NYC Mayor Eric Adams vowed to send rats packing in 2022, and his push to get the rodents out of the city might be working, as rat sightings reported to 311 declined for another month, the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) reported Friday.
The data, which is sure to upset Pizza Rat, shows that sightings of the little squealers — who have a taste for discarded cuisine — have fallen in 12 of the last 13 months compared to the year prior. Sightings are also down nearly 14% in rat mitigation zones – areas with a lot of rats, including Harlem and Chinatown – year over year, DSNY officials said.
Hamilton Heights also saw a dramatic improvement, with rat sightings down 55%.
DSNY officials credit the rat reduction to a “tidal wave of change” the Adams administration made to the management of the 44 million pounds of trash the city produces each day.
Rats have been a point of contention for Adams since he took office in 2022, even calling the critters “public enemy number one” in NYC.
His disdain for rodents showed when he famously shook up longstanding sanitation rules during his first year in office, forcing businesses and residents to comply with later set-out times for waste. Set-out times were changed from 4 p.m. for both residential and commercial waste — one of the earliest in the country — to 8 p.m. in April 2023.
As the big cheese in town, the mayor even appointed Kathleen Corradi as the city’s first-ever “rat czar” last year to oversee rodent mitigation throughout the five boroughs. As czar, Corradi coordinates across city agencies and organizations to find ways to reduce the rat population.
More recently, the city put container requirements into effect for all businesses in New York City to get their trash off the streets and into secure bins. When a similar requirement goes into effect in the fall for low-density residential buildings — those with one to nine units — approximately 70% of all trash in the city will be containerized in the hopes of keeping Pizza Rat’s friends at bay.
The NYC Council has been getting in on the rat action, too. Last month, the council proposed a bill to control the city’s rat population by using “rat birth control.” Led by Council Member Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan), the birth control bill would require the city’s health department, in consultation with DSNY, to establish a pilot program to deploy rat contraceptives in the form of edible pellets that the animals would munch on, thus halting their reproduction.
