The rodent infestation inside a notorious Brooklyn men’s shelter has abated after the repair of a broken trash compactor — thanks to The Post’s coverage.
Department of Homeless Services workers complained in early February that the trash compactor at the Bedford-Atlantic Armory Men’s Shelter had been on the fritz for months, forcing them to pile mountains of garbage that attracted an army of rats and roaches to the former munitions warehouse.
“The trash compactor was fixed — thank God for your coverage of the story — and the shelter is a lot cleaner than it’s ever been since The Post documented what’s going on in there,” said Teamsters rep Derek Jackson, whose union represents DHS shelter workers.
Shelter residents reported a cadre of creepy-crawlies harassing them at all hours.
“As soon as the lights go off, they’re [rats] climbing over the beds, on top of the lockers. I don’t know how they get up there. They’re like ninjas,” resident Glenn Graham, 48, told The Post last month.
But things have calmed down since the compactor was repaired, Jackson said, because workers can now crush refuse down to fit in a sealed container while it awaits weekly pickup from the Department of Sanitation.
Still, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows — the block-sized, nearly 120-year-old armory has had a rat problem for years, according to the Department of Health’s “Rat Information Portal,” which tracks the results of city rodent inspections.
The shelter houses some 400 clients, many of whom struggle with behavioral issues and chemical dependency, and putting sometimes-troubled individuals together leads to some rank living conditions any way you slice it, according to another resident.
“It’s not clean enough inside. We have people puking in the showers, human feces,” said Justin Washington, 26, who has been staying there for about a month.