By Scott Etkin
Last year, Mayor Eric Adams set out to “send rats packing,” implementing several new policies to address New York City’s persistent rodent problem. He appointed a Rat Czar and, together with the New York City Department of Sanitation, mandated that restaurants set out their trash in containers (rather than loose bags), reduced the amount of time that garbage bags are allowed to sit on the street before collection, and rolled out a network of rodent-proof bins specifically for food scraps.
So have these policies made a difference? To get a sense, West Side Rag reviewed the number of 3-1-1 service requests* about rodents in the 10023, 10024, 10025, and 10069 zip codes. While the number of 3-1-1 calls isn’t a perfect way to tell if the number of rats is going up or down, it’s at least a relevant data point that can be tracked consistently over time.
What we found is that the number of rodent complaints on the Upper West Side declined 16% to 1,717 in 2023 from 2,039 in 2022. This number is still significantly higher than the number of complaints from 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year, in which the number of rodent complaints was 1,284. (There were also fewer complaints in 2020 and 2021, but these numbers might be affected by the pandemic.)
Looking at sections of the neighborhood more specifically, 10025, home to Manhattan Valley – known as a problem area for rats – had the most rodent complaints among the four UWS zip codes. 10025 had 846 complaints in 2023, down from 1,124 in 2022 and 944 in 2021.
While the year-over-year decline in complaints across the UWS suggests that the policies are beginning to work, there was a surprising finding: There were more complaints in the fourth quarter of 2023 – once all the policies had been implemented – than in the same timeframe of 2022 (368 to 358).
This year, more policies will be instituted to mitigate the rat population: In March 2024, all businesses will be required to put their trash in containers, and October 2024 will bring the rollout of curbside composting in all of Manhattan.
“For rats to go away, everyone in the city — plus our restaurants, schools and grocers — must be willing to address the fundamental issue of food waste,” wrote Jason Munshi-South, a professor of biology at Fordham University, in The New York Times. This suggests that putting food scraps in containers, instead of loose bags, might be the highest-impact solution.
The numbers in 2024 will show if these changes will finally be the ones to send rats packing, or if they’re sticking around.
*Numbers were pulled from New York City’s Open Data portal.
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Tell your crazy neighbors to stop feeding the pigeons too. Those seeds also attract rats. It’s something the DOH has been trying to get the word out about.
Visit https://www.nyc.gov/rats for more details.
Be careful which “crazy” neighbor you tell.
Getting rid of all the garbage, restaurant sheds and scaffolding will help.
I noticed quite a few restaurants have removed their sheds, whether because it’s become a pain to manage them or because of the cold weather. Up in the 100s, Flor de Mayo, Bosino, and Serafina have all taken them away.
Under recently passed laws those sheds must come down each winter, then go back up again in spring.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/nyregion/outdoor-dining-nyc.html
I put in a complaint for rats on my block using my address. Well, in return, they put a summons on my building for trash even though there was no problem with the building (sealed trash cans, etc.). Since then have hesitated about calling in any complaints even though the rat problem didn’t go away
I believe outdoor dining has had an effect of drawing rats to the area with its large number of restaurants.
If there is no more food at street level, won’t they be driven to come looking for it … upstairs?
Please check out West 82nd Street between Columbus & Amsterdam. Saw a rat in daylight hours and a few stuffed garbage cans with lids on loosely because can was overstuffed. Some of the buildings were not containing correctly.
The number of complaints is not a measure of rat population.
The article already notes this.
Interesting that rat calls went up AFTER the new policies were rolled out in Q4. Probably too early to tell if there is any impact, but would be curious to hear why Q1-Q3 were down in 2023 compared to 2022.
Nobody’s packing, it’s Winter, they just go deeper.