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Aug. 6, 2019 By Allie Griffin
Rats love Ridgewood and it was the most popular neighborhood for them in the borough last year based on complaints, according to a newly released study by Renthop.
In 2018, there were 179 rodent complaints in Ridgewood, up 4.7 percent from 171 in the year prior, according to the annual “Is Your Neighborhood Rodent-Infested?” study.
Renthop analyzed several U.S. cities in the study and found that Chicago maintained its title of “rat capital” with more than 40,000 rodent complaints filed in 2018. New York City received a total of 17,353 rat sightings complaints in the same period down 9 percent from 2017, when the city-wide number reached an all-time high.
Broken down by borough, Brooklyn is the favorite of rats with 6,565 complaints. Queens comes in fourth with 2,605 total complaints. However, if looking at complaints per square mile, Manhattan takes the crown with a whopping 94.5 rodent complaints per square mile.
In Queens, Jackson Heights takes the second-place title of most rats behind Ridgewood with 162 complaints and Astoria takes home the bronze with 99 complaints in 2018. South Jamaica doesn’t fall far behind with 93 total complaints last year.
Below is Renthop’s map in which you can click on neighborhoods to see the number of rat complaints in each for 2017 and 2018.
The study also noted that two Queens neighborhoods had the highest spikes in complaints between 2017 and 2018. Auburndale had a 340 percent increase from five critter complaints in 2017 to 22 in 2018 and Oakland Gardens’s sighting tripled from just four in 2017 to 12 in 2018.
Yet, it’s not all bad news for Queens residents with a rat phobia. The study also found that many of the borough’s neighborhoods had a decline in rodent sightings.
In fact, four of the five neighborhoods across the city with the largest drop in complaints are in Queens. Bayside had a 75 percent drop with 18 in 2018 from 73 the year prior, Rego Park had a 73 percent decrease also with 18 in 2018 from 66 in 2017, College Point had a 64 percent decrease from 14 complaints in 2017 to just five last year and Ozone Park’s rat sightings dropped by 63 percent from 38 in 2017 to 14 in 2018.
July is the month with the highest number of rodent complaints across the city, according to the study.
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5 Comments
A rat sighting notification with the NYC 311 App should normally trigger a sanitation inspection with fines to those business establishments that are not cleaning up their share of debris or litter that usually breeds the rat infestation.
Jackson heights is also Infested- with Libruls
What do you have a potato phone? Phones have spell check it. It’s liberal. If you’re going to insult a neighborhood at least spell right geez.
This should not come as any surprise that Jackson Heights finishes in 2nd place for most complaints. Instead of joining a gym to exercise just go to Diversity Plaza any morning before 6 am and you will get plenty of exercise from running, and jumping to avoid the rats. Politicians need to step in and to force business to clean up the sidewalks and areas around their stores.
Also check out Roosevelt Ave. The sidewalks are full of litters including food scraps when I walk down in the morning, although haven’t seen rats yet but won’t be surprised if they are around. I actually wrote to Daniel Dromm but got no response. Street vendors should be made to clean up around their area or ask their customers to not litter. Fine them after three warnings, or some kind of measures to stop people from littering.