The Latin food vendor at the Red Hook ballfields are beloved by everyone from Chuck Schumer to David Byrne, but the group's seemingly infallible popularity has finally taken a hit. Red Hook's Paola Defonis lives on Bond Street directly across from where many of the vendors park their trucks at night, and she says that ever since they started using the lot, huge, arrogant rats have swarmed to her block.
The Brooklyn Paper's Gary Buiso writes, "Defonis caught one monstrous beast on tape, capturing it as it blithely sauntered through her backyard in broad daylight. She said that she’s also seen two or more of the creatures engaged in what scientists call social play behavior. 'They were playing like cats,' she recalled, adding that they show no fear of humans during their rambunctious rodent hijinks—or any other time." Defonis insists that before the vendors came, rats were never a problem on her block.
The parking lot manager Mohamed Gamil blames the Gowanus canal for the rats, which might explain why they're the size of giant mutants. But after getting a warning from the Health Department, he hired a different exterminator and taught his lot workers how to better handle their trash. "Even if you come at nighttime now, you won’t see any rats," he swears. Time to break out the infrared lenses, Defonis!
