Hell's Kitchen Rat Sightings Jump In 2021, Complaints Show

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — A surge in rat sightings across the city hasn't spared Hell's Kitchen, where complaints about the unwelcome rodents have jumped by 33 percent this year, according to 311 complaint data.

Through Tuesday, people have filed 193 complaints about rat sightings in Hell's Kitchen's three ZIP codes. That's by far the most complaints the neighborhood has seen in the past five years, with more than a month remaining in 2021.

Across the five boroughs, rat sightings have surged by a similar amount, hitting a total of 25,000 earlier this month. Experts have said the trend is 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; an unusually wet summer; and the closure of restaurants during the early days of COVID-19, which forced rats to scavenge outside more.

In Hell's Kitchen, the most unwelcome aspect of the rat sightings may be where they're being seen: in and around people's homes. Nearly three-quarters of this year's rat complaints have been made in residential buildings. Only four complaints have come from commercial buildings, while nine were at construction sites.

Broken down by street, rat complaints appear to be concentrated on the bustling blocks near Restaurant Row, including West 46th Street, (36 complaints), West 49th Street (34 complaints), and West 48th Street (36 complaints).

"I think they are pretty much everywhere," the leader of a Park Slope business group told Patch last week, referring to a spike in rat complaints in that neighborhood.

Another study of 311 complaints conducted by Renthop.com this month found that most rat-plagued neighborhoods included Harlem, the Upper West Side and Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Although rat complaints usually spike in the summer, October 2021 marked the worst month in the past six years, according to Renthop, with 3,282 complaints – a whopping 62.7% more than October 2020.

Related rat coverage:

• Rodent Sightings Jump 29% In NYC In 2021: Study
• Oh, Rats: NYC Rodent Sightings Surge In 2021
• NYC Is Not Most Rat Infested City In US, Shocking Study Finds
• Trash, Closed Restaurants Make New York 3rd Rattiest City In U.S.

Michael Wittner and Anna Quinn contributed to this report.