Pol: Too soft on rat woes

The city’s approach to dealing with rats in the public housing buildings it manages is a “double standard,” City Councilman Ritchie Torres said — and it ought to end.

Torres fired off a letter to the departments of Health and Housing Preservation & Development Monday, asking the agencies to hold NYCHA accountable for buildings overrun by rats. “The only beneficiaries of the city’s hands-off approach to public housing are the rodents,” he wrote.

The letter comes as rats have overrun NYCHA’s Claremont Rehab development in the Bronx, terrorizing residents there. When a NYCHA tenant calls 311 to complain about rodents, they are sent to the Centralized Call Center — run by NYCHA, leaving tenants without the ability to appeal to a third-party agency.

If someone lives in private housing, their complaints are sent along to Health or HPD, Torres said — and if the landlord doesn’t take action, the Health Department will.

“Imagine if Claremont Rehab had been privately owned,” he said. The Health Department “would have inspected the location, found ample signs of rodent infestation, and, absent action from NYCHA, corrected the conditions with its own baiting treatment,” Torres wrote.

A de Blasio spokeswoman argued the city has a plan.

“We’ve invested $32 million to fight rats in the most infested NYCHA developments and neighborhoods across the city. NYCHA’s new general manager has worked closely with the Health Department to develop and launch an aggressive extermination plan . ... We’re seeing results — but we won’t let up until all residents have the clean homes they deserve,” spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie said.