By: Benyamin Davidsons
On Sunday, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa visited Mayor Eric Adam’s Brooklyn neighborhood, trying to garner support from locals to use feral cats to fight the rat infestation problem.
As reported by the NY Post, there have been numerous complaints about rats in Mayor Adam’s multifamily brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he reportedly lived until he moved into Gracie Mansion as mayor. Over the past few months, several summonses were issued from city health inspectors regarding rats at the Brooklyn property. Sliwa, who had faced off with Adams, as the Republican nominee in the race for New York City mayor, first showed up at Adams’ Brooklyn property on Wednesday.
“You keep two cats together on a block, feral cats, consider them like Batman and Robin, they’ll patrol the whole block,” Sliwa told Pix11 reporters last week, while holding on to two cats. On Sunday, he was back talking to locals about bringing in rescued cats to scare off the rats, while two police officers kept him under their watch. The 68-year-old red beret wearing activist heads the nonprofit the Guardian Angels, an unarmed crime prevention organization. He is also passionate about cats, having adopted more than 15 rescue cats, nursing them with his wife Nancy in his small apartment in the Upper West Side.
Sliwa was talking to the neighbors about the rats and also tried to chat up one of Hizzoner’s tenants at the four-building property on Lafayette Avenue. The tenant was less than enamored by Sliwa’s cat-loving charm and vented her frustration with him. “You are always over here violating me and my child’s privacy and disturbing the good neighbors on the block, and it’s cumbersome,” said the tenant, who denied Sliwa’s claims that she was related to Adams as she entered the building with her young son. As they slammed the door behind them to enter their home, the boy said, “Mommy hates rats.”
Another local said the rat problem is the least of their concerns. “I could take the rats more than the crime, I’ll be honest with you,” said resident Magalie Desince. She added that the rats aren’t Adams’ fault. “To be honest with you, we’re not really concerned with the mayor. We’re concerned as citizens. We want the rat problem in our neighborhood taken care of,” she said. “I’m a concerned citizen. I own property.”
All the while a pair of cops watched Sliwa, while sitting in their parked car. The mayor and Sliwa have been bickering over the rat trouble since Wednesday. Sliwa told the Post that on Saturday he received a call with many profane words from Adams, demanding he stay away from Hizzoner’s property.
In early December, Mayor Adams had responded to reporters who questioned him about the rat problem in his property. “Upper East Side, Upper West Side, rats are everywhere,” Adams had replied. “I hate rats as you know, I’m scared of them and when I see one I think about it all day. So, I am fixated on killing rats.” City Hall did not respond to a Post request for comment about whether Adams had dispatched the NYPD to his property to watch Sliwa on Sunday.
