The Complaint Department

According to the Brooklyn Paper, the rats that once lived in what’s now Atlantic Yards have been displaced by the development, and they’re taking the opportunity to settle down and raise their broods in north Slope. (Has anyone made a Bruce Ratner joke yet? Someone must have, right?) That the rats have arrived isn’t exactly news — they’ve been problematic since construction began in 2007 — but neighbors tell the paper that the invasion’s gotten worse:

“We can’t walk home in the evening without a rat crossing our path — and we can’t eat at a café without a rat passing us,” said Denise Morales, who was temporarily unable to enter her Butler Place home after returning one night to find dozens of huge rats swarming near her front door.

Meanwhile, FIPS laments the overwhelming bathroom shortage at Celebrate Brooklyn on Tuesday:

Usually one can use the permanent bathroom facilities built into the band shell building.  However, for the most of the show, they weren’t letting people use these.  As such, the crowd of nearly 8,000 (I’m guessing here) had to share 12 portable toilets.

That’s right – twelve.  In other words, one per 666 people.

And in case you missed it, there’s a brouhaha brewing (sort of) over Gregory Place, the little-used street behind the 5th Avenue Key Foods near Baltic that apparently doubles as the seedy underbelly of Park Slope. Brooklyn Paper talks to some neighbors (the same neighbors, coincidentally, who weighed in on the rat situation):

“It’s an isolated spot for sex and other unsavory activities,” said neighbor Emilia Sherifova, who runs a blog documenting the problem…“I’ve seen condoms everywhere — and people shooting up,” said neighbor Denise Morales. “It’s a real problem.”

(Unless, of course, you’re more in line with the editors of The L Magazine, who named Gregory Place the “Best Block to Smoke a Joint” in March).