Rats to be cleared from Deer Park home by exterminator, town says

One way or another, a Deer Park home suspected of being a breeding ground for rats that have spread in a Conklin Street neighborhood is getting a visit from an exterminator.

The homeowner contacted a professional who was expected to start work by Friday night, Babylon Town spokesman Brendan Cunningham wrote in an email.

To ensure the work is done, a town inspector will visit the home Monday morning. If the exterminator hasn’t done the work by then, the town will hire one and bill the homeowner, Cunningham said.

Town and Suffolk County Department of Health Services employees “found fresh rat droppings” during a visit to the home Friday, Cunningham said.

Neighbors say the homeowner, a woman in her late 60s who lives alone, was hoarding food and newspapers in containers outside and inside the house.

A next-door neighbor, Tom Zeblisky, said he recently saw a rat climbing up a window inside the home. For months, rats have scurried from the house into the lawns of neighboring houses. Neighbors say they’ve spent hundreds of dollars on poisons and traps.

Town inspectors visited the home as early as July 18, when they issued a notice of violation related to the section of municipal code dealing with solid waste. “Need to get exterminator for rodent infestation, also clean all debris around property,” an inspector wrote at the time.

Another violation, issued Thursday, was more urgent: “Health HAZARD,” the inspector wrote.

The town last year hired a biohazard cleanup company to remove eight roll-off containers of material from another Deer Park home on Osceola Avenue. That material included dead animals, food waste and decades-old newspapers.