Dominican immigrants in Washington Heights have long had a ready weapon against vermin: Tres Pasitos, or Three Little Steps, a granular product so named because after rats eat it, they walk three steps and die. But for all its effectiveness, Tres Pasitos is also illegal. Manufactured in the Dominican Republic, it is imported and sold on the black market in unlabeled containers or small plastic bags like those used by drug dealers. It’s not registered, not controlled, there’s no antidote,” warned Andy Linares, Control Center in Washington Heights.“It’sreally pretty scaryThe recentaccused of selling an illegal, highly potent pesticide apparently smuggled from China opened a window on the underground trade in chemicals used to combat roaches, rats and other vermin in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods. The product at the center of that investigation, which government officials disclosed this week, was sold in a box printed with Chinese characters and an awkward English translationOfficials said the substance contained a toxic chemical in a concentration almost 61 times higher than federal regulations allowedThough several professional exterminatorsthey had never encountered the product, they it was just the latest in a stream of goods that for years had flowed from overseas factories into the supply closets of households and businesses in New York. City health officials sthat since 2005 they had received about 100of poisoningfrom Tres Pasitos and two other anti-pest products favored by immigrants, Tempo and Chinese Chalk. While there were no deaths, about 40 percent of the victims had to be treated in medical centersLower prices and language barriers can steer immigrants toward the underground market, immigrant advocatesSo can cultural biases: immigrants become familiar with products in their homeland and import their preferences, and sometimes the substance itself, when they move to the United States. They pass along their knowledge and techniques to neighbors and friends. It’s word of mouth: get this and do thatowner of Standard PestManagement, a company founded in 1929 and based in Long
Island City, Queens
Government officials have tried for years to clamp down on the trade in Tres Pasitos, which is often used against rodents and which contains that ishighly toxic to humans and petsYet demand remains highThe people will do what they want to doExterminadoraLatina, a companyThey don’t care if it murders a kidDominican immigrant who works at a cafe on Broadway in Washington Heights,that while she did not use Tres Pasitos because she did not have a rodent problem, she was a devoted user of Tempo. Sold as a powder, Tempo is legally available in New York only to licensed applicators. But for years it has been traded briskly on the black market in small quantities. It is supposed to be mixed with water at ratios provided by the manufacturer, but untrained users often sprinkle it undiluted around their homes at hundreds of times its recommended concentration. she bought it in packets from street vendors and, every couple of weeks, poured the powder in a line around the base of her bed and spread it on her kitchen cabinets and walls to deal with cockroaches.It’s far more effective” than products likeRaidshe was aware of the dangerIf there are children aroundshe cautionedyou have to watch outshop owners in neighborhoods that in the 1990s, vendors would openly hawk Tempo from folding tables on the sidewalks.They were goingexterminator in Washington HeightsIt was out of controla clampdown by the authorities has driven the market further underground. In bodegas throughoutstore owners who were asked this week for Tres Pasitos and Tempo reacted as if the request were for crack cocaine. “No way,” one bodega his eyes widening in alarmThat’s illegalYou’ll have to get it on the streetFor years, one of the most popular black market products from China was a stick of chalk loaded with insecticides, including the chemical deltamethrinKnown as Chinese Chalk orMiraculous Chalk, it was used to draw a line along a wall or around a piece of furniture, like a bed or a kitchen table. Insects would die when they touched the line
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