For decades the people of New York City have claimed that rats live in the municipality. However nobody has actually seen one. Well, since it has been estimated that more than 60 million rats live in the city perhaps a few have been seen. The most conservative estimate claims that more than 250,000 share the city with other creatures and humans.

Some citizens claim they have seen rats the size of bull dogs. The scary hippopotamus size rat left years ago to live in Paris.

One exterminator claims Manhattan rats have the appearance of cats while Brooklyn rats actually look like rats. I don’t know if his Manhattan comment was dripping with silliness.

Years ago Joseph Mitchell wrote about the rats of New York city and boasted that the brown Norwegian rat is the most numerous, the dirtiest, the largest and the most fierce of the rat species. Your sweater wearing pet tiger may want to avoid them.

Thousands of licensed pest control professionals utilizing gas masks search for them on a nightly basis, clogging holes , putting out traps and fumigating. If the rat control specialists decided to move to Florida perhaps the city would have a few billion rats. Be nice to the rat exterminators. 

Recently a woman died and a man is seriously ill due to receiving kidney transplants from a donor who carried the LCMV virus. The virus was responsible for the death of three other kidney transplant patients on the east coast in 2005.

The donor was a homeless man. Experts suggest he received the virus from rodents, pets or wild animal droppings. Typically the virus causes symptoms similar to the flu. 

The virus is not easily passed from human to human. The only known way the virus is acquired from another human is from mother to fetus.

Due to the small supply of available organs, recipients will often take an organ from someone at high risk of disease and health problems. 

It does not seem to be a major problem with pregnant women, but avoiding animal droppings is another issue that pregnant women need to be concerned about more than most people.

Throughout history rodents have always been a problem or a nuisance for people all over the world. Professional rodent control services in New York City and New Jersey can be quite helpful if you have not been able to get rid of rats and other unwanted critters. Be sure to avoid their droppings.

If rats or mice are causing you trouble, Stern’s innovative Track & Trap rodent control program is the answer. The smart solution to rodent problems, Track & Trap uses a special tracking system that allows you to actually see all the places where disease-carrying, destructive rodents are getting into your home or business. One-pound, one-foot long rats can squeeze through an opening the size of a quarter. Mice can push their tiny bodies through spaces that don’t seem to be much bigger than a baby’s fingertip. Finding their entry points can be a challenge.

The Track & Trap program begins with installation of a special tracking box. Packed with tasty rodent treats, the box is dusted with a special fluorescent powder that adheres to the feet of the hungry varmints. As they come into feed, they track the powder around, leaving trails to their entry sites and back to their nests. Stern’s rodent eradication experts use a special UV light to follow these tracks. We know exactly where homes and buildings have to be sealed to prevent rodents from entering.

The program is eco-friendly and comes in two sizes for mouse or rat control. Click here for more information on Stern’s innovative Track & Trap rodent control program.

New York City has gone on a rat rampage in an attempt to make a dent in the city’s considerable rodent population. Rat czar Bobby Corrigan, the noted rodentologist, and his team (dubbed the rat pack) are scurrying about the city looking for signs of rodent infestation. When a problem is found, property owners must correct the problem quickly.

The world record for biggest rat is held by an Asian rat that weighed in at a hefty 1 pound 7 ounces. (As a comparison, “purse dogs” like those favored by Paris Hilton weigh about 3 pounds; the average house cat weighs, 6 pounds.) Fortunately for NYC residents, it’s the Norway rat that makes the Big Apple its home. Weighing just a pound, adults grow to be between 1 and 1.5 feet long, though that’s plenty big enough.

At least we don’t have the problems found in some parts of the world. In the remote state of Mizoram, India, an army of rats has caused a critical food shortage. Initially attracted by tasty bamboo flowers, the rats have been feasting on standing crops and rice stored in granaries.  Rats have devoured nearly three-quarters of the region’s annual rice supply. State authorities have initiated a “kill a rat, get cash” program, paying 5 US cents for every dead rat. What they need is Stern’s Track & Trap mouse and rat control program.

In Hollywood you can tour the Homes of the Stars, but the Rat Tour is only offered in the Big Apple! The Rat Tour was the culminating event of last Friday’s town hall meeting hosted by NY State Senator Bill Perkins to highlight NYC’s new rat eradication initiative. Held in Perkins’ 125th Street office, the meeting featured “Rat Czar” Bobby Corrigan, the city’s noted rodentologist.

Dragging a dead rat from his backpack and tossing it into the air, Corrigan got the meeting off to a quirky start. “I caught this rat myself in New York City, so there’s one less out there for sure,” he joked. Corrigan, who has been stalking rats for 35 years, said, “I have a lot of respect for this mammal.” Rats are smart and capable of learning from experience. However, they also destroy enough food worldwide to feed more than 200 million people a year.

NYC is populated with Norway rats which range from 1 to 1.5 feet long and weigh about a pound. Highly adaptable, they can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter, jump 3 feet vertically and fall 5 stories without injury. “Rats are not as big as alley cats,” claimed Corrigan, who attributed the myth to the fact that rats puff up their fur when frightened which can appear to double their size.

If you’re a landlord and you get a call from one of Bobby Corrigan’s “Rat Pack” (see our Feb. 6 post), give Stern a call. Don’t risk being saddled with a city citation. NYC’s new rat master will only give you two weeks to evict the varmints if rats are discovered on your property.

Stern Environmental Group provides expert rat and mouse control and eradication. We use snap traps, rodenticides and mechanical traps to get rid of disease-ridden rodents. We also provide rat and mouse inspection services for restaurants, industry, multi-family units and homes.

Our revolutionary new Track & Trap mouse control installation is the perfect choice if your rodents come in small packages (a bigger rat-sized system is under development). The Track & Trap system is the smart, innovative, green way to take care of your mouse problem. A special tracking box is loaded with food to attract the furry critters. As mice scurry around the food trough, their feet become dusted with fluorescent powder, leaving tracks that can be followed back to their dens, ensuring that no mouse is missed by our eradication team. Click here for complete information on Stern’s Track & Trap mouse control system.

Since today is the first day of the Chinese Year of the Rat, it seems appropriate to get to know NYC’s new resident rat master, Bobby Corrigan. The city just signed on the country’s leading rodent expert as a full-time employee. Corrigan’s job is to keep rats from eating the core out of the Big Apple.

NYC is full of prime rodent real estate: lots of low shrubbery, parked cars, construction sites, abandoned buildings, tunnels and sewers. Overflowing dumpsters, trash bags stacked along the sidewalks, and lunch bags tossed in (or near) park garbage cans provide a never-ending supply of culinary delights. Corrigan certainly has his work cut out for him.

A city consultant for the past 3 years, Corrigan used his 25 years of expertise as a rodentologist to help the Health Department devise a new $1.5 million rat inspection program for the Bronx. The 18-month pilot program, which started January 1, trains inspectors at Corrigan’s “Rodent Academy” in the art of ferreting out rat activity. The program employs six inspectors — Corrigan’s “Rat Pack” — to inspect properties and make sure landlords evict any furry, four-legged tenants. If evidence of rat activity is found, landlords have two weeks to get rid of the rats before being cited.

Inspectors will carry hand-held computers that will allow them to record and track data while in the field. “Right now, we don’t have any concrete data,” Corrigan told the New York Post.  ”One of the goals is to collect that data so we can see where problem areas are.” The plan is to create maps to help community boards tackle the problem. “Rats are a barometer for human activity,” Corrigan explained. “So if we can show people where the problems are, they will hopefully do what they need to do” (i.e., get rid of the rats!).

This rat would have been a challenge even for Bobby Corrigan. Scientists in Uruguay have discovered fossil evidence of a one ton rodent as big as a bull! With a 20-inch scull, 8-foot long body and weighing in at 1,700 to 3,000 pounds, the beast wouldn’t have scurried into your basement through a gap in the sewer outlet, he’d have just battered down your door! Not that Corrigan wouldn’t be up to the challenge. Corrigan is New York City’s full-time rodent hunter.

Pulling in a six-figure city salary, the noted (and notorious) rodentologist has been training city workers for the past two years to trap rodents instead of just chasing them elsewhere. Now Corrigan’s been put in charge of a pilot program to rid the Bronx of its burgeoning rat population. If the 18-month program is successful, it will be expanded citywide.

Even as you read this, swarms of Health Department inspectors are blanketing the Bronx, looking for and recording signs of the disease-spreading rodents. A public prevention campaign is being launched to school residents in protecting their homes from rat infiltration. The city is doubling its complement of health inspectors who are expected to visit up to 200 properties a day. Property owners who fail to get rid of rats could be fined. With fines starting at $200, you’ll want to keep Stern Environmental Group’s phone number (locally: 201-319-9620 or toll free: 1-888-887-8376) handy in case you find evidence of rats on your property. Click here for information on Stern’s highly effective commercial and residential rat control services.

As if regular rats weren’t enough, imagine gross, hairy, dirty rats the size of dogs and they are being found in New Jersey of all places! As odd and even scary as this may sound, these horror-story creatures do, in fact, exist. This furry fiend is called the nutria, and, currently, it’s making its home in the Garden State, New Jersey.

Originally from South America, this 12-20 lb. rodent, somewhat resembling a beaver, is capable of living in water and on land. It is found mostly in Latin America and in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi. Female nutrias can be pregnant with three litters a year, and they are able to get pregnant again within a day of giving birth. However, these creatures aren’t too scary… At least, they won’t eat you. The nutrias are plant eaters. They can devour twenty-five percent of their body weight, every day!

In the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, nutrias were actually bred for their fine furs. As this trend of nutria farming spread throughout the South and along the Gulf Coast area, the population of these rodents grew and grew. This wouldn’t be such a problem if they weren’t considered to be one of the most damaging creatures to happen upon the marshlands. In just the past half-century, they’ve devoured about 7,000 acres of salt marsh. They’ve been making their way up the Eastern Seaboard, throughout Maryland and Delaware. Maryland is taking firm action to keep the population of nutrias to a low and to protect our waters and marsh life.

It’s funny how much media has a sway on poplar belief. One could think, “Eww! Rats are gross,” and never even dream of owning one as a pet. That very same person could then see an adorable rat in a movie, and fall head over heels. The funny thing is, until the new movie “Ratatouille,” rats were a common pest that caused grown men to sound loud shrieks and women to jump up on chairs, in sheer terror. Come on, would you get a pet rat? One would guess that you should watch “Ratatouille” before answering that question because many did, and now rats are a house pet must have.

Since Disney/Pixar released “Ratatouille,” the popularity of pet rats has gone way up for pet businesses, especially during this holiday season. Some shops are swamped with requests for these furry little critters, which is quite remarkable due to the fact that rats are a common household enemy, and on the exterminator’s top priority list. Although, kids see rats differently, and sorry to say it, but they’re right. Rats are actually not stinky, and they happen to be quite clean, despite their dirty, sewer-dwelling image.

Hollywood has portrayed rats in a negative light for many, many years. This may be why, when a rat runs through the room, people press the panic button and pandemonium breaks loose. The amazing thing is that, all at once, the image of the disgusting rat has been inverted to a loveable friend and, perhaps, even a member of the family. Think about what other truths Hollywood could get people to swallow.