Prospect Heights Psychotherapists Analyze Their Local Rats

PROSPECT HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — What does it take to unite communities in the fight against rats? Two residents of Prospect Heights say it’s data, community organization and help from a friendly local psychotherapist is.

“Well, I’m a psychotherapist and a writer,” explains Cammy Wikoff, 50.

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

Hendrich and Wycoff – presidents of the Stirling Place Block Association – are also co-founders of the Stirling Commission on Rat Recognition and Mitigation.

Catch that acronym? It’s a scrum.

While SCRAM is data-focused, examining blocks, processing numbers, and tracking the details of obscure sanitation department rules, their mission is ultimately to unite the community.

What better way to unite New Yorkers than with rats?

Blame and Shame: What Rats Do to Their Neighbors

Hendrich told Patch that SCRAM wasn’t set up just to deal with the worsening rat problem, but the growing tensions among neighbors because of it.

“It wasn’t a mouse,” said Hendrich.

Some residents of Prospect Heights blame others for attracting vermin, while others blame themselves. Hendrich said that as a therapist, this conflict naturally drew him.

“I love using my free time to help excited groups of people process their stuff,” Hendrich said with a laugh.

Instead of “blame and shame,” Hendrich says, he uses data and research to educate and empower his neighbors.

The first step was to get an accurate picture of the rat invasion.

The 311 data is useful for spotting trends, such as a recent Daily News article showing rat complaints up 70% year-over-year across the city, but relies on user submissions. and does not always give a reliable picture of the situation on the ground. Complaint.

SCRAM decided to conduct a rat study on the block to collect its own data.

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

Regular “rat walks,” Hendrich said, are conducted day and night by committee members and use super-spreadsheets to track visible rats, clutter, and other clutter. Record locations that might attract rat affection, such as. rodents.

According to Hendrich, each member of the committee would take a clipboard and study a portion of the block, with the goal not to call 311 and chastise the neighbors, but to figure out what their role was to fight the rats. It is to educate you how you can do so.

“Bin” Revelation, Confusion

SCRAM collected data over the summer to figure out how best to reduce the rat population.

The committee decided that getting more neighbors to use safe trash cans (“covered trash cans” as Hendrich called them) was the best intervention they recommended.

“The number one priority is containerized trash,” Hendrich said.

However, according to Wycoff, many neighbors were initially reluctant to use trash cans. “I ran into a lot of misconceptions that Public Health wouldn’t pick them up and that their trash would have to be bagged on the street anyway,” she said.

Then, the staff at City Councilor Crystal Hudson’s office made a major breakthrough, telling SCRAM that they had discovered a deep part of hygiene rules and regulations.

As long as the trash can is 32 gallons or less and not incredibly heavy, it will be picked up by the cleaners.

When Hendrich casually asked the sanitation workers about this, they confirmed the 32-gallon limit.

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

A Public Health spokeswoman confirmed that the agency is actually allowing residents to use larger trash cans (up to 55 gallons).

Public Health spokesperson Joshua Goodman told Patch, “A good portion of the city is full of homes that use plastic bins for curbside collection.”

“This is a common practice in many areas, and current regulations allow flexibility for residents to use trash cans or bags, whichever they prefer,” Goodman said.

The use of roadside garbage bags in New York City, introduced by the 1968 public health workers’ strike, may be related to the beginning of the modern rat infestation in New York City.

“We are not the mouse police”

Armed with this new information, Hendrich conducted consumer research and created literature to educate his neighbors about the best trash cans to buy. The flyer has black and white images of various lidded bins and lists the wheels along with specs.

One neighbor said her cooperative board was convinced by SCRAM’s presentation of the data and how to get the blocks back from the rats.

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

“Most of the time it was like figuring out how to get which bin.

According to Covert, her building also decided to pay super large sums of money for the extra work of putting the bins in and out.

All this costs money. Hendrichs knows that not every building on the block can afford it. To offset the cost, he submitted the idea of ​​subsidizing the purchase of trash cans through the district’s participatory budgeting process.

Knowing their efforts weren’t a lone act also made it an easy choice to take action, Covert said.

“It doesn’t really make a difference if we just do it ourselves,” she said. [SCRAM is] Working on other buildings will really have an impact. “

“I think people on the block are feeling a little energized about actually taking action.

Hendrich says he believes SCRAM has resulted in about 60% of the block on the rat-killing train, but the landlord is either absent or does not live nearby and is unconvinced of the severity of the damage. Still struggling to connect with some rental buildings. People who don’t care or matter.

In such situations, having organized block committees and neighborhood support can give a boost to tenants who like to help as well.

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

“And he got so psyched by it that he called his landlord and said, ‘The Block Association is going to start the next step to report,'” Wycoff said. “

Hendrich described an email exchange between him and a reluctant landlord who does not live on the block. The landlord has stopped replying to his messages. Still, Hendrich let property owners know that his participatory budget proposal directly addresses his cost concerns about trash cans.

“It will be a program available to you,” Hendrich wrote to his landlord.

Wycoff and Hendrich continued to gather data and talk to neighbors, saying they were trying to get the entire block on board while the trash was still in the bin.

SCRAM’s goal, says Hendrich, “is to make sure everyone shares the same burden and responsibility for wanting to share the good results of fewer rats.” There is.”

“We are not the mouse police,” said Hendrich. “We are the mouse’s partner.”