Rats! This is exactly what we want

Posted on October 30, 2008 by Renee Corea

The new rat information website at the NYC Department of Health is awesome!

It’s exactly the kind of resource we would want for bed bugs.

It’s interactive, contains identification and control information, for regular people and for pros, and a map (which I couldn’t get to work for me but still).

What would it take to have something like this done for bed bugs? Right down to the “rat czar,” rodentologist Dr. Robert Corrigan!

How long and how much? Or put another way, how much worse do things have to get?

I know, I know… don’t answer that question.

UPDATED 1/2/09 – By the way, there was a nice writeup about this effort in Time on December 15, Mapping the Rats in New York City, and a really great video of an inspection tour in the Bronx.   I must say after watching it that we really, really want committed people working on our city’s bed bug problem in just this way.

These pages may be of related interest:

  1. Should we talk about rats first?
  2. The city’s new flu portal
  3. 311 finally has bed bug category
  4. Our friends in Chicago
  5. Lou Sorkin, in his own voice

This entry was posted in Featured, News, Public Health and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Rats! This is exactly what we want

  1. Pingback: Toronto Public Health’s bed bug portal: a closer look — New York vs Bed Bugs

  2. Renee Corea says:
    December 15, 2008 at 3:12 am

    I got the RIP to work (with some help). The site’s security certificate doesn’t play well with Firefox and Safari so you have to create an exception.

    Not much rat action where I live, but where I work it’s frightening.

  3. Pingback: Should we talk about rats first? — New York vs Bed Bugs

  4. Pingback: The city’s new flu portal — New York vs Bed Bugs