5 ms·

Proper environmental hygiene: - No hole for them to sneak into kitchens, etc - No food left around for them to eat - No place for them to hide and breed Tha

by k_sze 5y ago

Proper environmental hygiene: - No hole for them to sneak into kitchens, etc - No food left around for them to eat - No place for them to hide and breed That, and maybe rat-killing robots, equipped with computer vision, who won't cheat on you.

roywashere 5y ago
With them eating crops, it might be difficult to achieve 'no food left around for them to eat'
- rsynnott 5y ago
  There presumably aren't very many crops in Hanoi.
  - eynsham 5y ago
    Quite a lot of land in Hanoi is dedicated to agriculture. Even Hong Kong has some farmland, for that matter. According to one paper, about two decades ago, half of Hanoi province’s land was used for agriculture.¹ I don’t know the relation between the province and the city area. However, at table 4 there are supposedly 0.25 ha of agricultural land per household in the City Districts—more than in certain other areas in Hanoi province! A decline in the proportion of land dedicated to agriculture is likely to have occurred. But urban agriculture does not seem to have been eliminated. According to another (2010) article, the local government considers the growing of ‘modern’ vegetables (instead of less appealing rice—I don’t really understand this æsthetic preference) an important priority in preventing the city from looking outdated.² A reasonable number of farmers are interviewed. This suggests that a good number of urban farmers remained at least then. The most recent article I can find is from 2019, when the Asia Foundation published a post on their blog about a programme to assist local farmers.³ It’s very easy I think to forget that agriculture isn’t entirely squeezed out of highly urbanised Asian cities.I only realised recently that there were farms in Singapore: my relatives never mentioned them, even though they are always very eager to show me other parts of the city—possibly because they don’t know about them. Returning to the original article, then, crops probably do pose a problem in controlling rat populations. 1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095624780301500122 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095624780301500... 2: https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/464 https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/464 3: https://asiafoundation.org/2019/07/17/going-green-urban-farming-in-hanoi/ https://asiafoundation.org/2019/07/17/going-green-urban-farm...
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Huh. Well, learned something today; I'd never even have imagined this, particularly about Singapore!
rkachowski 5y ago
Aside from robotic death machines these are all preventative. Which is of course better, but only works if you aren't currently suffering. Is there a modern solution to "my city is full of plague rats right now" other than evacuate?
- hluska 5y ago
  The Alberta government started a rat free program in the 1950s. This article is fairly comprehensive: https://www.alberta.ca/history-of-rat-control-in-alberta.aspx#jumplinks-1 https://www.alberta.ca/history-of-rat-control-in-alberta.asp...

by k_sze 5y ago

roywashere 5y ago

With them eating crops, it might be difficult to achieve 'no food left around for them to eat'

rsynnott 5y ago
There presumably aren't very many crops in Hanoi.
- eynsham 5y ago
  Quite a lot of land in Hanoi is dedicated to agriculture. Even Hong Kong has some farmland, for that matter. According to one paper, about two decades ago, half of Hanoi province’s land was used for agriculture.¹ I don’t know the relation between the province and the city area. However, at table 4 there are supposedly 0.25 ha of agricultural land per household in the City Districts—more than in certain other areas in Hanoi province! A decline in the proportion of land dedicated to agriculture is likely to have occurred. But urban agriculture does not seem to have been eliminated. According to another (2010) article, the local government considers the growing of ‘modern’ vegetables (instead of less appealing rice—I don’t really understand this æsthetic preference) an important priority in preventing the city from looking outdated.² A reasonable number of farmers are interviewed. This suggests that a good number of urban farmers remained at least then. The most recent article I can find is from 2019, when the Asia Foundation published a post on their blog about a programme to assist local farmers.³ It’s very easy I think to forget that agriculture isn’t entirely squeezed out of highly urbanised Asian cities.I only realised recently that there were farms in Singapore: my relatives never mentioned them, even though they are always very eager to show me other parts of the city—possibly because they don’t know about them. Returning to the original article, then, crops probably do pose a problem in controlling rat populations. 1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095624780301500122 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095624780301500... 2: https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/464 https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/464 3: https://asiafoundation.org/2019/07/17/going-green-urban-farming-in-hanoi/ https://asiafoundation.org/2019/07/17/going-green-urban-farm...
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Huh. Well, learned something today; I'd never even have imagined this, particularly about Singapore!

rkachowski 5y ago

Aside from robotic death machines these are all preventative. Which is of course better, but only works if you aren't currently suffering. Is there a modern solution to "my city is full of plague rats right now" other than evacuate?

hluska 5y ago
The Alberta government started a rat free program in the 1950s. This article is fairly comprehensive: https://www.alberta.ca/history-of-rat-control-in-alberta.aspx#jumplinks-1 https://www.alberta.ca/history-of-rat-control-in-alberta.asp...