NEW YORK (AP) — Hate rats? Are you a “somewhat bloodthirsty” New Yorker with excellent communication skills and “a general aura of badassery”? Then you might have what it takes to be the city’s new rat czar.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration posted a job listing this week seeking someone to lead the city’s long-running battle against rats. The official job title is “director of rodent mitigation,” although it was promptly dubbed the rat czar. Salary range is $120,000 to $170,000.
“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,” reads that ad.
The posting is whimsical, but the job is daunting.
Richard Drew
FILE - A rat crosses a Times Square subway platform in New York on Jan. 27, 2015. New York City Mayor Eric Adams' administration posted a job listing this week seeking someone to lead the city's long-running battle against rats. The official job title is “director of rodent mitigation,” though it was promptly dubbed the rat czar. Salary range is $120,000 to $170,000. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
New York City leaders have been trying to control the rodent population for generations, with mixed results. Sightings of rats in parks, sidewalks and other places in the city have recently increased.
City rats have survived a multimillion-dollar effort under former Mayor Bill de Blasio that focused on more trash pickups and better housing inspections in targeted neighborhoods. The city also launched a program to use dry ice to suffocate rats in their hiding spots.
Adams, when he was borough president of Brooklyn, once demonstrated a trap that used a bucket filled with a toxic soup to drown rats lured by the scent of food.
Now, the Adams’ administration is looking for a top rat bureaucrat to become the public face of the city’s eradication and education efforts.
“Cunning, voracious, and prolific, New York City’s rats are legendary for their survival skills, but they don’t run this city – we do,” claimed the posting.
Applicants are expected to have a crafty sense of humor and “to lead from the front, using hands-on techniques to exterminate rodents with authority and efficiency.”
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Photo Credit: New Africa / Shutterstock
No household wants to face a pest problem, but over 14 million U.S. households encounter rodents, roaches, or other pests each year, according to the Census Bureau. These pests can trigger a variety of health concerns including asthma and may bring disease into the home. Once they establish themselves, pests can also damage the home itself and property inside.
Among the most common household pests are rodents and cockroaches, although termites also present a major threat in certain parts of the country. Seeking food and shelter, pests can creep into homes in a variety of ways, many of them related to the condition of the house. Problems like cracks or holes in a home’s walls, foundation, windows, or roof can provide openings into the home, while leaking water or sewer pipes provide the moist conditions that most pests prefer.
Given how pests establish themselves in homes, it is little surprise that pests—particularly rodents—tend to be seen more commonly in older units that have naturally deteriorated over time. More than one in five homes (22.7%) built before 1939 had a rodent sighting in the past 12 months, compared to just 1.8% of homes built since 2016. The data on home age and cockroach sightings is more complicated: cockroach sightings are most common in households built from the 1950s through the 1980s and less common before and after. This is likely in part because most of the oldest homes in the U.S. are found in areas where cockroaches are less common, while newer homes show less of the deterioration that allows roaches to enter the home.
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For related reasons, a household’s income levels also bear a relationship to how frequently the home’s residents encounter pests. Among both owners and renters, the median income for households who had not seen a rodent or roach in the last 12 months was far higher than the median income for households who saw such pests daily. This is likely because households with greater means can afford to live in newer units or units that have been better maintained and keep up with the costs of ongoing maintenance and other preventive measures.
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In addition to the age and condition of a home, where the home is located also impacts the type and frequency of pest issues. Rodents are usually more common in colder regions like the Northeast, where they seek out warm locations for shelter during the fall and winter months. Insects like cockroaches and ants thrive in warmer climates like those found in the South. And both roaches and rodents prefer more damp or humid climates, which make them less common in the dryer West. Taken together, these location-specific factors have a major impact on how likely a home is to face a pest problem.
To determine the locations with the worst pest problem, researchers at Construction Coverage calculated a composite index equally weighing the percentage of households with rodents and percentage of households with cockroaches for each location. The data used in this analysis is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey. In the event of a tie, the location with the higher percentage of households with rodents was ranked higher. Only select metropolitan areas and states with data available from the American Housing Survey were considered in the analysis.
Here are the major metropolitan areas with the worst pest problem.
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Photo Credit: evenfh / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 58.3
- Percentage of households with rodents: 5.8%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 29.8%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 13.0%
- Median household income: $48,600
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Photo Credit: Jon Bilous / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 60.4
- Percentage of households with rodents: 18.4%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 2.9%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 32.6%
- Median household income: $87,000
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Photo Credit: wonderlustpicstravel / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 62.5
- Percentage of households with rodents: 13.3%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 4.5%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 20.7%
- Median household income: $72,000
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Photo Credit: Kirill Livshitskiy / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 64.6
- Percentage of households with rodents: 8.9%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 24.1%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 2.9%
- Median household income: $75,000
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Photo Credit: iampaese / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 64.6
- Percentage of households with rodents: 12.2%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 6.4%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 12.2%
- Median household income: $67,000
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Photo Credit: Victor Moussa / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 66.7
- Percentage of households with rodents: 11.2%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 11.1%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 27.7%
- Median household income: $70,000
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Photo Credit: Nate Hovee / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 68.8
- Percentage of households with rodents: 6.8%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 35.2%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 2.4%
- Median household income: $60,000
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Photo Credit: Sean Pavone / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 68.8
- Percentage of households with rodents: 11.1%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 18.6%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 4.9%
- Median household income: $45,000
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Photo Credit: photosounds / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 72.9
- Percentage of households with rodents: 18.9%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 6.1%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 22.6%
- Median household income: $71,570
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Photo Credit: A G Baxter / Shutterstock
- Composite index: 75.0
- Percentage of households with rodents: 15.1%
- Percentage of households with cockroaches: 8.6%
- Percentage of homes built before 1940: 8.1%
- Median household income: $100,000
