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10 Facts about New York City Rats

10 Facts about New York City Rats

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Ahhhh! Oooh! Wooow! New York City! The Mecca everyone dreams of! Flawless skyscraper condos as astronomically high-reaching as their prices, and sleek tin carriages carrying rivers of people far below. It doesn’t get any more subterranean than the subway, right?

Wrong. It gets deeper, darker, and more delicious. Welcome to the underground kingdom of the real rulers of NYC: The Rat Kingdom. Here are some fun and delightful facts about these furry creatures who outnumber their human counterparts in the Big Apple.

Source: usatoday.com, lrb.com, guardian.com, huffingtonpost.com, nypost.com

en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

There’s a Few of Them

The New York Post, the pillar of all things accurate and scholarly, said it all on June 16th: “There are Twice as Many Rats as People in NYC.” Imagine how many beyond the accounted for 8.4 million aren’t around to answer their door when the census taker comes…

flickr.com
flickr.com

They’re Squeaky Clean

Columbia University researchers just finished their year-long collect-and-study of 133 rats in the Big App. Besides finding a bevy of fever-inducing illnesses and delicious stuff like salmonella in them, some “novel” pathogens were discovered as well. That means the rats were debuting some new bacterial dishes on the market.

flickr.com
flickr.com

They Exercise on Camera

Don’t get in the way of their FloJo. This rat’s evening jog along the river is inexorable, so why get in the way with your camera? The former film maker behind this intense masterpiece on the New York Daily News has now career-shifted to Orkin man.

youtube.com
youtube.com

They Came Through Ellis Island

Rats originated in China, and have been in New York City since the colonial days. Arriving in droves searching for a better life, they found only fierce competition. In Joseph Mitchell’s famous 1944 expose “Rats on the Waterfront,” he cataloged three different species: the brown rat, the black rat, and the Alexandrian rat. The brown rat is the most vicious of all, having driven out or killed off the other two types. Their teeth are stronger than iron or copper, and their incisors grow five inches every year.

youtube.com
youtube.com

They Left Looking for Stardom

The remaining defeated black and Alexandrian rats took off for Los Angeles. Many of them are aging Hollywood producers now.

Disclaimer: Fievel was a mouse, not a rat.

news.discovery.com
news.discovery.com

They’re Emotionally Fiery

Over a quarter of unknown fires are said to be caused by rats. This is on account of their knawing through electrical wires and gas pipes, or when they get too drunk during a Paella neighborhood cookoff in Brooklyn.

flickr.com
flickr.com

They Love Love

It’s been said that in most major cities, you’re never more than 15 feet away from a rat. In Robert Sullivan’s on-the-ground research book on the NYC rodents, Rats, he covers their penchant for gettin’ down anywhere, anytime. “If you are in New York while you are reading this sentence…then you are in proximity to two or more rats having sex.” (Guardian). A dominant male rat may fornicate with over 20 female rats in a matter of six hours; often it doesn’t matter if the female rat has been dead for awhile.

commons.wikimedia.org
commons.wikimedia.org

They Tip the Terrorist Alert Scale

The United States Department of Homeland Security has personnel ready in New York at all times with bomb-detection materials. They also have to catch rats in order to snag the fleas off of them, to inspect if a bio-terrorist has fed them the Black Death. True stories.

en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

There is a Rodent Control Academy

Finally, the “Police Academy” series is nearing its completion. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene offers courses on “rat management,” which means that when the PhD is completed, you’re basically a psychotherapist for all of the aimless, wandering whiskery friends in the Five Boroughs.

ca.wikipedia.org
ca.wikipedia.org

They Prefer Chicago Hot Dogs

The heart of the Midwest is often roundly beating out New York City in magazines lauding it for its livability, culture, and cheap rent. At this year’s Ratcademy Awards ceremony, heavy always-favorite NYC could barely feign a supportive smile when it was placed FOURTH PLACE behind D.C., L.A., and the winner: Chicago! Based upon Orkin’s reportage of number of rat treatments they had to perform in a year, which could also mean that New Yorkers have given in, setting extra plates at the table.