YOU DIRTY RATS!

Sanit Dept. blamed for infested UWS

They’re sick of the rat race. The Upper West Side’s booming rat population is getting a helping hand from an unlikely source — the Sanitation Department, residents in the posh neighborhood claim.

The Department of Sanitation has pulled 110 litter baskets from the Upper West Side in the past 12 months, according to new data obtained by The Post, and residents say that is causing trash to pile up. The vermin are feasting on the spoils.

“It’s disgusting to be working next to overflowing garbage all the time,” Zillur Rahman, who owns a newsstand on Amsterdam Avenue and West 79th Street, told The Post Tuesday. “There are so many rats sometimes.”

The Upper West Side has the highest concentration of rat complaints — or one in five rat sightings citywide — according to calls to 311 analyzed by nonprofit watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.

“The rats are running wild in this fancy area,” the nonprofit wrote in May.

It’s no surprise then that the decision to pull dozens of litter baskets has both residents and local Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal scratching theirheir heads.

“I don’t think removing garbage cans does what they think itt is sup-supposed to do,”,” said Rosenthal, whose office is receiving constant calls about the overflowing trash..

The Sanitation Department blamed residents for abusing the litter baskets by filling them with household trash and claimed removing the bins actually led to cleaner streets. But angry residents said they weren’t consulted and are sick of living in a rat-infested area. “There are some corners drowning in filth because of this absolutely silly policy,” Aaron Biller, president of civic group Neighborhood in the Nineties, told The Post. “To think they’d do something like this when we’re trying to fight the rats.” The basket loss was five times the number oof the secondplace locale, Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights, where 17 cans were taken away between July 2018 and July 2019.

Longtime Upper West Side resident Mary Andrews said her calls to officials had fallen on deaf ears.

“I am sick of it,” the math teacher, 60, said. “The rats are all over the place, and they’re aggressive. It’s disgusting.”

Rosenthal has convinced Sanitation to reinstall several baskets they removed by taking officials on walking tours of the worst-hit areas.

Rodent sightings have soared 38 percent citywide since 2014, according to data from OpenTheBooks.com — with scientists blaming milder winters and new property developments.

A Sanitation spokeswoman insisted the Upper West Side remained spotless with a “near perfect” sidewalk cleanliness rating of 99 out of 100.

Biller railed: “That rating is garbage.”