Rats are so smart that the city is opening the nation’s first “rat college” to teach professionals the best techniques to get rid of the rampant rodents.
Enrollment in the prestigious Rodent Integrated Pest Control Academy will start with Health Department exterminators and extend to rat hunters in other city agencies, said Dr. Edgar Butts, an assistant commissioner at the agency.
“We’d eventually like to get the commercial applicators,” Butts testified before the City Council’s Health Committee.
The school is being funded with a three-year, $600,000 grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control.
So what’s to know about killing rats? Actually, quite a bit, according to Butts.
A popular misconception is that once poisoned bait has been deposited in a rat’s home, the hole should be covered.
“You leave the hole alone,” Butts explained to reporters.
“Rats are intelligent animals. You want to make sure they’re as undisturbed as they want. You want them to consume the bait.”
If a rat detects something’s amiss, it “will throw the bait back out,” he said.
Officials were in The Bronx yesterday helping set up a related initiative, a scorecard to measure rat infestation on individual blocks.
“This is a big project,” said Butts.
The Rat Index – as the scoreboard is to be known – is similar to the cleanliness ratings issued each month by the Sanitation Department for each neighborhood.