One rat proved to be too much for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Housing authority to handle on Tuesday as they tried to kill it during an event in Brooklyn on high-tech extermination methods.
The New York Post reported that De Blasio and several housing authority workers tried to kill the rodent with dry ice, but noticed the creature escaped from the hole.
“Once you put that dry ice in there, rats are not going to live through it. If they get exposed to it, they are not coming back,” the mayor told members of the press gathered at the event.
The event, which took place at a city housing project in Bushwick, was intended to showcase a vermin-killing method at NYCHA projects that did not involve poisons.
The mayor insisted the dry ice technique would seal off burrows where rats travel through and suffocate them to death. Other cities such as Washington, DC, and Chicago have also tried using dry ice to kill vermin.
When de Blasio and other workers realized the rat had escaped, workers wound up playing a game of “whack a mole” by attempting to stomp on or hit the creature with a shovel.
No one was able to catch the rat, which escaped to a nearby playground on Humbolt Street.
“We found the right place,” de Blasio told the media witnessing the chaotic spectacle, adding that he gave the workers attempting to the kill the creature “an A for effort.”
The New York City Housing Authority announced Tuesday that the city is spending $32 million, in part on these rat-extermination efforts.