[title]
Well, it’s that time of year: The map of the most rat-infested neighborhoods in NYC has returned.
Right when summer—and subway platforms—start heating up, RentHop released the latest update on the influx of rodents in our lovely city. And it’s enough to make you never wear flip-flops again, for fear of one of the critters scurrying over your foot as you walk past a heap of garbage bags on the sidewalk.
There are more than 250,000 rats in NYC, according to the report, and in 2017, complaints about the vermin rose by 10 percent from the year prior. Brooklyn had the most complaints overall, but Manhattan had the most per square mile. If you have a severe case of musophobia, you should head to Staten Island, which has the lowest amount of rodent complaints by far (784 in 2017 versus Brooklyn’s 7,253 complaints).
The neighborhoods with the biggest rat problems start with Bed-Stuy, Harlem and the Upper West Side. If you want the exact address of buildings with the most rat complaints, those include 1800 Popham Avenue, 407 Lincoln Place and 95 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Nolita, Kips Bay and Forest Park are a few of the neighborhoods with zero rat complaints in 2017, so if you want to avoid vermin, all you have to do is flee to the outskirts of town.
As the creatures take over NYC’s pizza joints and baseball teams, it seems more and more likely that $32 million won’t be nearly enough to extinguish them. We look forward to saluting our new rodent overlords in the not-so-distant future.
Sign up to receive great Time Out deals in your inbox each day.