Video from inside a Long Island home showed the massive infestation of domesticated rats that led to the homeowner’s arrest.
Video shows the wounded rats running all over the debris and garbage left inside the home as volunteers work to rescue the rodents and try to get veterinary treatment for the animals.
‘A lot of them have huge wounds. … Their eyes are coming out. They have big abscesses. We have a few that are going septic.’
“It’s a disaster inside,” said Frankie Floridia, the president of Strong Island Animal Rescue. “It’s very hard to breathe. You need masks. You need gloves. It’s just a bad situation.”
The home on Whitewood Drive has been condemned after the owner was cited for sanitation violations.
“A lot of them are injured. A lot of them have huge wounds,” said Kristin Stephens, a veterinarian tech who is volunteering at the home. “Their eyes are coming out. They have big abscesses. We have a few that are going septic.”
The volunteers are separating the captured rats into different containers for male, female, and the sick. They have collected about 150 rats, and they believe more than 100 to 200 rats are inside the walls. They estimate that between 500 and 1,000 rats lived at the home.
“It’s a very sad situation, but we’re doing the best we can with what we have,” Floridia added.
The homeowner was accused of taking care of her 3-year-old grandson in the home with rat urine and feces. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Stephens appeared to get emotional when she said the team found rat poison in the basement of the home.
“We have seen a couple that have had blood coming from their nose and that kind of thing, which is what happens when you poison rats,” she said.
She went on to say the rats are being treated for mites. She also said the infestation could have been easily avoided by the homeowner.
“Everybody knows rodents reproduce very, very quickly,” Stephens said. “So, I personally feel that if they were just separated — you know, you keep the males with the males and the females with the females — none of this could have occurred.”
Neighbors living next to the home told WABC-TV that they didn’t smell anything or see anything that let them know the infestation was inside.
The volunteers are asking for donations to help pay for the rats’ care and also for Good Samaritans to provide foster care for the rats.
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Rat infestation, Homeowner with pet rats, Long island rat infestation, Animal cruelty, Crime