This honestly appears to be a very difficult problem to solve.
It seems that to be truly be effective in rat reduction at a city scale the fix may need to come from elsewhere and may have very little to do with directly working on exterminating the rats.
Fixes may be needed starting from urban planning through waste/sewage handling methods at a street level all the way up to the city.
Also not sure if there would be enough leverage and incentives for any candidate who is going to be hired for this job at their advertised $120K to be able to achieve that kind of a change!
Seems like another easy win for the rats at the tax payers expense!
I actually find it pretty cringe - trying to insert movie/cartoon tropes into real life. Definitely written by someone raised on too much TV and internet.
I don't know. This entire job listing smells of a PR role created to communicate how the New York government is getting the job done rather than actually getting the job done.
Thanks for making my day! You described exactly the picture i had in my mind...well plus he was from London and looked a bit like Sherlock Holmes (just for the interview of course).
>>New York’s Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation.
That could be also the Director for IT security ;)
Being from Europe, is that whole thing New York City humor? It's incredible funny:
>>New York City’s rats are legendary for their survival skills, but they don’t run this city – we do.
Living in NYC with rats, I'm always reminded of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, where Jack Shaftoe is in Paris in the late 17th century and meets St-George, the city's preeminent rat-catcher. St-George explains how no one is never going to exterminate _all_ of the rats, so he instead only kills the bad kind of rats and lets the "good" rats live, in a sort of multi-generational rat breeding program. St-George says that he has been doing this for many years, and his father before him, and his father before that. Jack asks, "how do you know the rats aren't breeding YOU?"
The only reason this is a problem is because the city refuses to use containerized trash collection (such as dumpsters). Turns out, dumping trash bags on the street for 12 hours 3-6 times a week is basically a free buffet for rats.
The reason the city doesn't implement containerized trash collection is because that would mean giving up a few free parking spots every block.
It got worse during COVID-19 because the city temporarily suspended collection/extermination, which caused the rodent population to explode, and it's never recovered from that. But eliminating the regular meals for rats would be an easy, no-brainer way to fix it.
An anecdote: My NYC neighborhood has seen a building boom over the past decade. As far as I can tell, every new building puts its trash out on the street.
Some particularly memorable examples include a 75 story residential tower with absolutely record-breaking trash piles, and a ~25 story residential tower with a trash collection point on the onramp to the Williamsburg bridge. Garbage trucks have to stop in the road to collect trash, manually, bag-by-bag, at every stop.
This is the policy for trash in NYC, and rats will remain a problem as long as it stays that way.
The only reason this is a problem is because the city refuses to use containerized trash collection (such as dumpsters). Turns out, dumping trash bags on the street for 12 hours 3-6 times a week is basically a free buffet for rats.
The US confuses the hell out of me sometimes.
How do you get to the moon and invent the internet, but can't figure out how to collect refuse in arguably your most prominent city?
Some cities in Europe use underground containers. (An arm on the collection truck can lift them right out of the ground. It's pretty neat.) I wonder if that is feasible for NYC.
I once stayed at a flat in Berlin and there were rats living in the building trash container. They would literally be scurrying on the top of the pile when I opened it up to throw trash bags away. Hands down my worst experience with rats, even coming from NYC.
This was in Kreuzberg and there seemed to be a lot of rats there because of some abandoned buildings and construction + fields of dirt for them to burrow in
They could adopt Taiwan's musical garbage trucks with zero investment in new garbage containers or loss of parking. Garbage bags go directly from properties into the truck, spending no time festering on the sidewalk.
I was watching a Disney+ documentary on the making of Disney World and was impressed that all the garage cans use pneumatic tubes to empty in a central dump not visible to guests. Is such a solution not possible at NYC scale?
The qualifications for the role are very poor if you're looking for someone to be effective:
> Bachelor’s Degree required, preferably public policy, or related design fields, plus 5-8 years of
full-time professional experience in a field related to this position
> Swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery
Wouldn't you value someone who actually knows how to control vermin populations at scale in an urban environment? Why would you value someone who has a "public policy" degree. What even is that?
And why does this person need to be a funny pirate? In essence, Jack Sparrow with a public policy degree appears to be the ideal candidate.
To me it sounds like they're more interested in giving off the perception of doing something about the problem while entertaining the public about it, rather than actually solving the problem effectively.
You see a lot of private companies add silly qualifications like this as well. So I don't really think it indicates anything other than the dept in question trying to be more "hip".
That being said, it seems clear now that everything from the Adams administration should be treated as "giving off the perception of doing something instead of solving the problem" until proven otherwise.
>Wouldn't you value someone who actually knows how to control vermin populations at scale in an urban environment? Why would you value someone who has a "public policy" degree. What even is that?
Probably because the real solution (not putting trash directly onto the streets like it's 1780) isn't going to happen, so a degree in public policy will help make it look like you're actually going to do something.
“The rats are absolutely going to hate this announcement. But the rats don’t run this city. We do” has become a top tier audio meme. I think I hear this in my head about as often as I see “(x) Doubt” or “This is fine (dog engulfed in flames)”
NYC really did a great job with the marketing on this.
I think the real reason TikTok was successful is it popularized the audio/video meme and the means for them to go viral.
My grandmother had an island. Nothing to boast of. You could walk around it in an hour, but still it was, it was a paradise for us. One summer, we went for a visit and discovered the place had been infested with rats! They'd come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island? Hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait and the rats would come for the coconut, and they would fall into the drum. And after a month, you have trapped all the rats, but what do you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it and they begin to get hungry. And one by one they start eating each other, until there are only two left. The two survivors. And then what? Do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees, but now they don't eat coconut anymore. Now, they only eat rat. You have changed their nature.
Unfortunately, the thing that makes me competent Civilization player is that I spend a lot of time playing Civilization instead of working. I'd be happy to take a job on that basis, but I'm not sure I could keep it.
It has been a long time since I've played a round of Civilization[1], but to this day I still default to framing almost every long-term decision in terms of "building tall" vs. "building wide". And then there's EU4, which has drilled into me an obsession with staring a ledgers all day[2].
[1]: Yaddah, yaddah... "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game"
[2]: An unfortunate habit, given the heightened difficulty of pausing IRL time
Has any city ever had success reducing the rat population by a significant amount and keeping it down over a long term? My memory from reading some book about rats a long time ago is that they haven't, though of course that could be wrong. This job may be more about managing a losing battle.
There is a fascinating history of rats in New York City provided in the book, Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants.
The author, Robert Sullivan, delivers the influence of rats and ratting on the American Revolution. It goes so far as to draw a connection between rats and the Boston Massacre, IIRC.
It made me look at rats in a new way, I highly recommend this book.
What is the deal with juvenile humor in business and government listings? That is an immediate red flag, "derp we're so fun here you're a team player that wants to be part of an inclusive and collaborative family where you can watch your career bloom". Pass.
"Rat killer" is a funny headline but I hope (though I'm not that confident) that this person will not focus on directly killing rats. To state the obvious, for that to work you have to kill rats as fast as they reproduce (which is fast) and the second you stop the situation goes right back to where it was. To take a cue from what seems to work with pigeons, they need to provide less rat food and/or limit reproduction. The second one is easier with pigeons (you can build roosts for them, then replace the eggs with fake ones - this is really done).
Okay so New York is complaining about companies offering unreasonable salary ranges... And then they offer $120k - $170k! Like seriously that's a gigantic difference for the same one position.
I like how NYC is cleaning up its act lately. It’s like it got over Covid and suddenly realized it’s the greatest city in the world and better start acting like it.
[+] [-] cuttothechase|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slickdork|3 years ago|reply
I dont want to be the director of rat extermination, but i wouldn't mind working for whoever writes copy on the nyc gov job postings.
[+] [-] VoodooJuJu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mFixman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nix23|3 years ago|reply
>>New York’s Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation.
That could be also the Director for IT security ;)
Being from Europe, is that whole thing New York City humor? It's incredible funny:
>>New York City’s rats are legendary for their survival skills, but they don’t run this city – we do.
[+] [-] coffeebeqn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geraldwhen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnutt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|3 years ago|reply
I still can't believe he went from someone I stumbled across on YouTube in a low-quality shaky-cam video 10 years ago (or was it more?) to making NYT headlines (and he deserves it): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/science/mink-animals-pest...
His YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/josephcartertheminkman
[+] [-] konfusinomicon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AviationAtom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bitxbitxbitcoin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chimeracoder|3 years ago|reply
The reason the city doesn't implement containerized trash collection is because that would mean giving up a few free parking spots every block.
It got worse during COVID-19 because the city temporarily suspended collection/extermination, which caused the rodent population to explode, and it's never recovered from that. But eliminating the regular meals for rats would be an easy, no-brainer way to fix it.
[+] [-] ruddct|3 years ago|reply
Some particularly memorable examples include a 75 story residential tower with absolutely record-breaking trash piles, and a ~25 story residential tower with a trash collection point on the onramp to the Williamsburg bridge. Garbage trucks have to stop in the road to collect trash, manually, bag-by-bag, at every stop.
This is the policy for trash in NYC, and rats will remain a problem as long as it stays that way.
[+] [-] LAC-Tech|3 years ago|reply
The US confuses the hell out of me sometimes.
How do you get to the moon and invent the internet, but can't figure out how to collect refuse in arguably your most prominent city?
[+] [-] jetrink|3 years ago|reply
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JtoSafhvLM
[+] [-] pastor_bob|3 years ago|reply
This was in Kreuzberg and there seemed to be a lot of rats there because of some abandoned buildings and construction + fields of dirt for them to burrow in
[+] [-] dublinben|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMQ1NfjPauw
[+] [-] lazide|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nogridbag|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo44x|3 years ago|reply
> Bachelor’s Degree required, preferably public policy, or related design fields, plus 5-8 years of full-time professional experience in a field related to this position
> Swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery
Wouldn't you value someone who actually knows how to control vermin populations at scale in an urban environment? Why would you value someone who has a "public policy" degree. What even is that?
And why does this person need to be a funny pirate? In essence, Jack Sparrow with a public policy degree appears to be the ideal candidate.
To me it sounds like they're more interested in giving off the perception of doing something about the problem while entertaining the public about it, rather than actually solving the problem effectively.
[+] [-] asdajksah2123|3 years ago|reply
That being said, it seems clear now that everything from the Adams administration should be treated as "giving off the perception of doing something instead of solving the problem" until proven otherwise.
[+] [-] scld|3 years ago|reply
Probably because the real solution (not putting trash directly onto the streets like it's 1780) isn't going to happen, so a degree in public policy will help make it look like you're actually going to do something.
[+] [-] linuxftw|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] n8cpdx|3 years ago|reply
NYC really did a great job with the marketing on this.
I think the real reason TikTok was successful is it popularized the audio/video meme and the means for them to go viral.
https://www.indy100.com/viral/rats-dont-run-this-city-we-do-...
[+] [-] corndoge|3 years ago|reply
Vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition?
I'm choosing to believe this is a v for vendetta reference
[+] [-] Ericson2314|3 years ago|reply
If the answer is no, folks we're just wasting our time.
[+] [-] calculatte|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caseyohara|3 years ago|reply
(Silva's opening monologue in Skyfall)
[+] [-] monrir|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericzawo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andylei|3 years ago|reply
> Proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint
[+] [-] terminatornet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElijahLynn|3 years ago|reply
"...even attempt to control the movements of kitchen staffers in an effort to take over human jobs."
from
"Rodents spread disease, damage homes and wiring, and even attempt to control the movements of kitchen staffers in an effort to take over human jobs."
[+] [-] jayd16|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ratatouilleyo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dropit_sphere|3 years ago|reply
Actually I think...a lot...of jobs could be filled that way?
[+] [-] actionablefiber|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaorace|3 years ago|reply
[1]: Yaddah, yaddah... "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game"
[2]: An unfortunate habit, given the heightened difficulty of pausing IRL time
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bredren|3 years ago|reply
The author, Robert Sullivan, delivers the influence of rats and ratting on the American Revolution. It goes so far as to draw a connection between rats and the Boston Massacre, IIRC.
It made me look at rats in a new way, I highly recommend this book.
[+] [-] animex|3 years ago|reply
https://gem.cbc.ca/media/absolutely-canadian/s22e33?cmp=sch-... https://livewirecalgary.com/2022/09/21/calgary-filmmaker-alb...
[+] [-] slim|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yehudalouis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SentientAtom|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thenoblesunfish|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Justsignedup|3 years ago|reply
God damn NYC.
[+] [-] nadieyninguno1|3 years ago|reply
You’ll start on the low end and get a 2k bump per year for a decade or two, eventually hitting the cap.
[+] [-] tdehnel|3 years ago|reply