Could have fooled us.
Turns out, New York may not be the most rat-infested place in the United States, according to a report first shared with The Post.
According to Yelp — a popular spot for those looking to read customer reviews and book pest control services — it’s an epidemic out there, with nationwide interest in pest-proofing surging 165% in June 2024 compared to June 2023.
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The sharp rise was found when examining the number of times each query was entered per million searches.
“Nothing disrupts a summer hangout like the presence of a bug or rodent in your space,” Tara Lewis, Yelp’s Trend Expert and Vice President of Community Expansion, said in a statement.
California, it turns out, led the nation in searches for rodent-related pest control searches, followed by Wyoming, Washington D.C., New Mexico and Wisconsin.
But that didn’t mean there wasn’t an increase here in the Big Apple. New York City saw a 107% increase for “rodent exterminator” in June 2024 compared to June 2023, Yelp exclusively told The Post. Still, it wasn’t enough to edge the state toward the top of the list.
Meanwhile, nationally, cockroach extermination topped the list with searches increasing by 323% in June 2024, compared to last June.
Spider exterminators were also in great demand, with searches in the fifty states up 236%, following the influx of Joro spiders — which can grow to the size of a human hand and have been invading the US for more than a decade.
When the numbers were crunched, Washington D.C. topped the list — insert your political jokes here — as the overall presumed most plagued.
The nation’s capital currently ranks number one in search volume for bed bugs, roaches and mosquito treatment.
New York ranked 5th for bed bug inspections, 6th for cockroach exterminations and 34th for rodent repellent services.
The news comes a year after the Big Apple dropped a spot in Orkin’s annual rattiest rankings, coming in at number three behind Los Angeles and Chicago and just ahead of Washington D.C.
Could this mean that Mayor Eric Adams’ war on rats — creatures he’s blamed for being a big reason New Yorkers are fleeing the state in droves — is working?
The politician, who has repeatedly declared “I hate rats” and confessed to being “fixated on killing” them, has rolled out several new plans to manage the pesky animals.
Christopher Sadowski
The city has introduced an ambitious plan to better manage all garbage, requiring residents to separate their food and yard scraps, introducing new trash and recycling bins and limiting trash hours — but many still complain of overflowing waste.
The concrete jungle has even used dry ice to eradicate the rodents, proposed a rat birth control program and established the city’s first-ever “rat czar” hiring Kathleen Corradi at a $155,000 annual salary.
When contacted by The Post, the Department of Sanitation pointed to a statement from May 2024, declaring that rat sightings had fallen in 12 of the last 13 months compared to the year prior.
“Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, we’ve gotten serious about addressing the 16 billion pounds of trash that New Yorkers produce each year,” Joshua Goodman, Deputy Commissioner of Public Affairs and Customer Experience from the NYC Department of Sanitation, told The Post.
“Our efforts to get this trash off the street and into secure, rodent-resistant containers are working.”
