Exterminators lay down traps, spray carbon monoxide to eradicate rat infestation in Huntington
The Town of Huntington is now calling this a major rat infestation. The town is working with businesses and county to get situation under control as quickly and humanely as possible.
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Exterminators were in Huntington Monday afternoon laying traps and filling rat holes with carbon monoxide on West Carver Street.
The Town of Huntington says the owner of the Gundermann and Gundermann insurance building has exterminators working on the problem, but it's unclear how fast it will be handled.
For more than a month, residents and visitors to downtown Huntington have been complaining about the growing rat infestation near homes and restaurants.
Town and county officials say they believe the source of the rat problem is the vacant Gundermann and Gundermann building.
"Got out of the car and just saw anywhere between 20 to 30 rats scurrying back and forth in the property between the building of Gundermann and Gundermann and the backing up to the restaurants," said Frank Carfora, of Huntington.
Carfora says he first noticed the rats Thursday evening and sent News 12 video of dozens of the rodents running rampant.
The Huntington town supervisor tells News 12 the property owners and several nearby restaurants are working on eradicating the problem and hired an exterminator.
According to Suffolk County, officials were there two weeks ago and cited the owner of the empty insurance building for the rat holes.
The county health department also inspected nearby restaurants and issued citations to 20 food establishments, including Portofino which runs adjacent to the Gundermann and Gundermann building.
The county says restaurants like Portofino need to better storage containers for garbage and increase extermination efforts.
The manager of the pizzeria says they take out their garbage and put it in a protected bin and says the vacant insurance building is the issue.
"It's not fair to the customers, it's not fair to the community, this is a problem that has to be addressed," said Antonio Napolitano, manager of Portofino.
The county also pinned the blame on the town's waste management policies.
The town replied, stating restaurant owners are responsible for properly securing their garbage in a container.
The Town of Huntington says in 2 weeks it conduct full sweep to assess any improvements.
Town officials also came up with a four-point plan on how to deal with future infestations, most have to do with how businesses store garbage.
