double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs vietnamese seafood double-skinned crabs mud crab exporter double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs crabs crab exporter soft shell crab crab meat crab roe mud crab sea crab vietnamese crabs seafood food vietnamese sea food double-skinned crab double-skinned crab soft-shell crabs meat crabs roe crabs
Metro

NYC rat complaints down 15% compared to a year ago

By
Jesse O’Neill
Published June 19, 2023
Updated June 19, 2023, 2:56 p.m. ET

Rodent complaints were down 15% in New York City last month compared to the previous year — but “we may never know” if the borough’s millions of rats are playing hide and squeak, or if weary residents are just getting tired of complaining about them, experts say.

The news, first reported Sunday by Gothamist, was championed by rat-“hating” Mayor Eric Adams’ office Monday, who in March had appointed a “rat czar” to eradicate the vermin from New York.

Last year, the city had also began requiring buildings to put garbage bags on the sidewalk after 8 p.m. to reduce the amount of time rats could binge on an unsightly unlimited al fresco buffet.

“While it’s still early, any sign that there are fewer rats in our city is a welcome one,” mayoral spokesperson Kate Smart said in a statement.

Director of Rat Mitigation
Kathleen Corradi was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams to the newly created post of New York City Director of Rat Mitigation in April. James Keivom
a rat in a grate
Rat complaints were down 15% in the boroughs during the next month, compared to a record high number of rat gripes in May of 2022. Christopher Sadowski
piles of garbage
Officials have said a law that banned property owners from putting out trash before 8 p.m. was partly to thank for the decrease. Christopher Sadowski

“It’s also a sign that New Yorkers are doing their part to help deprive rats of food and shelter, by composting, following the trash set-out times, keeping litter off our streets, and addressing conditions that are conducive to rodents. It takes all of us to win the war on rats.”

However, health officials pointed out that the city’s 2,350 rat complaints last month still marked the second highest total over the last 14 Mays, and suggested that last year’s 2,767 complaints that month were driven by the return to in-person work and higher temperatures.

“I think the question was not ‘why is 2023 lower’ but ‘why was 2022 higher,’” Pedro Frisneda, deputy press secretary for the NYC Department of Health, reportedly said.

In May of 2010, the city had only recorded 1,066 rat complaints, according to city data. That figure tacked upwards over the next decade before ballooning by 39% in 2021, the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael Parsons, a visiting research scholar at Fordham University studying urban rodentology who has panned the mayor’s rat-fighting initiatives, told Gothamist that the city should not be praising the city’s new Pied Piper program.

rats running wild
It was too early to tell if the city’s mitigation efforts and education campaigns were responsible for the decrease in complaints. Though the figure marked a decrease from last year, New York City’s 2,350 rat complaints last month were still much more than usual. Christopher Sadowski

“I have been critical of the current approach because there doesn’t appear to be any data collected for any of these approaches,” Parsons said. “It is possible one or more of these approaches is having some benefit. Unfortunately, we may never know.”

The drop in rodent sightings was driven by less rat activity in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, but more rats were actually seen in Queens and Staten Island compared to a year ago.

Sightings were expected to increase in the warmer summer months, when rats are breeding and fattening up for the colder months ahead.

More than 3,000 sightings were recorded in the city last June, city data shows.

Rodent complaints are addressed by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which issues fines to property owners who are unable to eradicate the vermin.

Adams himself was fined $300 in February after officials found that conditions at his Lafayette Avenue rental property in Bedford-Stuyvesant encouraged “the nesting of rats,” including Hizzoner’s failure to use rodent-proof bins for recycling.