New York Retains Dubious Distinction For Pest Infestation

New York City is known for its wide diversity and grandeur, and stands as one of the best places in the world for many things like art, culinary, sight seeing, sports, and history.

But sometimes you got to take a few negatives with the positives. New York also has an enormous pest control problem. And while this has been known for many years, it's only become far worse in the years coming out of COVID.

See Also: Could Glue Traps For Mice and Rats Be Banned in New York State?

Pest control company Terminix recently rated which of their 300 branches dispatched the most rodent control services in 2023, and the numbers are not encouraging. While some other services like Orkin have ranked Chicago as most the rat-infested city, New York has had a long very long history when it comes to rats.

New York Regains Dubious Distinction For Pest Infestation 

PIX11 reports that Terminix rated New York City as the most rat-infested city in the U.S. The abundance of people and curbside garbage disposal from residents, and restaurants have long contributed to the problem. Fortune says that poor garbage management has only made it worse.

New York City beat out the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area, and Los Angles for the dubious distinction as top rat city in America, according to Terminix. Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut ranked 14th in the study.

Rats Are Everywhere 

While vermin such as this are nothing new in the big city, social media loves when rats and other animals are caught near humans. This video was shared tens of thousands of times across the internet a few years back, prompting The New York Post to joke that it was the return of New York's famous Pizza Rat.

The Post says that the group of rats was seen carrying a slice of discarded pizza at a subway station near the L train. Soon video of the encounter was taken and posted to social media, and then later shared to the Subway Creatures Instagram account. 

For a city that's seen just about everything, wildlife encounters like this in New York City seem to draw a lot of attention online. They've mentioned Pizza Rat, but do you remember Taco Squirrel, Egg Roll Squirrel and even Egg McMuffin Rat? A report back in 2018 said that the rats in New York are getting even bigger given the amount of trash that's being thrown out.

See Also: Large Boa Constrictor Found Inside Home in New York State