Guest Column: Help Us Reduce Pests at Your Development!

From Vice President of Pest Management Josey Bartlett & Pest Management Technical Advisors Lashawn Wilson & Geeton Bowier 

The authors of this guest column – Josey Bartlett, Lashawn Wilson, and Geeton Bowier – lead a team of more than 300 people committed to reducing and eliminating pests from apartments, grounds, basements, and public spaces at NYCHA developments. Under their leadership, rat burrows were reduced by 62 percent at 100 NYCHA developments identified as having the largest rat population. They also launched new protocols and training around bedbugs, roaches, and mice that utilize vacuums, mattress encasements, and more efficient pesticides. As a result, there has been a reduction of pest complaints at NYCHA each year since 2019. Josey spoke at the City’s inaugural National Urban Rat Summit in September about rat mitigation efforts at NYCHA properties. 

At NYCHA, we’re all working together in service to residents. Property staff, let’s discuss what you can do to keep infestation low at your development. IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management, which involves getting to the root cause of pest occurrences. And that goes beyond using pesticides. Through exclusion – sealing any holes – and cleanliness through proper waste management (which reduces potential food sources), we can keep pests out of a space to begin with. 

Our Pest Management team could apply pesticides repeatedly, but that won’t address the issue if we don’t seal up pests’ points of entry and keep them from entering in the first place. We currently have a team of more than 120 exterminators responsible for thousands of NYCHA buildings. And so we need the assistance of maintenance workers, caretakers, supervision, and skilled trades to help us keep pests away! Here are seven ways that you can help keep development grounds pest-free: 

1. Never put garbage bags on the fence. This is easy prey for rats. Instead, put the garbage in bins with a lid. 
2. Wash away grime and rat droppings. There are pheromones in rat droppings that keep rats coming back. Routinely washing walkways, curbs, and drop sites will prevent rats from returning. 
3. Trim branches so extermination staff can easily see burrows to treat. We can’t address rat burrows if we can’t see them. 
4. Encourage residents to place all garbage in trash chutes instead of bringing it outside. Again, bags outside of bins are easy prey for rats. 
5. Rake leaves and cut grass. Rats hide under them, and they also prevent exterminators from easily spotting burrows (we can’t address rat burrows if we can’t see them). 
6. If you aren’t using old equipment such as lawn mowers or washers, please get rid of them. Exterminators often see rats living in equipment that hasn’t been used for a long time. Please also remove barbecue grills that are outside of a designated barbecue area to prevent rats from making homes out of them. 
7. Bait stations (which are the black boxes you see on the grounds) are not a NSPIRE inspection penalty. Please do not throw them away or damage them with lawn mowers. They cost money, and we use them to kill rodents using rodenticide. 

Thank you for your partnership! If you have any questions about pest management at your development, feel free to reach out to pest.control@nycha.nyc.gov. 

Photo captions: In the featured photo, from left to right: Josey Bartlett, Vice President of Pest Management; Lashawn Wilson, Pest Management Technical Advisor; Geeton Bowier, Pest Management Technical Advisor. In the second photo, some members of the Pest Management team at the National Urban Rat Summit.