Roaches, Mice Causing More Headaches For NYC Restaurants: Study

Editor's Note: The New York City Department of Health contests the findings of RentHop's analysis. Restaurants that go out of business are removed from the public dataset cited in the report, which the department argued meant RentHop analysts could not accurately compare the number of violations issued across various years. RentHop has amended its report to note that "survivor bias" in the data makes such comparisons impossible.

NEW YORK — Who invited these critters to dinner? Mice and roaches have been causing more headaches for New York City restaurants amid a large spike in failed health inspections, a new study shows.

Health inspectors slapped eateries across the city with 12,992 mouse- and roach-related violations last year, a stomach-churning 57 percent increase from 8,256 2017, according to the RentHop study published Monday.

That figure includes 10,280 violations for mice and 2,712 linked to roaches, reflecting spikes of 60 percent and roughly 48 percent, respectively, the real estate website's analysis of city Department of Health data found.

The jump may be a result of more diligent inspections rather than growth in the number of rodents and bugs interested in New Yorkers' meals, Rent Hop says — but it's disconcerting regardless of the cause.

"Is the pest crisis in New York getting worse? Or are the inspectors making more regular visits to restaurants after noticing violations and the restaurant operators are not reacting fast enough to the violations? We don’t know for sure from the dataset," the report reads. "What we do know, however, is that the number of violations related to roaches and mice has gone up, and it is indeed alarming for people who eat out a lot."

The possible pest proliferation came as the number of restaurants shut down for filthy conditions nearly doubled, the report says. The Health Department closed 894 establishments for failing their inspections last year, up from just 500 in 2017, RentHop found. Some 654 restaurants had already been shut down this year as of Sept. 5, according to the study.

The mouse and roach problem is especially acute in Queens even though all five boroughs have seen violations spike, the study shows. The number of pest violations there jumped 70.5 percent to 3,138 last year from 1,841 in 2017, RentHop says.

But the vast majority of the city's restaurants have passed their health inspections with flying colors despite the rise in potential dining horror stories, the study shows. More than 90 percent of the eateries in all five boroughs got A's in the Health Department's grading system, RentHop found.

See how restaurants in your neighborhood have fared on their health inspections with RentHop's interactive map.