New York City will play host in September to a summit that will assemble experts on a subject the Adams administration has often expressed disdain for: rats.

Academic researchers, municipal post control mangers and other experts on rodent mitigation will descend upon the city on Sept. 18 and Sept. 19, Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday. 

Together, experts from across the country will discuss the best practices for dealing with rodents and “advance the science of urban rat management,” a press release from City Hall said.

“New Yorkers may not know this about me — but I hate rats,” Adams said in a statement, poking fun at his well-documented hatred of rats. “With rat sightings down nearly 14% in our city's Rat Mitigation Zones year over year, we continue to make progress, but we’re not stopping there. The best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy. That’s why we’re holding this inaugural summit, to bring experts and leaders from across the country together to better understand urban rats and how to manage their populations.”

Adams hired Kathleen Corradi as the city’s first director of rodent mitigation — who he referred to as the “rat czar” — in April 2023 after a monthslong search.

Since then, the city has made strides in rodent mitigation, city data shows. Rat sightings reported to 311 are down across the city in 12 of the last 13 months, the Department of Sanitation said earlier this month.

“New York City is a vanguard in municipal rat management and continues to drive citywide mitigation efforts using science and data,” Corradi said in a statement. “We are proud to host the National Urban Rat Summit as a dedicated step to deepening understanding and building better sustainable management.”

Adams also noted that rat sightings are down 14% in “rat mitigation zones,” areas that the city has spent extra time trying to reduce the rodent population. Those “zones” include Grand Concourse in the Bronx, Chinatown in Manhattan, and Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

The Adams administration credits much of their success to its trash containerization program, which has been led by Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

In 2023, the city required all food-related businesses across the five boroughs to place their trash bags in containers on the street in an effort to curb the rat population. By the fall of 2024, nearly all residential buildings will be required to place all trash in secure containers.