Large plastic trash bins sit where parking spaces once existed on 146th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Harlem. They’re a key part of the city’s war on rats.

“Sometimes you’ll be walking and they’ll be getting into your feet,” said Angel Yanes. “Yeah, it was real bad.”

What You Need To Know

  • The city’s Department of Sanitation said their offensive strategy to reduce rat sightings and the overall presence of rats across the city is working

  • The news comes after the city launched a containerization pilot in a 10-block area in the Hamilton Heights section of Harlem

  • The idea is to get plastic bags off of the streets, which rats can chew into. Officials believe that will reduce their overall presence and improve the quality of life for New Yorkers

Yanes lives on the street, which is part of a 10-block pilot area the city is using to test its offensive strategy to have residents use the shared bins to store waste, instead of putting plastic bags of trash on the street.

“They’re doing a good job with those containers because I see less rats in the neighborhood,” Yanes said.

“But in the cold they hide”, said Nauri Diaz, who also lives in the neighborhood. “I don’t know where they’re at now, but with the garbages I haven’t really seen them much.”

It’s part of a larger effort that also includes new trash rules aimed at reducing hours that trash is on the streets by putting trash out later — after 8 p.m. The city is also giving extra attention to rat mitigation zones in neighborhoods that are overrun with rats, including parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem, the East Village and Chinatown.

The city’s Department of Sanitation said recent rat data shows they’re beginning to notch some major wins.

Rat sightings in the 10-block pilot zone in Harlem have dropped by 68% in the first three months after the containers were rolled out, according to the city.

Rat sightings are down 16% in rat mitigation zones since new trash rules went into effect. And rat sightings are also down 6% citywide since new trash rules went into effect.

Additionally, from April — when the city launched its “Trash Revolution” to rid streets of plastic trash bags — through December of 2023, sanitation officials said they’ve seen the largest year-over-year decrease in rat sightings reported to 311 in over a decade.

Though, some residents in Hamilton Heights said they haven’t seen fewer rats since the pilot launched.

“It keeps the streets cleaner. More people stopped throwing their garbage in the streets. But no, same number of rats. That hasn’t changed,” said Ashley Diaz.

Still, rats have been in the city since the colonial years, so this may be a long game for the city.

The news comes after officials announced back in October that the city would require residents to store waste in containers in 95% of residential properties across the five boroughs starting in the fall of 2024. Those include buildings with nine or fewer units. By summer of 2026, they’ll have to store waste in official city bins.

The idea is to get plastic bags off the streets, which rats can chew into. Officials believe that will reduce their overall presence and improve the quality of life for New Yorkers.