A major part of the reasoning behind the proposal to ban food on the subway currently in the State Senate is that your leftovers are many rats main courses. So what better time to sit back and watch some videos of rats hanging out in subway stations, chilling out and taking their people food for a stroll? more ›

Won't someone think of the rats?! After all, Frank "Rat Man" Calzarano is only one man—for over a decade he's risen at dawn to bring food to the poor needy rats on the Lower East Side, particularly in the vicinity of Stanton Street. But New York City's rat community has thousands, perhaps millions, of desperate rodents, and Calzarano can't feed them all himself, try as he might. And if one area woman has her way, Calzarano's rats will be left to starve in the gutter. more ›

Russian billionaires and bleak buildings aren't the only things the Atlantic Yards project is bringing to Brooklyn: the construction is reportedly stirring up a large rat colony, some of which are "the size of cats." At a recent meeting to address the issue, two Downtown Brooklyn residents said that the rats got into their cars' engine blocks, "leaving behind chicken bones and aluminum foil, all the while chewing on the wires." One neighbor tells City Room, "We don't have a normal rat problem, we have a rat tsunami." more ›

Though they promise a "level of service and quality unparalleled anywhere in Brooklyn," the Chocolate Factory development by the Brooklyn Navy Yard was slammed with a lawsuit from two residents who say their apartment was filled with mold, rats and mice. Jonathan Mairs and Momoko Uno claim their $3,000 a month loft was filled with so much mold it caused water damage, gave them breathing problems, and caused their daughter to get rashes and stomach problems. The couple hired an air quality expert in April, who found three types of mold throughout the apartment. However, building management refused to make any changes to the apartment. "This is supposed to be a luxury building. This is not luxury," said Uno. more ›

At first glance these new accessories line for men looked pretty cool... until we realized they were made from pigeons and rats! Avant-garde artist Reid Peppard uses "taxidermy crafted from road kill and pest controlled vermin," according to Boing Boing. Prices aren't listed on her site, but we're guessing that Rat Bowtie will cost you a pretty penny—its eyes were replaced with Swarovski crystals. more ›

Rather than building new affordable homes in the city, Bloomberg now wants to spruce up those that already exist. His revamped plan will cost $8.5 billion and seeks to preserve 165,000 units by 2014. One Bed-Stuy housing development would have been a good candidate for the program, until it called a press conference to address its long list of complaints and the repairs were miraculously completed. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” said Cassandra Harrell, the president of the Bed-Stuy Rehabs’ resident association, who has lived in the project for 27 years. “They put up Sheetrock, they painted the walls, they knew the press was coming.” more ›

The rat problem in the Upper West Side's Verdi Square, once called Needle Park, has gotten so bad that recently the Parks Dept. called for back-up. "We have sent an extra staff person there in the early morning and later in the day," said Cristina DeLuca, a spokeswoman from the Parks Dept. "The park is now being cleaned as much as three times a day to address the rodent issues." Still, neighborhood residents say the rats are part of their routine. "If you clap your hands at night they all jump out of the bushes," said Rob Hafferman, who lives nearby. It turns out, the rodents have not gone undocumented. more ›

This town is crawling with mice and rats and terrifying mutant cockroaches, so it's funny WABC "Eyewitness News" is so shocked to find the city school system has a bit of a rodent problem. The fact that school lunch is unappetizing isn't exactly flashing-siren news, but this is revolting nonetheless: Records obtained through Freedom of Information show that 545 school cafeterias had one or more critical health violations, and about one-third of those violations were for mice and mice droppings. Perhaps student Jose Rodriguez said it best: "Nasty. It's disgusting, but it's really not surprising." more ›

Several NYU dining halls were just points away from being shut down by the Health Department after inspections, and the sanitary conditions have greatly deteriorated at the 13 cafeterias listed on the DOH website. The only dining hall that improved was the Hayden Dining Hall, but that's not saying much: It only dropped from 27 violation points to 26—28 is the dirty magic number that gets an eatery shut down. It seems the big problem is vermin, which multiplied because of "the severity of construction in and around NYU, which creates movement and migrations," says Director of Dining Services Owen Moor. Speaking to the Washington Square News, one cafeteria worker was more blunt: "The building is infested with rats, so there isn’t much we can do personally about that." Senior Anisha Noble sums up the student perspective: "That is disgusting." Totally. It's a miracle the students who recently occupied the Kimmel Building cafeteria survived without having their stomachs pumped: Not only did the dining hall tie for second-worst (24 points), but it was also cited for serving food with artificial trans-fat. No wonder they were so outraged! more ›

The common rule of thumb is that there are eight or nine rats for every human being in New York City, which means a scurrying verminous population of 64-72 million lurking in walls, below streets, in trash cans, and sometimes in plain sight. Being a rat catcher or, better yet, a rat exterminator is a profession that will never end, and the NY Times spoke to some exterminators about the unwinnable battle.

Mr. Cruz, who started working as an exterminator in 1996, opened his business five years ago, and in his opinion, there is a difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn rodents. “Manhattan rats look like cats, not like rats,” Mr. Cruz said. “Brooklyn rats look like rats.” more ›

For the second time in as many years, the famous Stage Deli in Manhattan was shuttered by the Dept. of Health after inspections found the restaurant infested with vermin. The Times Square institution was last closed in mid-2006 after it accrued too many points during a health inspection (points are for violations and a score above 28 is a failure.) As reported in The New York Times, the DOH inspected the Stage last Wednesday and assigned it a failing score. The deli was allowed to remain open while it corrected major violations, but a subsequent inspection 48 hours later still resulted in insufficient cleanliness. more ›