Where Are the Rats in New York City?

Rats, rats, rats — familiar and often feared creatures in many cities. New Yorkers may see them in the subway enjoying a slice of pizza, scurrying among trash bins or sometimes even inside their homes. After rat sightings by city inspectors doubled in 2022, Mayor Eric Adams appointed a director of rodent mitigation, aka a “rat czar,” to reduce their ranks — with some success. But the pests remain part of New York’s identity.

Where are their favorite hangouts? A study by RentHop analyzed rodent complaints received by New York’s 311 help line from 2015 through September 2024, sorted them by location and ranked each area by the number of complaints per 10,000 residents. Population data came from the U.S. Census Bureau.

So far this year, Brooklyn has had the most rat complaints among New York City boroughs (9,518), followed by Manhattan (5,375), Queens (4,409), the Bronx (3,508) and Staten Island (649).

When adjusted for population, the southern part of Harlem (below 126th Street) has logged the most complaints in 2024 — about 94 per 10,000 residents. Ridgewood, Queens, was next, with about 75 complaints per 10,000 residents, followed by three Brooklyn neighborhoods: Windsor Terrace-South Slope (about 74 per 10,000), the western part of Bushwick (about 72) and Clinton Hill (about 71).

The study also analyzed rat data in Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., and found that while complaints peaked in each city between 2021 and 2022, there’s been a slight decrease since then. Chicago consistently leads the pack in total rodent complaints, though recently, Washington has pulled ahead in complaints per 10,000 residents.

Among the four cities, New York has had the fewest complaints per 10,000 residents this year (about 28). Complaints broke only one monthly record in New York in 2024 (September, with 2,998 total complaints citywide), which, according to the study’s authors, suggests that “rodent complaints are decreasing citywide.”

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