Chinatown Rat Complaints Surge Despite $32M Crackdown

CHINATOWN, NY — Rat complaints rose in Chinatown last year despite a multi-million dollar effort to tackle the rodents in that neighborhood, a data analysis of 311 calls shows.

Chinatown, Two Bridges up through the Bowery and Sara D. Roosevelt Park saw complaints about the animals rise to 136, the analysis by RentHop shows. That's a 20 percent increase from 113 in 2017.

The uptick comes after the de Blasio administration launched a $32 million program — shared across six city neighborhoods — to tackle the rats in 2017.

Chinatown, the Lower East Side and the East Village — areas with the highest number of rat sightings in lower Manhattan – were among the neighborhoods targeted by the program.

The $32 million plan aimed to reduce rat activity by up to 70 percent. The cash was to fund new waste containers, replaced dirt basement floors with concrete and increased trash pick-up, among other measures. Other neighborhoods included Bushwick and Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn and the Grand Concourse area in The Bronx.

Complaints about rats did drop in the other two Manhattan neighborhoods the city program focused on.

In the East Village and Lower East Side, complaints fell by 19 and 26 percent respectively last year, the report shows.

Citywide complaints dropped by 9 percent between 2017 and 2018, totaling more than 17,000 calls.

UPDATE: Following the publication of this article, the city's Health Department responded Friday afternoon to Patch's request for comment.

Health Department spokesperson Danielle De Souza said in a statement, "The Health Department is constantly working to reduce rat populations around the five boroughs. Chinatown is in one of our Rat Mitigation Zones and receives special focus, which includes additional sanitation service, increased inspections and modernized trash cans. Our data shows that failure rates for rat inspection on properties in this zone are declining."

The department noted 311 complaints do not always mean there are more rats — but rather repeat or duplicate complaints at the same property. The department also said rat burrows in Columbus Park and Sara D. Roosevelt Park are at 40 and 5, respectively — down from 77 and 103 in February 2018.

See RentHop's map on how many complaints about rats your neighborhood has: