Do your street gutters. Keep a trash bag on your porch or near the house. Wait to put your trash out the night before or better, that morning. Don't clean out your basement and put it out in the alley days or weeks before. It will be hot soon.
Rats love hiding places and easily accessible food sources.
Keep that in mind when you take out the trash. We don't have enough cats to go around. 911 for trash dumping Try this out. Commissioner Winfield of DPW has announced that illegal dumping is cause for a call to 911. If you see someone in the neighborhood unloading their trash into the alley and you know it's obviously not normal trash, give 911 a call.