In Concourse Village, private homeowners are grappling with a rampant rodent population while facing city-issued fines accusing them of causing the problem.
Neighbors say the rats are coming from NYCHA developments on College Avenue. The penalties are weighing heavily on families while raising questions about who should be responsible for addressing infestations across the borough.
Carol Drummond describes herself as an “urban planter.” She took pride in the flowerpots on the front step of her South Bronx home — until the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) began fining her, claiming her pots were harboring rodents.
“They would give me tickets saying that they saw burrow holes in the plants which I’m telling you, they did not,” Drummond said. “I went and got big rocks and no way they can dig into that.”
Drummond, who has lived in her Concourse Village home for more than 50 years, is one of many residents on College Avenue who have received fines of up to $600 for a rodent population they say they can’t control.
“If [people] are driving a car, and they get a ticket for $50, people are upset,” Drummond said. “Could you imagine getting tickets for $300, how that makes you feel? Even if you were making a lot of money, that’s still a lot of money.”
According to Juan Garcia, who lives two doors down from Drummond, the problem started when a waste compound from the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) was placed in the lot next to 1020 College Ave.
Initially, neighbors thought the dumpsters would only be used by Claremont Consolidation, a senior housing complex next door managed by NYCHA.
They quickly realized this was not the case.
“We thought it was to assist the old age home that’s across the street,” Garcia said. “It’s housing for elderly, but it was so huge that we noticed it, and they’re bringing trash from other locations.”
A spokesperson for NYCHA confirmed that the waste compound at College Avenue and East 165th Street collects waste daily from seven developments, amounting to 26 buildings in total.
“They’re saying that we have rodent feces around our area, but then not realizing that the dumpster in itself is the problem,” said Shirley Rosario, who lives one house away from the site.
Though neighbors have been receiving fines for years, Shirley’s husband Julio Rosario said he noticed an uptick recently as the dumpsters remain full and unkempt most days.
“The guys pick up the trash, and they dump it, and whatever falls on the street, they leave,” Julio said. “Not like back in the day. Back in the day, they would get a shovel, come out, and sweep it up.”
The neighbors also noted a group of consistently untidy trash cans placed outside the lot’s gate.
Homeowners like Drummond said they have tried everything – from setting traps to buying city-issued garbage cans and even creating homemade diversions; such as boards with nails to keep rodents from walking across their properties.
They have also written letters to the Department of Health, the Bronx Borough President and Community Board 4.
City data from the NYC Rat Sightings database, which records all 311 service requests related to rat sightings, shows that Community Board 4 accounts for nearly a quarter of all rodent complaints in the Bronx’s 12 Community Boards in 2025, underscoring the scale of the infestation in the area. The database is published through NYC Open Data, which provides free public data from city agencies.
Jacqueline Hinds has owned her College Avenue home for over 20 years. While she received assistance from Community Board 4 to remove abandoned cars on the street harboring rodents, she has yet to receive a response or support regarding the city fines.
“The Board is actively raising resident concerns about rodent activity around NYCHA developments with DSNY and DOHMH,” said district manager of Community Board 4 Leonardo Coello, in a statement that detailed the group’s efforts to help residents.
“We continue to press agencies for increased inspections, improved waste management, and sustained pest control efforts.”
“It’s very frustrating because I don’t have $1,200 right now to pay tickets,” Hinds said. “I have my water bill to pay, I have my taxes to pay.”
Hinds is one of the neighbors who is fighting her fine in court alongside the Rosarios. They fear it is the only way to stop the citations.
“I’m disabled, so I’m on SSD and any other little help I could get,” Julio said. “So even though I collect rent, I’m paying my mortgage, and on top of that, I have a family that I’m still responsible for. So that $600, it’s a major hit.”
The city has not made disputing these fines easy. Some neighbors have paid their fines rather than go through the trouble.
“If you don’t pay it, they’re going to put a lien against your property,” Drummond said. “Not to mention that the price goes up because they start adding on interest and penalties.”
Garcia said the financial burden of court is too much.
“I just pay it because I’ll be honest with you, for me to take a day off from work, the math doesn’t make sense.”
Hinds, on the other hand, took time off work to attend her scheduled hearing this spring. She was told that because she had not called three days prior to confirm, the hearing would be rescheduled to January 2026. The Rosarios experienced the same issue.
Neighbors say some fines get lost in the mail, and they only learn of them once penalties are added.
Beyond the financial strain, they say the rodent infestation has a larger impact on the community.
“We used to grill, and we used to have our little summer gatherings, unfortunately, we haven’t been doing that,” Shirley said. “We’ve been pretty much stripped from our own ability to use our own backyard because of the rats.”
The Rosarios see two possible ways forward: the removal of the dumpster or city-sponsored extermination services for the community.
“I think it’s just unreasonable for them to think that we should be held responsible for controlling the rodents, which we all know it’s not just a Bronx thing, it’s a city problem,” Shirley said.
In a statement, NYCHA said it has maintenance staff on site every day to keep the area clean. The agency added that while the compound is meant to be pest resistant, “NYCHA’s Pest Management Team is aware of reported issues and has exterminators on site five days a week to treat the properties.”
Despite the barrage of fines, College Avenue neighbors are resisting in their own ways. Drummond says her flowerpots aren’t going anywhere.
“I refuse to remove them because everybody everywhere can have flowers, why can’t I?” Drummond said. “I know that it’s the South Bronx and that’s considered a neighborhood that’s not deserving of anything, but you know I work, and I pay taxes like everybody else.”
Macy Hanzlik-Barend is a contributing writer at the Bronx Times and an accountability and data journalism student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. She can be reached at macyhb@gmail.com. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and
