Find Out if a Building Has Rats Using the City’s Interactive Map
From the fine folks at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene comes this most informative interactive map of the five boroughs that tells you whether you’ll need to keep an eye on your pizza. The Rat Information Portal (RIP) gives you the facts about rats in NYC—where they are and what you can do about them. You can search the city, building by building—handy if you’re thinking of renting or buying an apartment—to get the 411 on potential pest problems of the furry kind.
Findings from the Health Department’s inspections are searchable by address, or by borough, block and lot. The map lets you type in any building address, or search the city building by building. Zoom in to see city blocks and buildings. Hover over a building for the address, click for the info. You’ll find plenty of rat shaming: Buildings with “active rat signs” are shown in red. Information includes initial inspections, compliance, clean-up and baitings and whether or not the building has passed said inspections.
If you live in Manhattan or the Bronx, don’t be alarmed if you notice that those boroughs have many more inspections and violations. According to the DOH, a “rat indexing” program is being conducted in the Bronx and Manhattan that involves inspecting most properties even if no complaint has been received. For this reason, the inspection findings in the Bronx and Manhattan should not be compared to the other boroughs. So at this very moment, all of our rats are being indexed; think of it as one more thing about New York City that you’ll be able to find whenever you need one.
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