Ridgewood continued to have Queens’ largest reported rat population, while complaints about the critters spiked in two northeastern neighborhoods last year, according to a Renthop report released on Aug. 5.
The “Is Your City Rodent Infested?” report documented complaints about critters running through major cities across the United States in 2018, including a borough-by-borough breakdown for New York City.
Brooklyn continues to lead the city in rat complaints, with 6,526 reports during 2018. Queens is in middle of the five-borough pack with 2,605 complaints in 2018, with an average of 24.1 complaints per square mile.
While none of the Queens neighborhoods could be considered rat-infested, residents in Ridgewood had the most reported rat sightings last year, with 179 total complaints. That’s a marginal increase of 4.7 percent from the 171 sightings in the neighborhood back in 2017.
Jackson Heights (162 complaints in 2018, a 27.6 increase from 2017) and Astoria (93 complaints in 2018, down from 108 in 2017) were second and third, respectively, in having the most rat complaints in Queens.
Two northeast Queens neighborhoods, meanwhile, had a surge in rat sightings last year. Auburndale in Flushing had a 340 percent increase in rat complaints last year, but while that number sounds truly skin-crawling, the raw number of complaints was actually small (22 complaints in 2018 versus five complaints in 2017).
Oakland Gardens also saw a surge in rat sightings in 2018, with 12 complaints. That’s up 200 percent from the four reported in 2017.
Meanwhile, four Queens neighborhoods had the biggest drop in rodent complaints in 2018. Bayside and Bayside Hills had a 75 percent decrease in reports over the last year (18 in 2018 versus 73 in 2017), followed by Rego Park with a 73 percent plunge (18 complaints in 2018 against 66 in 2017). College Point residents saw 64 percent fewer rodents in 2018 (5 cases against 14 in 2017) and Ozone Park had a 63 percent decrease (14 complaints in 2018 versus 38 reports in 2017).
While rodent complaints tend to peak during the summer, the most rat sightings in New York City last year occurred in the spring and early summer months of May, June and July, with a combined 38,319 complaints for the period. By contrast, the fewest complaints were recorded in January, November and December, a combined 21,844.
Check out the full report on Renthop’s website.
