Oh, Rats: NYC Rodent Sightings Surge In 2021

NEW YORK CITY — New Yorkers walking into an optimistic second coronavirus spring are running into some not-so-fondly-missed old friends: rats.

Rodent sightings went into full bloom in March, according to the city's 311 complaints. More than 2,900 rodent complaints were made, with over half involving rats.

Compare that to March 2020, when New York City first went into lockdown and city dwellers were justifiably more perturbed by COVID-19 than rats. There were about 1,600 rodent sightings that month.

But before New Yorkers get too freaked out, they should heed advice from Central Park's Twitter account, which recently marked World Rat Day.

"Here in NYC you don’t have to love your neighbor to coexist—rats are part of life in the big city. #WorldRatDay, " the account tweeted. "These city dwellers are highly intelligent & thrive where food & shelter are available—from subway tracks to public parks, where seeds, nuts & insects are abundant."

The comparison between spring 2020 and 2021 rodent sightings was first made by Bloomberg.

A decline in rat sightings during the pandemic's early months has long been known, as Patch previously reported. But it's unlikely rats went anywhere — what changed, arguably, was that New Yorkers huddled inside and simply didn't see the rats that at the time were overflowing out of garbage cans.

Total sightings of all types rebounded in July and increased to more than 3,100 citywide in August, data shows.

The complaints fell as the weather got colder but more or less held steady until March. That's when sightings, particularly of rats, shot up — there were 968 rat sightings last March compared to 1,831 this March.