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New York's war on rats rages on, and the humans may be winning. Rat sightings are down, and new efforts to keep the city's rat population from taking over the five boroughs appear to be impactful.
Now, to help you avoid rat interactions and perhaps plan your city outings accordingly, a brand new interactive NYC Rat Map just launched.
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The color-coded Rat Map shows which venues had rat activity at their last inspection by the Department of Health, which spots passed, which places have not been inspected and more. Users can input any address or property to get an updated, localized rat report. If you're looking for rat-free zones, you can plan to stay in the green areas of the map, while the pink areas are likely higher in rat populations.
The tracking of rodent activity is done by in-person NYC Health Department inspectors, who look for signs of active rat and mouse activity including fresh droppings, borrows, tracks, fresh gnawing, or live or dead rats on-site. A property that passes inspection has none of these telltale rodent signs. Rat activity means some or all of these signs were observed, the property failed inspection and must fix their problems, exterminate and register for re-inspection.
Additionally, a brand new Rat Portal from the NYC Health Department helps New Yorkers easily access tips and tricks to keep rats at bay. Spoiler: be neat, don't feed them, and contact 311 to submit a rodent complaint if you want to narc on disruptive local rats.
As New York City's Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch famously said in 2022, “The rats don't run this city, we do.”
