Prospect Heights Psychotherapists Analyze Their Local Rats

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — What does it take to unite a neighborhood in the fight against rats? According to two Prospect Heights residents, it's data, community organizing and help from your friendly, local psychotherapists.

“Well I’m a psychotherapist and a writer,” Kamy Wicoff, 50, clarifies.

“And I’m a psychotherapist," says Jesse Hendrich, also 50. "And a community busybody.”

Hendrich and Wicoff — president of the Sterling Place Block Association — are also the co-founders of the Sterling Committee on Rat Awareness and Mitigation.

Catch that acronym? It's SCRAM.

While SCRAM puts the focus on data — surveying the block, crunching the numbers and tracking down specifics of an obscure Sanitation department rule — their mission is ultimately about uniting a community.

And what better way to unite New Yorkers than with rats?

Blame And Shame: What Rats Do To The Neighbors

SCRAM wasn't founded simply to combat a worsening rat problem, but to address the tensions growing between neighbors because of it, Hendrich told Patch.

“It wasn't the rats,” Hendrich said, “it was what the rats were doing to my neighbors.”

As some Prospect Heights residents blamed others for attracting the vermin, others felt blamed. Hendrich said that as a therapist, this conflict naturally drew him in.

“I love spending my free time helping groups of people who are agitated work through their stuff,” Hendrich said with a laugh.

Instead of “blame and shame,” Hendrich said, they use data and research to educate and empower neighbors.

The first step was getting an accurate picture of the rat infestation.

While 311 data can be useful in spotting trends — like a recent Daily News story showing rat complaints are 70 percent higher than last year citywide — it isn't always depicting a reliable picture of the situation on the ground because it relies on users to submit complaints.

SCRAM decided to collect their own data by conducting rat surveys on the block.

“We were trying to figure out, through all the feelings, what the facts were,” Hendrich said.

During periodic “rat walks,” committee members conduct during both day and night, Hendrich said, a super-spreadsheet is kept to take notes of areas with either visible rats or conditions, like untidy trash and other messes, that could attract the affections of rodents.

Each committee member, armed with a clipboard, canvasses a part of the block, Hendrich said, with the goal not to chastise neighbors by calling 311, but to educate them on how they can do their part to help fight rats.

‘Bin’ Revelations, Confusions

SCRAM spent the summer collecting data and figuring out what would be the best single action to try and reduce the rat population.

The committee decided that getting more neighbors to use secure trash cans — “bins with lids,” as Hendrich calls it — was the best intervention to recommend.

“The number one priority has been containerized garbage bins,” Hendrich said.

But a lot of neighbors, Wicoff said, were initially reluctant to use trash bins. “We came across a lot of misconceptions that Sanitation wouldn’t pick them up and that their trash would have to be sitting in bags on the street anyways,” she said.

A staffer from City Council Member Crystal Hudson’s office then made a major breakthrough, telling SCRAM that they found a line deep in the Sanitation rules and regulations.

As long as a trash bin is no larger than 32 gallons, and not impossibly heavy, Sanitation workers will pick it up.

When Hendrich casually asked a Sanitation worker about this, they confirmed the 32 gallon limit.

The Sanitation website and 311, both contradict this information and state a 44 gallon limit.

A Sanitation spokesperson confirmed that the department actually allows for residents to use even larger trash bins — up to 55 gallons.

Sanitation spokesperson Joshua Goodman told Patch that “significant parts of the city are full of residences that use plastic bins” for curbside collection.

“This is common practice in many neighborhoods, and current rules allow the flexibility to use a bin or a bag, whichever residents prefer,” Goodman said.

The use of curbside trash bags in New York City, introduced during the 1968 Sanitation workers strike, can be linked to the beginning of the city’s modern rat epidemic.

'We're Not The Rat Police'

Armed with this new information, albeit slightly incorrect as to the maximum size, Hendrich conducted consumer research and created literature to educate neighbors on which trash cans were best to buy. The flier has black and white images of various lidded bins with wheels listed with their specifications.

One neighbor said her co-op board was convinced by SCRAM’s presentation of data and how they could take back the block from the rats.

“We’re a small building with a small board,” said neighbor Bryce Covert, 38, a freelance journalist.

“It was mostly just like, figuring out how, you know, which bins do we get? How many bins do we need? How much garbage do we produce?”

Covert said that her building also decided to pay their super more money for the extra work of taking the bins in and out.

All this costs money, and Hendrichs knows that not every building on the block can afford it. To help offset the costs, he’s submitted an idea through his district’s participatory budgeting process to subsidize the purchasing of bins.

Knowing that their effort wasn’t a lone action, Covert said, also made it an easy choice to take action.

“Like if we just did it ourselves, that wouldn't really make a difference,” she said, “but knowing that [SCRAM is] working on the other buildings — like that will actually make an impact.”

“I think people on the block feel a little bit more energized around actually taking action because they see us out and about and they see that their neighbors are making changes,” Wicoff said.

While Hendrich says he thinks SCRAM has brought about 60 percent of the block on the rat abatement train, there are still struggles with connecting with some rental buildings whose landlords are either absent, don’t live in the neighborhood and are unconvinced of the severity of the issue or who just don’t care.

For those situations, having an organized block committee and neighborhood support can give a boost for tenants who also want to help.

One building with a bad rat problem shared his struggles with a SCRAM member, who said they would start escalating the issue.

“And he got very energized by that and called the landlord saying ‘the block association is going to start taking next steps to report,’” Wicoff said, “ and you know, it makes the tenants in those buildings feel a little bit less alone.”

Hendrich described an email exchange between him and a reluctant landlord who doesn’t live on the block, who stopped replying to his messages. Still, Hendrich let the property owner know that his participatory budget suggestion would directly address his cost concerns regarding the bins.

“That would be a program you could take advantage of,” Hendrich said he wrote to the landlord, “so please know that we were advocating on your behalf.”

Wicoff and Hendrich said they’ll keep collecting data and talking with neighbors to try and get the whole block on board with keeping their trash in bins.

Hendrich said that SCRAM’s goal is to make sure that “everybody is sharing the same burden and responsibility for what we hope will be everybody sharing in the good outcome of less rats.”

“We’re not the rat police,” Hendrich said, “we’re rat partners.”