the park last week, who said that rats aren't tempted by poison when there is a lot of food available. "We do everything we can," she said, "but the Health Department has to do something about their trash."
Morgan said that the park is cleaned by workers every day. Each time I visited the park in the daytime, employees were picking up trash. The workers face an additional problem because of the trash left outside on curb at night. The rats come out at night, eat the trash, and return to the burrows concealed by the shrubbery in the park. Because the rats are there--too full of Health Dept. trash to eat Park Dept. poison--the Parks Dept. workers are at risk when cleaning the park.
Next thing you know, the Health Dept will point the finger at the Sanitation Dept for not picking up their trash fast enough. In the meantime, here is an image of a rat from the park on its way to dinner. And let's not forget about the school next door or the playground behind the clinic.-Sherry Mazzocchi
(Video shot Friday night on the sidewalk in front of the Health Dept.)
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