NYC rat sightings are surging. According to city data, sightings are now more common than they have been in a decade.
People have reported 7,400 rat sightings to the city’s 311 service request number since April. This is up from around 6,150 in the same period last year. Also, it is up by more than 60% from the first four months of 2019, the year before the pandemic.
The number of sightings in each of the first four months of 2022 was the greatest since at least 2010, the first year for which internet records are accessible. In comparison, there were approximately 10,500 sightings in 2010 and 25,000 similar reports in 2011. (sightings are most frequent during warm months).
It’s debatable whether the rat population has increased, but the pandemic may have made the situation more evident.
Will rat sightings increase as more people spend time outside as the weather gets warmer?
“That depends on how much food is available to them and where,” said Matt Frye. He is a pest management specialist for the state of New York, who is based at Cornell University.
While a return to pre-pandemic routines “is exciting after two years of COVID-imposed lifestyle changes,” Frye said in an email, “it also means business as usual for rat problems that are directly tied to human behavior.”
Since the city’s beginnings, rats have been a concern. Every successive generation of leaders has strived to discover a more effective approach to reduce the rodent population, with little success.
When Mayor Eric Adams was the borough president of Brooklyn, he irritated animal rights groups and journalists by showing a trap that employed a bucket filled with a vinegary, toxic soup to drown rats enticed by the aroma of food.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio invested tens of millions of dollars in attempts to reduce the rat population in specified neighborhoods. It included more regular trash pickup, more aggressive housing inspections, and the replacement of dirt basement flooring with concrete floors in some apartments buildings.
The city has started a campaign to suffocate rats in their burrows with dry ice, showing the technique to the media at an event where employees followed — but never caught — one of the escaping rodents.
Adams highlighted the city’s latest initiative at a recent news conference in Times Square; padlocked curbside trash bins to reduce the large heaps of rubbish bags that serve as a meal for rodents.
“You’re tired of the rodents, you’re tired of the smell, you’re tired of seeing food, waste, and spillage,” the mayor said.
Rats are not just frightening to the squeamish, but they may also be a public health issue.
Last year, at least 13 people were hospitalized and one died as a result of leptospirosis, a kidney, and liver infection. Rats are responsible for the majority of human infections.
Some cities are considering making outside dining permanent. It is an option that arose out of necessity during the pandemic, but they are concerned about rat population growth. Experts had noted an increase in rat populations in some of the country’s largest cities even before the outbreak.
According to rodent experts, rats can live on less than an ounce of food each day. They rarely move more than a city block to locate food.
Some restaurants in New York City built curbside shelters to allow COVID-averse diners to eat outside. Unfinished dinners left on tables, on the other hand, have attracted daring four-legged leftover bandits, such as Pizza Rat. He rose to fame in 2015 after a video of the rodent dragging a slice of pizza down a flight of subway steps went viral. There were debates raged at the time about whether the video was staged.
There were fewer morsels to feast on in tunnels as fewer people used the subways.
“What happened during the pandemic was that your restaurants shut down,” said Richard Reynolds. His rat-hunting group for years periodically takes out teams of dogs to sniff out — and kill — vermin. “When outside dining came along, there was food again.”
Rats lurk in planter boxes near eating sheds, waiting for every dropped crumb. They hide in storm drains, waiting to strike.
For Brooklyn resident Dylan Viner, who recently hit a dead rat with his bicycle, it’s the stuff of nightmares. He and his buddies have seen an increase in the number of rats out in the open in recent months.
“I’ve always had a phobia of rats. I’m not squeamish about snakes or bugs — but rats, there’s something about them,” said Viner. Viner is a transplant from London, who likes to keep his distance from the vermin. “It’s OK seeing them around the subway tracks. It’s when you see one jump out in front of you and dash from a trash can to a dumpster or a restaurant … that’s when it makes you feel a bit squeamish.”
He remembered a recent walk in the West Village, where one of the creatures was hit by a stride.
“I screamed and ran,” he recounted. The rat might have squealed, too.
“Mine was so loud,” he says, “that it’s hard to know if it was mine or the rat’s.”