The Brooklyn Paper mailbag

To the editor,

I am the mother of the artist James Powderly, who was confined in a Chinese prison during the Olympics. Thank you for giving him a chance to tell his story of imprisonment in your paper (“W’burg artist in China hoosegow,” Aug. 23, and “Artist caged by China is broken, sent home,” Aug. 30). I am very proud of him.

Delores Powderly, Ooltewah, Tenn.

Mosquito mayhem

To the editor,

I appreciated Gersh Kuntzman’s front-page column about Asian Tiger mosquitoes (“Buzz Off!” The Brooklyn Angle, Aug. 21), and I do believe that by personalizing the story, he may draw the attention of Brooklyn families. But Kuntzman missed a few things:

• Contrary to the claim of the Health Department, Asian Tiger mosquitoes are known to be “good vectors” for West Nile Virus, was well as Dengue Fever, LaCrosse Encephalitis, and dog heartworm. This is an epidemic just waiting to happen.

• From my observations over the past three years, I have concluded that the most prolific and insidious breeding grounds for these mosquitoes are city storm sewers and storm drains. When we have strong rains, the eggs are washed out to sea, but anytime it doesn’t rain hard for five to 10 days, they hatch and we all suffer.

Thus, the usual platitudes the Health Department is pushing about standing water does not suffice in the case of Asian Tiger mosquitoes, as they can breed in as little as a thimbleful of water, as long as it is standing for at least six days. In fact, the best thing people can do to destroy these mosquito breeding grounds is to flush their storm drains out for 10 minutes with rushing water from a hose and/or place larvicidal “mosquito dunks” in their storm drains.

Peter Kelman, Park Slope

Crackhouse prob

To the editor,

I was intrigued by your recent article about the crackhouse in Williamsburg (“Eternal nightmare of the not-so-spotless crackhouse,” Aug. 20). I found it puzzlingly ironic that the ne’er-do-wells who use the house at 59 Orient Ave. as a base for drugs have “easy access to the building through second-floor windows,” while a stumped police officer complains, “We do not have any way to get into the building.”

Perhaps The Brooklyn Paper could do our women men in blue a service by posting with an arrow in front of the house: “This way in!”

David Terhune, Carroll Gardens

Good Samaritans

To the editor,

To counter all the news on your police page (weekly Police Blotter) about people behaving badly, may I submit an item of a more hopeful nature?

I recently lost my credit card holder in the R station at Court Street. When I returned home hours later, I had received two calls from a woman named Renee Bernstein who said her employee had found the card. I am extremely appreciative of that employee’s honesty and Ms. Bernstein’s help in contacting me.

It’s not just the fact that I was saved the effort of canceling and replacing my documents, but that it reaffirmed for me that, unnoticed and unpublicized though it may be, people do behave well more often than we expect.

Elizabeth White, Brooklyn Heights

Ratty article

To the editor,

Your story, “Rat droppings poison Dog Beach” (Aug. 30) seemed rather big on alarm and short on facts. Doesn’t the article describe basically any body of water? That is, can’t any lake, pond, stream etc. become a haven for Weil’s disease [leptospitosis]?

Is there something in particular that the Dog Beach has or does not have that makes it a prime target for this? Have the rats been tested? Has the water been tested? The story does not say.

Rats and bodies of water are in no short supply in Brooklyn. Is the problem the Dog Beach — or simply that this is an area of water where many people let their dogs swim thereby raising the reported incidence of infection?

It would have been a far greater service to highlight the risks of having animals swim in natural bodies of water versus suggesting that the Dog Beach is somehow a greater risk unless that is actually the case.

Seth Kaplan, Prospect Lefferts Gardens