Eva Pilgrim: Welcome back to GMA3. If you’re currently eating lunch, you may want to put down that sandwich for just a few minutes because we are going to talk about rats, more specifically, rats right here in New York City. It’s an ongoing quest to combat the rodent population.
DeMarco Morgan: Oh, just look at it.
Pilgrim: And the city has a new Rat Czar, and she’s here today.
Morgan: Yeah, joining us now is New York City’s first ever director of rodent mitigation, Kathleen Corradi, and the mayor of the greatest city on earth, Eric Adams, is here. Good to see you both.
Mayor Eric Adams: I know people don’t know it, but I hate rats.
Morgan: I think we all do. That’s a good thing that you do. Let’s talk about the ’90s, of course, first. You’re from Brooklyn. Biggie. Get into it, brother.
Mayor Adams: No, and you know what? The beauty of the ’90s was really about East Coast, West Coast music, but also sports. The Yankees beat San Diego during the World Series. You had some great music coming out of the Bronx and Brooklyn. It was just really a moment during the ’90s where you were able to express yourself and it laid the foundation for many years to come with particularly rap.
Morgan: And what about yourself? The graphic tees, I see you already rocking one.
Kathleen Corradi, Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation: Yeah, I brought one today with the first public enemy number one, rats.
Pilgrim: You have a picture with you of yourself, right?
Corradi: Yes, I brought a picture of myself from the ’90s, just an elementary school student, but graphic tee worn here and ready to take on the world.
Morgan: Oh, you’re adorable there. All right, let’s talk business if we can. Mayor, why did you decide to add a rat czar?
Mayor Adams: Because first of all, I hate them, but it was just the quality of life. I think nothing disrupts your day more than you start your day and a rat runs across your foot. Or if you leave your building, you drop out the garbage, and all of a sudden a rat pops out. Believe it or not, you think about it throughout your day and you will never walk down that same block again without reliving that. So it’s more than a quality of life issue. It’s an emotional issue and it’s a sense that our city’s out of control, which it is not. We knew if we focus on the cleanliness of our city, get rid of those rodents, and really address that, that it would start to add to the spirit that New York is not coming back. New York is back.
Pilgrim: Yeah, because these rats, some of them are like small dogs. So Kathy, let’s just be real about this, because rats aren’t just a New York problem. Rats are everywhere. So as individuals, what can we do, no matter where we live, to fight this problem?
Corradi: Yeah, so there’s a saying in the world of integrated pest management, that’s if you feed them, you breed them. So thinking about how everyday New Yorkers handle their food waste, and as a city, we have composting options through our smart bins. In Queens, we saw a tremendous uptake in the curbside composting program. There’s a new bill in place, excuse me, a law in place around containerization of restaurant waste. So New Yorkers need to think about what’s happening with their waste, make sure it’s clean, and that will knock down the rats.
Pilgrim: Because these rats are really smart.
Mayor Adams: Oh, yes, they are.
Morgan: Very smart.
Mayor Adams: And there’s an art to dealing with them. It’s a skill. What we’re doing, we’re looking at every component from … We need to take the plastic bags off our streets. We need to containerize our garbage. You are going to see a huge difference and we’re already seeing success now.
Morgan: And Kathy, you’re not new to this. You’re true to it. You’ve been fighting rats since you were 10 years old.
Corradi: Yes, so in the town I grew up in, my house was on railroad tracks, which we know overgrown conditions plus food equals rats. So with the kind of advocacy born into me by my mother, I got a petition going. We got signatures around the blocks, and we worked to fight rats from a kid until now.
Mayor Adams: When she shared that story with me, I said, “This is my girl.”
Morgan: Oh yeah, you know it. We like to call it the OG, the original gangster.
Pilgrim: Like the original public enemy number one. New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, Rat Czar Kathleen Corradi, thank you both for being here.
Transcript: Mayor Adams And Citywide Director Of Rodent Mitigation Kathleen Corradi Appear On ABC’s | City of New York (nyc.gov) –
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