Pest Control: New York City gets its first rat czar for $155,000 a year. What's her plan of action?

The city of New York has gone to the… dogs… no. But to the rats. It is a known fact that the Big Apple was being chewed up by gnarly rodents. But maybe not for long. On Thursday, the mayor of New York hired a new general — known as the rat czar — in the battle against the vermin.

They say there are as many rats in New York as people. The animals thrive on the streets, in sewers, in abandoned and un-abandoned buildings, in parks, subways, shoe stores and restaurants. But the hope is now that the new appointment will drive them out of the city and out of the lives of New Yorkers.

As the city celebrates the new hire — we take a closer look at who she is, the challenges that await her and why exactly was her appointment necessary.

The rat czar is in town

In December 2022, New York City Mayor’s office had posted a job opening for a “citywide director of rodent mitigation,” or as a city hall spokesperson dubbed it, “a rat czar.” The role asked for a person who had a “virulent vehemence for vermin.”

“The ideal candidate is highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty, determined to look at all solutions from various angles, including improving operational efficiency, data collection, technology innovation, trash management, and wholesale slaughter,” the job posting added.

It also said the chosen applicant will have a “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humour and general aura of badassery.”

And it seems that after over three months, they found their ‘rat czar’ possessing all the qualities they were looking for including being ‘bloodthirsty’ and the killer instinct needed to commit mass murder of rats.

Mayor Eric Adams named Kathleen Corradi, an education department employee, as New York’s first-ever “rat czar”. As Adams put it: “The rats are going to hate Kathy, but we’re excited to have her leading this important effort.”

On being appointed, Corradi — a land use expert who specialises in urban sustainability and currently works at the Department of Education — said, “You’ll be seeing a lot of me and a lot less rats.”

And it seems that Corradi’s new appointment is all about destiny. As a 10-year-old child, she had campaigned for anti-rat measures in her neighbourhood after she was horrified at the sight of a rat carcass.

With a modest salary of $155,000 (Rs 1.26 crore) a year, Corradi will oversee the city’s existing army of rat experts. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene already has a rodent biologist on staff, renowned urban rodentologist Robert Corrigan. The health department also has an Office of Pest Control, and there is a citywide rodent task force.

Adams said Corradi will connect those bodies with agencies like the Department of Sanitation, in a concerted push to help battle some of the city’s longest tenured and most notorious residents.

It’s important to note that Corradi is not a trained rodentologist. She’s a former elementary schoolteacher and she developed the city’s Zero Waste Schools initiative. But she does have rat experience as she led the agency’s rodent reduction efforts.

Corradi’s appointment, as the New York Times reports, comes at a very significant juncture. The number of rat sightings documented by city inspectors doubled last year.

Assuring New Yorkers of results, she promised to immediately take on litter, garbage and food waste where rats thrive. She will also decide what new products the city should use to get rid of rats. “Rat mitigation is more than a quality-of-life issue for New Yorkers,” Corradi said, “Rats are a symptom of systemic issues, including sanitation, health, housing, and economic justice. As the first director of rodent mitigation, I’m excited to bring a science- and systems-based approach to fight rats. New York may be famous for the Pizza Rat, but rats, and the conditions that help them thrive will no longer be tolerated – no more dirty curbs, unmanaged spaces, or brazen burrowing.”

Also read: New York City has eight million rats and they could carry COVID variants: How worried should people be?

New York City’s rat menace

Rats are so common in New York City that even Wikipedia claims these rodents are considered “a cultural symbol of the city.” Though they may inhabit the city, they’re far from welcome.

It is said that they have been in the Big Apple since the 18th century but in recent times they have been scampering everywhere. Business Insider reports that about 250 years ago, the Norwegian rat — also known as the brown rat, the alley rat or the sewer rat — arrived in America on ships from Europe.

And since then they have been breeding quickly and making New York City their home. Until 1860, rats were a quiet presence in the city. But it was then that they made headlines after the vermin mutilated and killed a newborn child at Bellevue Hospital.

The number of rats just exploded since then and in 1950, a study said that there were about 250,000 rats. By 2014, this number grew to about two million—an 800 per cent boom in fewer than 65 years, reported The Atlantic.

In 2022, this problem has grown exponentially. Rat sightings increased by 40 per cent in the first 11 months of 2021 compared to 2019 and in 2022, the number of rat sightings was up at a record high of 27,920.

And it’s not just about the booming population of the dirty rodents. It has also spread across the city — in 1974, a rat survey of New York found that only about 11 per cent of the city was rat-afflicted. Today, that number is at 80 to 90 per cent.

But what makes the Big Apple so delicious for rats? Some experts cite the weather for the reason for the growing number of rats, while others peg it down to an abundance of food waste and overflowing trash. As one exterminator explained in a report by The Gothamist, “You have a building with like 400 residents and they have like 300 trash bags out there for seven or eight hours. What do you think will happen.”

The COVID-19 pandemic came as some relief from the rat menace, as their source of food dried up. However, as the city reopened, they too came out in larger numbers, attacking even pigeons.

The rat battle

The rat menace has prompted officials to take action. Alas, it hasn’t been enough. Former mayor Bill de Blasio launched a $32 million (Rs 262 crore) rat-tackling effort in 2017, and workers laid more rat poison and traps. The sanitation department has blasted dry ice into rats nests. But, it wasn’t enough firepower against the vermin.

Even current mayor Eric Adams has undertaken several measures to stop the menace from growing further. Starting this month, New Yorkers will be fined for putting their trash on the curb before 8 pm in the latest attempt to cull the city’s rampant rat population. The current rule allows residents to begin setting out trash at 4 pm.

There’s also the patrol of hunting dogs that walk the infested streets, looking to eradicate the vermin.

However, the rats continue to thrive in New York City, becoming almost invincible. Let’s hope for New York’s sake that their rat czar Corradi can bring about a change!

With inputs from agencies

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