The deepest fears of some New Yorkers are crawling to the surface as the metropolis continues its recovery from the pandemic.
FILE - A rat crosses a Times Square subway platform in New York on Jan. 27, 2015. So far this year, people have called in some 7,100 rat sightings thats up from about 5,800 during the same period last year, and up by more than 60% from roughly the first four months of 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
“That depends on how much food is available to them and where,” said Matt Frye, a pest management specialist for the state of New York, who is based at Cornell University. When Mayor Eric Adams was borough president of Brooklyn, he annoyed animal rights activists — and upset the stomachs of some journalists — by demonstrating a trap that used a bucket filled with a vinegary, toxic soup to drown rats lured by the scent of food.on efforts to reduce the rat population in targeted neighborhoods through more frequent trash pickup, more aggressive housing inspections, and replacing dirt basement floors in some apartment buildings with ones made of concrete.
“You’re tired of the rodents, you’re tired of the smell, you’re tired of seeing food, waste and spillage,” the mayor said.Last year, at least 13 people were hospitalized — one died — because of leptospirosis, a condition that attacks the kidneys and liver. Most human infections are associated with rats.
Some New York City restaurants erected curbside sheds to allow COVID-wary diners to eat outside. But unfinished meals left at tables have sometimes drawn brazen four-legged leftover bandits — a la Pizza Rat, who gained fame in 2015 after a video went viral showing the rodent dragging a slice of pizza down a flight of subway stairs .
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