Summer summit aims to reduce New York City's rat population

It's a rat race to get rid of New York City's least favorite long-tailed rodent, even when there are signs you're winning.

Sightings of rats citywide have fallen, officials said, and they want to keep it that way.

On Wednesday, city officials announced  they will bring together a range of experts from across the country — from academics to pest control managers — for its inaugural National Urban Rat Summit on Sept. 18 and 19.

“The best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “That’s why we’re holding this inaugural summit — to bring experts and leaders from across the country together to better understand urban rats and how to manage their populations.”

The summit, hosted by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University, comes amid declining rat sightings, city officials said.

Rat sightings reported to 311 have decreased in 12 of the past 13 months compared to the year prior — or 6.3% overall, the mayor's office said. 

The city's pest management strategy has included changes to set-out times for residential and commercial trash, and earlier sanitation pickup times for its 44 million pounds of daily garbage. There are also new requirements that business trash go into sealed containers, with the policy expanding in the fall to low-density residential buildings — those with one to nine units.

“Despite being our closest urban counterparts, there is surprisingly limited research on urban rats and their management,” Kathleen Corradi, the city's director of rodent mitigation, said in a statement. “New York City is a vanguard in municipal rat management and continues to drive citywide mitigation efforts using science and data.”

The city has established four Rat Mitigation Zones, where municipal agencies intensify their resources to address and exterminate the rodent population. Sightings are down nearly 14% in these zones. 

“Rats are a common yet despised aspect of urban life,” said Matt Frye, senior extension associate at the Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell.

“They cause loss of business, structural damage and pose public health risks … This summit is a leap forward for urban rat management, forging new relationships between municipalities and academic partners.”

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.