Despite his leadership in the fight against rats, the mayor of New York City is having rat troubles of his own.
Every mayor of New York City has had to deal with rat problems. The current mayor, Eric Adams, is taking an unusual approach to the battle on pests to bolster his reputation as the city’s top exterminator.
Adams appeared in front of a hearing officer on Thursday — for the second time — to dispute two citations he obtained from his health department for allegedly permitting mouse nests to take up home in his Brooklyn townhouse.
Via telephone, Adams disputed the inspector’s report that rats had dug holes along a fence and left “fresh rat droppings” near the mayor’s trash cans.
A $300 ticket for failing to control the rat infestation at the same property was dropped by another hearing officer the day before the city issued the summonses on December 7. The potential $300 minimum fee for each new ticket is another serious consideration.
Usually the center of attention at public events, the mayor kept a low profile and showed little sign of his customary “swagger” throughout the hearing.
Adams said there are no rats in his house. According to him, there were no rodents found during his inspections of the premises. Adams stated that he spends $7,000 per year on an exterminator to maintain the property rat free. During the half-hour session, the mayor was occasionally overheard digging through his email and other digital files in search of receipts and other supporting evidence.
Adams, a Democrat, also informed the hearing officer that his renters were following local ordinances regarding trash and recyclables.
Adams stated, “We all don’t like rats, and we’re all collaborating.”
Reporters listened as the mayor looked surprised by the recent citations, noting that several of the purported breaches seen were really on his neighbor’s land.
Adams has been issued at least eighteen summonses at his Brooklyn residence throughout his life, with many of them having to do with improper waste disposal. He usually just paid his penalties, but he didn’t do so this time.
The hearing officer promised Adams a decision on any potential sanctions within 30 days.
Adams has fought gun violence and homelessness in his first year as mayor, but he’s also had to deal with a rat problem that’s so bad he’s hiring a new head of rodent mitigation, a position that’s been called the “rat czar.”
Adams was notoriously anti-rat while he was president of the Brooklyn borough before becoming mayor. He famously made reporters sick by showing them a trap where rats are drowned in a pail of a vinegary, deadly soup after being enticed there by the fragrance of food.
This trap, like all others used by prior mayors, had little to no effect on the city’s rat population.
Bill de Blasio, the city’s ex-mayor, used tens of millions of dollars to increase the frequency of garbage pickup, increase the intensity of home inspections, and replace dirt basement floors with concrete to minimize the rat population in certain neighborhoods.
The city’s previous plan to use dry ice to suffocate rats in their burrows was met with more laughter than death, as employees raced after, but were unable to capture, a single escaping rodent.
Adams has occasionally called news conferences to lament the plague of rats and mice in New York City.
In June, when outlining a proposed city spending plan, he declared, “Let’s be clear: I detest rats, and we have too many of them and we have to get rid of them.”
To control the city’s rat population, he signed a package of bills in November. These bills established “rat mitigation zones” and set time limits on how long trash cans can sit at curbs.
Very quickly after that, he started searching for a rat czar, someone who was “very driven and slightly murderous.”