New York City’s Trash Rules Vex Rats, Superintendents

Waste is a terrible thing to mind. Just ask Dominick Romeo.

Other than a few building superintendents and extremely close followers of city politics, nobody noticed that the West 18th street resident ran against City Council member Erik Bottcher this fall. Romeo was crushed.

The superintendent is best known for organizing opposition to the Adams administration’s trash pickup rules, which he said were taking him and fellow supers away from their families in the evening.

This platform proved woefully insufficient for Romeo to win on the “Blue Collar/Fight and Deliver” ballot line in a heavily Democratic Manhattan district. He got a mere 9 percent of the vote.

But we’re going to highlight Romeo’s main issue anyway because it matters to thousands of property managers — and costs some of them money.

To reduce rats’ opportunity to feed, the Adams administration required that garbage be set out at 6 p.m. (if in bins) or 8 p.m. (if in bags) instead of 4 p.m. As a result, some buildings — even affordable housing developments struggling financially because of falling rents and nonpaying tenants — are paying overtime to staffers who take out the trash.

The Department of Sanitation says paying overtime because of the new rule is a choice, not an obligation.

“Even if a building chooses to set out [trash] after 8 p.m., it is a logical fallacy to say that ‘forces’ overtime,” a spokesperson said. “A building can simply set any work schedule that may fit its needs.”

The agency offered a 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. set-out time for superintendents who work earlier shifts and designed routes to quickly collect the trash from the 2,500 buildings that opted in.

“We have been extremely flexible to make this work for property owners and managers,” the spokesperson said.

Mayor Eric Adams deserves credit for going after rats, and it makes sense to require rat-resistant bins for garbage, even though food waste is supposed to go into thicker brown bins.

But if bins are mandatory, why also require later set-out times? How many rats are going to venture out from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to gnaw through hard plastic bins?

DSNY’s response was that this is not just about rats. New Yorkers, according to the agency, shouldn’t have to share the sidewalk with trash during the afternoon rush.

At this point, I am obligated to point out that Sanitation is not obliged to promptly collect the trash. If you call 311 on collection day to report that your garbage was not picked up, the agent will not take your complaint. Instead, you will be told to call back the next day if the trash is still there.

This is because DSNY is not officially late until 24 hours have passed. Enterprising rodents still have a chance. Dominick Romeo, not so much.