NYC NOW - August 5, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

A 90 year old Brooklyn man is facing eviction from the home he purchased in 1969, and his attorney claims he's a victim of deed theft. Also, service changes are coming to the B and Q lines to accommodate construction of two new elevators at the Church Ave station in Brooklyn. And lastly, data is showing that ticks are spreading to New York City parks and yards. WNYC's Kerry Nolan speaks with reporter Rosemary Misdary for more details.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, August 5th. Here's the midday news from Kerry Nolan. A 90-year-old Brooklyn man is facing eviction from the home he purchased in 1969. Attorney Adam Grumbach says his client, Ray Cortez, is a victim of deed theft. He says scammers will try to gain the trust of older homeowners. whose properties have soared in value.

People are desperate, and people rely on the fraudsters who usually make contact with them through a friend, through their churches, through a local real estate broker who's known in the neighborhood. Once that machinery is in motion, the fraudsters have all of the advantages. Grumbach says his client was defrauded by an associate from a religious group

who tricked him into signing over the deed. Another company purchased the home and wants to evict Cortez. An attorney and agent of the company didn't respond to requests for comment. Attorney say the parties could face each other in court this week. Service changes are coming to the B and Q lines. Construction work started last night affecting the Brighton Beach-bound B and Coney Island-bound Q lines,

which will be skipping the B and Q Church Avenue Station. The MTA is installing two new elevators there through early next year as part of accessibility and safety improvements at the station. There will also be two new stairways. and platform edges. The MTA says the pace its awarding contracts for accessibility projects is five times what it was before 2020.

Well, we'll see sunny skies for the rest of today with a slight chance of a shower, maybe a pop-up thunderstorm this afternoon, and highs in the upper 80s. Right now, we're looking at 87 degrees under sunny skies in New York City. Stay close. There's more after the break. Most New Yorkers probably only think about ticks when they're headed out of town to places like the Catskills or parts of Long Island.

But data shows the bugs are spreading into city parks and yards, and some of them are carrying Lyme disease. WNYC's Rosemary Ms. Derry joins us now with more. So now we have to worry about ticks in the five boroughs? Well, if you live in Staten Island, you probably already do worry about ticks. It's had the highest risk of tick-borne diseases because of its high deer population. But also, data collected by Columbia University shows that ticks are spreading beyond Staten Island. In fact, when they surveyed parks in Queens in Brooklyn last year, they found 80% of those parks had ticks. And that's up from 40% the year before in 2022.

So what's driving this tick expansion? For the most part, it's deer. You know, ticks, they hitch a ride. on the back of deer. You know, they'll be eating your shrubbery around your yard or they'll be in a park and they'll be dropping ticks. I spoke to an ecologist at Columbia University, Maria Duke Wauser, who studies ticks. She explains it.

They've been moving into urban areas and because there are just so many deer that they keep pushing out, you know, and more being born. And so they keep spreading. They're not controlled in any way. There's less hunting. There's no predators. they will continue to increase unless there's some control measures taken. And if they continue to increase, so will the ticks.

They have found ticks as far west as Forest Park in Queens. But in Staten Island, the numbers are dropping off, partly because of the vasectomy program that they started in 2016. The total population of deer dropped by 40% over the last eight years to just under 1,300. But there are also parks where researchers found ticks. but no deer like Prospect Park. Duke Wasser guesses that birds and small mammals may have brought those ticks. So Rosemary, what are the risks from city ticks?

There are four varieties of ticks, but the one that's a really big concern is the black-legged tick because it carries six different pathogens, including Lyme disease. And the tick threat is year-round, but it's at its worst for May to July. There are other diseases that you can get from ticks, like there's a meat allergy that develops from some tick bites. And the threat is very real in the five boroughs because in 2000, they reported about 215 tick-borne diseases.

And last year, the cases were 16 times that amount, according to the city's Department of Health. But also, it's very hard to tell if somebody was bitten in New York City or they were up in the Catskills for a weekend and got bitten there. So what are some precautions we can take? Well, I got some advice for Maria Duke Wasser, the ecologist that's studying TICS at Columbia University, and she had this advice for nature-loving New Yorkers. If it's a very manicure park, you know, just lawn, I would say you're relatively safe.

But if you go to a more forested park, you would take the usual precautions against TICS, you know, wear long pants and, you know, socks over the pants. you can spray yourself with deed. She also advises right after you take a walk in the park or in your yard that might be near a park, do a tick check. And when you get home, remove all your clothes and wash them and then take a shower. So let's say you find a tick. What do you do then? Remove it as soon as possible.

They usually advise to use tweezers. And usually if you can get it off within 24 to 36 hours, you'll be fine. and you should also see your doctor. Then you can take care of this before it escalates. If you do get a tick, you can report it on the tick app, which is run by Columbia University, and it can help you identify the tick that you have been bitten by. All good advice from WNYC's Rosemary, Ms. Derry.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.