New York rat sightings fall 22% as containerization expands

Containerization to cost city 30,000 parking spots

New York City is on track to record its fewest reported rat sightings since the pandemic, with reports down 22% in the first seven months of 2026 compared with a year earlier, Bloomberg reported. The decline comes as the trash containerization program begun under Adams and expanded by Mamdani continues to roll out across the city.

The city’s rat population spiked during the Covid pandemic, when rats flourished on uncollected trash, an increase in take-out and delivery food, and outdoor dining sheds that provided both snacks and refuge. With an estimated one rat for every three people, rat sightings in the city have declined, though experts describe the situation as tentative.

As mayor, Adams made rats a signature issue. His administration posted an advertisement for a “rat czar” that required applicants to be “highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty,” possessed of both “stamina and stagecraft” and a “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor and general aura of badassery.” When Adams appointed Kathleen Corradi to the post in early 2023, he said: “Rats impact how you feel about the city you’re in … many of us live in communities where rats think they run the city.”

Adams’ measures included “Rat Pack” teams and a bin program he called the city’s “trash revolution,” requiring trash cans throughout the five boroughs to reduce household waste left on the streets in plastic bags. He also ordered specialized teams to tackle the estimated 600,000 rats living in the city’s street tree beds.

“Everyone that knows me, they know one thing: I hate rats,” Adams told reporters when the city narrowed the window for putting trash on the curb. He acknowledged he would be branded a murderer. “Well, you know what? We’re going to kill rats.”

All businesses and low-density residential buildings, which produce around 70% of the city’s trash, were required to containerize in 2024. Full containerization of the city’s trash is expected to be complete by 2031. Rodentologist Robert Corrigan said he felt “very positive” about the containerization effort, telling Bloomberg that garbage is a rat’s favorite food and that lids on trash cans are “the true hero of rat management.”

Mamdani has dropped the “rat czar” position but expanded the containerization program to six districts, bringing oversize “Empire Bins” to 25,000 new residences. The city is set to lose 30,000 parking spots as a result, alongside a city council proposal threatening up to 300,000 spots.

“In the wealthiest city in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, no New Yorker should have their sidewalks covered in garbage. By finishing the job on containerization, we will ensure New York City’s streets remain the envy of the world,” Mamdani said in April.

The results are not uniform across the city. West Harlem, fully containerized since June 2025, reported rat sightings fell 34% in the first seven months of 2026 compared with last year. Parts of Brooklyn’s Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights are down 48%. But the East Village, Lower East Side and parts of Chinatown have seen a 37% surge in rodent reports compared with this time last year.

Overall numbers of rats, or rat sightings, have dropped but are not below pre-Covid levels, suggesting the rodents remain in place despite the loss of Covid dining sheds and easy-to-access refuse.

Gil Bloom of Standard Pest Management, a company that consults for local and federal government agencies, said rat sightings dropped to a record low in 2019. “Covid rearranged the topography and rats went wild. They were running around horribly once we had these food shacks up all around the city and the population skyrocketed.”

Bloom said the city’s rat population has certainly gone down with trash containerization, but warned it would be unwise to declare victory given the adaptability of rodents. “We have to consider who our adversary is. They’re still in the underground and catch spaces of the city.”

With some trash still in bags, and time between trash being left out and collected, rats “have reset their clocks. They know when the trash is going out. People litter. There are food and fruit stands. There’s still enough food around for rodents to survive.”

Bloom noted that reduced visibility does not necessarily reflect the total number of rats. “If they’re out at night and people don’t see them is it still a rat? It’s still a rat, but no one is seeing it.”

The East Village, he said, has older buildings, the large Tompkins Square Park and city infrastructure in disrepair below ground, plus a younger population more likely to be out at night. Parks do not use rodenticide because of the hawks and birds, but use traps with liquid nitrogen to freeze the holes.

“Rats are burrowing animals and in a city with limited earth and space, a rat is going to find you. We’ve learned over the last 15 or 20 years that a rats’ range is much greater than we previously thought. Rats only require one ounce of food and water a day, they don’t need a whole sandwich,” Bloom said.

“So there’s a direction toward control, and the numbers are down to pre-Covid levels. But pre-Covid there were still a lot of rats, so no one is saying, ‘Hey, there’s no rats.’”