Harlem Rat Sightings Approach Record High In 2022: Here's Where

HARLEM, NY — Throughout the pandemic, as COVID-19 rates have ebbed and flowed, one thing has remained all too constant in Harlem: rats.

Rat sightings in Harlem, which reached their highest total on record last year, are on pace to surpass that number in 2022, according to 311 complaint data. Residents have spotted rats 2,114 times this year in Harlem, which will pass 2021's total of 2,298 sightings if current trends hold through next month.

As in much of the city, rat complaints have surged in Harlem during the pandemic. While there was no great jump in 2020, sightings increased dramatically in 2021 to nearly double the previous year's total — a pattern that continues this year.

Mapping this year's complaints shows the rodents have made their presence felt throughout Harlem, with more than two dozen complaints each on the corridors of 125th and 145th streets.

A whopping 168 rat sightings have been reported along 116th Street, while the north-south corridors of Lenox Avenue, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard have seen 31, 81 and 57 sightings, respectively.

Why the COVID-era surge? Experts have said that the trend was likely due to a confluence of factors related to the pandemic, including health inspectors being reassigned away from rat-patrol duty over to mass-vaccination sites; more food waste being available on the streets; and the closure of restaurants during the early days of COVID-19, which forced rats to scavenge outside more.

Tony Hillery, executive director of the neighborhood nonprofit Harlem Grown, had to discontinue a composting site in March after too many rodents began flocking to the food-scrap pile. He advanced his own theory, echoed by experts: that new construction sites were uprooting rat colonies around Harlem, increasing the rodents' visibility.

Unfortunately for Harlemites, residential buildings have been the most common location for rat sightings, making up about 64 percent of this year's complaints.

Other common locations include commercial buildings (104 sightings), vacant buildings (38 sightings), construction sites (34 sightings), public gardens (18 sightings), and catch basins and sewers (19 sightings).

Four rats have been spotted at schools, including one at a Barnard College dorm building on Amsterdam Avenue.

Hoping to stem the rodent rampage, Mayor Eric Adams signed four rat-fighting bills into law last week, including one by Harlem Council Member Shaun Abreu that would force buildings hit with multiple rat violations to use special rodent-resistant trash containers for at least two years.

"There’s no more Remy the Rat and no more Mickey Mouse on the streets of New York City," Abreu said.

The bills also include a measure requiring health officials to set up "rat mitigation zones" by next April, and to push back the city's trash collection time from 4 to 8 p.m.

Related coverage:

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• Eric Adams Promised Us Hope Through Boozy Rat Death Traps
• Harlem Rats Could Be Contained By New Bills, As Complaints Keep Rising