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PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
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Indeed, mice disposal boxes used to be hung on lampposts. If the situation becomes too bad, we could encourage members of the public to join the mice-catching force. If necessary, we might set up a system rewarding those who succeed in catching any mouse. There are always daredevils under a handsome reward system. If we could step up our efforts in catching mice, it might be of help to rodent disinfestation.
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Mr. Chairman, with these remarks, I support the motion.
MR. WONG KWOK-HING (in Cantonese): I support the motion. The main reason is the second last sentence of the motion which says, 'to adopt proactive and effective methods of rat disinfestation and prevention'. The words of 'proactive and effective' are the main reason for my support of the motion.
What kind of method can be regarded as 'proactive and effective'? The prevailing methods of killing and preventing rats are not adequate and a review is therefore called for. Are the methods being used the most effective? Are there any insufficiencies overlooked by us? Is a comprehensive review required for all these? The motion, if carried, is exactly what the Council and Department should follow up on immediately. I therefore earnestly hope that if the motion is carried, the Department will conduct a comprehensive review immediately and refer the case to the Public Health Select Committee for discussion and follow-up action. I consider a comprehensive review to be important because I fully appreciate that there are a lot of deficiencies in the prevailing methods of killing and preventing rats.
There are two main areas. Firstly, we can see that we fail to have the prevailing measures of disinfestation and prevention directed against the environmental hygiene of the black spots frequented by rats, or fail to focus our efforts on prevention as far as the environmental hygiene of these black spots is concerned. As rats rely heavily on food for survival, they do not grow or reproduce in places where there is no food. I can see that there are a lot of black spots in the urban areas which are frequented by rats. These black spots are exactly places where we have not done enough prevention and made enough improvement in the environmental hygiene:
(1) Problems arising from clearance of old buildings. Whenever an old building is dismantled, the site and its vicinity will become rats' haunts and places for reproduction. Furthermore, the clearance of old buildings is often followed by the closure of restaurants. If we pass these restaurants after their closure, we often smell the stink of rat droppings. It can thus be seen that as the environmental hygiene is not properly attended to after the clearance of these old buildings and restaurants, rats naturally reproduce themselves there.
(2) Market streets. There are a lot of market streets where some fresh food stores have not attended properly to their rubbish, thereby providing
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