Rats are among us

It was just a reflex reaction to something that ran in front of us in the pitch black and cut our path on the sidewalk. But we all knew what was at stake, because in a very short time spent in New York you realize which animal is the most common sight here.

The rat, the big problem of the "Big Apple", brought to the stage where it seems almost intractable. When we were at Wimbledon for the first time, the appearance of foxes in front of the house seemed strange to us, but we got used to it.

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The presence of rats - in the yard, on the street, on the subway, wherever you go in New York, simply always and everywhere causes disgust.

The Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Times Square, a horde of rats running through the city while tourists want to see them...

New York has never been short of attractions, but this last one is definitely the most unexpected.

Visitors to New York lately, apparently pushing the boundaries of good taste, also want to see rats as a city attraction.

Tourist guides in this city organize more and more tours, in which they take those interested to the places where there are the most rats - garbage dumps, construction sites, broken sidewalks.

Such fascination began some seven years ago, when the city's most famous rodent, "Pizza Rat," attracted millions of viewers on YouTube.

The video shows him dragging an entire slice of pizza down the subway steps, which became a hit at the time.

Nothing can surprise us anymore in the modern world, the borders are moving, bizarre ideas are appearing, even the fact that tourists want to see rats in "authentic" locations.

New York has long been known for its large rat population, but in recent years there has been a dramatic increase.

It is estimated that there are three million of them, which is an increase of almost one million compared to the previous decade.

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The growth started during Covid 19, when they benefited greatly from the waste that restaurants left on the street, as well as the fact that people were eating a lot more on the street.

The city simply had to start the fight against this public enemy number one and according to the data, there are 15 percent fewer of them than last year.

Communals have an extremely powerful weapon in this war against rats, which is carbon monoxide, which they use to attack burrows.

New rules were also introduced, forcing restaurants to dispose of garbage in containers, and not "New York-style" - by throwing black bags on the street.

When you think about it, this is actually the key problem of the whole story – quality garbage disposal.

New Yorkers could wipe every rat off the face of the earth, but basically they're only winning the battle, not the war, until the "containerization" of the city is done.