Upper East Side Gets $20K To Fight Rats With Gas

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — If you can't beat them, fill their underground burrow with carbon monoxide.

That's an option once again at the disposal of Upper East Siders who are looking to kill rats — and fast — thanks to the return of a rat mitigation program organized by Council Member Julie Menin's office.

This time, Menin said, there's $20,000 of City Council funding to help neighbors rid rodent burrows from their properties — and their nightmares.

"It is unacceptable that rats are prevalent in our neighborhoods as their gnawing and burrowing can cause property damage and rodents spread disease and reduce our quality of life," Menin said. "To confront this challenge head-on, we've adopted an assertive approach and embraced innovative strategies with this rat mitigation program."

That innovative strategy is the use of a tool called Burrow Rx, a machine that floods outdoor underground rat burrows with carbon monoxide.

Operated by Urban Pest Management, the machine first came to East 86th Street earlier this year and helped clear out over 100 rat burrows in just a few months, according to Menin's office.

Andrew Fine of the East 86th Street Association told the Daily News in January that previous efforts by the city's Department of Health, which oversees pest management in the city, didn't seem to make a dent in his battle against the rats.

“When we got the guy with the carbon monoxide, that was a game changer,” Fine told the Daily News.

"We went from an ongoing battle against 100 burrows to occasional maintenance of 1 or 2. What an amazing difference. We are so happy that this program will be expanded so other problem areas can see similar success,” Fine said on Wednesday.

The announcement comes on the same day that the city rolled out a new front in their effort to rid the city of the ubiquitous mountains of black trash bags by requiring buildings with fewer than 10 units to use official trash containers by 2026.

While killing rodents can help treat acute infestations, removing those trash bags, according to rodent experts, denies easy access to food that rats currently enjoy as an all-night buffet, and is the only way to truly manage rodent populations long-term.

Starting this week, constituents fed-up with rats can contact Menin's office at District5@council.nyc.gov or call 212-860-1950 to report sidewalk tree pits that have rat burrows.