Rat island sold to local man for $160K

Many of us dream of having an island to call our every own, but you’d be hard-pressed to find very many people interested in Rat Island. Located a short distance from Bronx, NY, Rock Island is more or less a bunch of rocks piled atop one another, with a hint of grass here and there.

One man was interested, however – interested enough to buy it for $160,000. Alex Schibli, a retired Port Authority worker from Bronx, NY, got the winning bid in an auction for the island this past Sunday.

“It’s right off my property. It’s so close I can go swimming back and forth,” Schibli told the New York Post. “I can see it from my window. My wife and I kayak around it all the time. Once I knew it was up for sale, I just had to have it,”

To win the auction, Schibli had to outbid seven other bidders, including a fisherman, a nonprofit organization, and a family interested in buying the island and naming it after a family member.

Now that he has ownership over the island, he could do anything he wants with it, but Schibli wants to keep the island as-is.

“Rat Island is a flat rock but it’s a very special rock, at least to me. Some developers might build something on top of the island if they got their hands on it, but I believe it should be conserved, kept as is,”

If there’s anything that will be changed, he notes, it will most likely be the name.

“I really don’t like the name ‘Rat Island,’ ” he said. “I would love to change the name to reflect something more natural,” he suggested. “Perhaps ‘Malina Island,’ after my 4-year-old granddaughter.”

Source: New York Post

[Image: Christopher Sadowski/Splash News/Newscom]