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In Brooklyn, the Rats Move Out Before the Nets Move In

Residents living in the shadow of the Atlantic Yards arena project in Brooklyn shared horror stories on Thursday evening about cohabiting with rodents, and in the telling the rats seemed to grow to Godzilla-like proportions.

Deborah Howard, 58, who lives on 552 Dean Street, across from the skeleton of the basketball arena that now has concrete seats said, “You have to dodge them coming into my house.” She added: “A few months ago, they came into the house.”

Before a packed crowd of more than 50 residents at a meeting sponsored by the Dean Street Block Association, Ms. Howard described how rats the size of cats had gotten into the engine of her car, a 2007 Camry, leaving behind chicken bones and aluminum foil, all the while chewing on the wires.

She had parked her car outside the Key Food on Fifth Avenue; when she came out, Ms. Howard says she saw the engine smoking and starting to catch fire.

John Martinez, who lives on Carlton Avenue, nodded in agreement. He said he now parked his car several blocks away to escape the rats after extensive damage to his car’s engine.

The problem, residents say, has been getting worse in the last several months as the arena for the Nets basketball team, the centerpiece of Atlantic Yards, has been rising. “We don’t have a normal rat problem,” said Karen-Ida Scott, 55, who lives on Dean Street, “we have a rat tsunami.”

It seems that the fiercely controversial 22-acre construction project in Downtown Brooklyn has disturbed more than just the human residents — and, in disturbing the nonhuman residents it has only further disturbed the human ones.

If a building is demolished or soil is excavated, rat colonies can be disrupted and rats can be displaced. Also, the arrival of so many workers, residents say, has increased the amount of garbage in the area, which has also contributed to an influx of unwanted rodents.

Letitia James, who represents the neighborhood in the City Council, ran the meeting, along with Peter Krashes, the president of the block association, at the aptly named Soapbox Gallery on Dean Street. Representatives from the Health Department attended, along with the Department of Sanitation and Empire State Development, the state agency that oversees the project.

No one from Forest City Ratner, the developer of the project, was there. On Friday, a spokesman for the developer, Joe DePlasco, issued a statement: “We have had a rodent control plan in place for over two years, beginning long before construction started. We are working very closely with Empire State Development and will continue to revisit the program to assess the impact. We will also continue to work with other parties, including the M.T.A., Department of Health and elected officials to address the issue.

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