The new rules on trash for rats have created the scheduling headaches for supers New York Post

four hours later – 8 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. This change is intended to limit rats’ appetite for food.

However, the change could result in costly staffing and scheduling issues.

“How many supers and porters are working till eight p.m. on every day?” said Mark Elman who is the senior vice-president at Citadel Property Management. “Are they expected to go home , then return back? Do you need to pay for overtime for the employees already employed or employ an additional person to take care of the trash?”

Property managers aren’t certain that the difference of four hours could reduce the rats’ population.

“Rats have a long time to go through their food,” said Michael Rothschild the president of the management firm AJ Clarke. “They will be much hungry.”

The changes will probably hit the hardest in small homes that don’t have the benefit of a live-in super.

“Everything will only become more difficult,” told Jose Rodriguez who is a superman who oversees several small buildings at various places including East Village to East Village to the Upper East Side. “I don’t want to stay up till 8.30 p.m. to get rid of the garbage.”

The man lives within The Bronx and drives to work.

“I have a part-time job in every building however, when they require me, I’m at the ready,” he said. If he’s scheduled to have an earlier ConEd audit, for example the possibility of the extension of his hours to meet the new rules for trash could mean he’s working for 14 hours per day.

If a supervisor isn’t able to begin cleaning up the garbage at eight p.m., “a two-hour job will be finished by 10 p.m. Then, the worker still has to get to home,” said Elman, Rodriguez’s boss.

Rodriguez believes he’ll need to keep trash in the house while he tries to reorganize his work schedule.

“I am worried that rodents could enter my building,” he said.

Live-in supers expect problems, too. Victor Landeta lives in his co-op home of 74 units close to Pelham Parkway in The Bronx. This change will require him to work regularly outside of his scheduled time of work, something is what he will do in the event of an emergency.

The rules permit setting out at a later hour (which is six p.m. provided that the trash is contained within a bin that is tightly sealed.

Not all buildings are equipped with enough space.

“We could use 12 bins for our garbage, particularly in the event that there isn’t any collection on holidays , and the garbage accumulates,” Landeta said. “On stormy days, the collection is usually canceled. The collection never ceases and there’s always garbage.”

Bins are not practical for structures that have stairs, too. Landeta and his assistant handle up to 40 trash bags during day of recycling, hauling the trash up the ramp using the help of a hand-truck.

If a supervisor shifts his work hours to the night, who will take the bins that have lids back on the following morning?

“This will be the most beneficial for those who commit crimes on the streets,” Rodriguez said. “They are able to get a van to take 100 buckets of water a day.”

The new rules could raise costs for co-ops which is a problem to David Capaldo, president of his 140-unit Bay Ridge co-op, which has a live-in super as well as an out-of-town porter.

The new rules create the result of a “big weight,”” He said. “Every co-op has an amount of money allocated for trash pickup.”

The building may have to find a new employee or alter the hours of the porter. The super may have to cut off dinner with his family members to “run downstairs and spend two hours putting the trash out,” Capaldo said. “The super will need to be paid for a mid-evening shift of two hours.”

After a one-month grace time the fines for throwing out trash in the early hours is $50 on the initial violation, $100 for the second, and $200 for each subsequent offense.

Are the newset-out times, which are later in the day, really help?

Rats have proven to be impervious. Rats in the city have increased in recent years likely due to the food options offered by outdoor dining facilities or the continuous construction which drives them out of their secluded holes.

“Fighting crime, fighting inequality, fighting rats is something that we are focused on,” Mayor Eric Adams declared at a press conference last fall when he announced the new trash times, saying that they constituted a “once-in-a-generation change.”

The rat-averse mayor said that “there are numerous rivers that feed the sea of rodents that are thriving in the city. Today, we’re damming one.”

The city is scheduled to unveil its new rat czar also known as “director of mitigation against rodents” who’s challenging task is to reduce the number of rodents.

Pest-control experts agree that controlling the supply of food for rats is essential – And the Sanitation Department says that “this radical reduction in amount of time trash is deposited on our streets” will cut down on food intake, according to the spokesman.

It’s unclear why the creatures that are nocturnal that can chew through plastic — will not consume their food a few hours after. There’s been limited research conducted regarding urban rats.

“Rats are quick to eat garbage bags left on the streets,” said entomologist Jim Fredericks who is the spokesperson of the National Pest Management Association, “so we advise people and businesses to use tight-sealed trash bins to prevent rats from having access to get food.”

For the widespread use of containers the Sanitation commissioner Jessica Tisch noted last fall that it was “a extremely difficult thing to accomplish,” and required further investigation into how often collection is conducted, dimensions of containers, as well as the requirement for trucks to hoist the containers.

The lids’ security is a different problem. “My neighbors are not able to keeping lids on,” said one Upper West Sider who lives in a walkup of a modest size with three bins under the front stoop.

“The lids of our bins tend to be open,” she said, “even on rare occasions that the trash isn’t overflowing.”

The buildings with more than nine units are eligible for early bird pricing. They can dispose of their garbage during the early hours between 4 a.m. until 7 a.m. However, they have to wait until January to sign in , so that DSNY has time to design its routes.

The time of 4 p.m. start time for setting out was “the first of any city in the world,” a DSNY spokesman stated. “It is unacceptable that New Yorkers have to take on the task of navigating about the 24 million tons of garbage that ends up at the curb at the same time that pedestrian traffic is booming.”