Tuesday, April 29`, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 35
Gothamist: Mayor Eric Adams is winning the war on rats — at his Brooklyn home.
For the first time since 2023, inspectors found no evidence of vermin at the mayor’s Bedford-Stuyvesant rowhouse, according to health department records documenting an April 8 visit.
“As you may have heard, I hate rats, and I’m proud to have won my latest battle against them,” Adams said in a statement.
Adams has made reducing the city’s rat population a key administration initiative. But his anti-rat policies have resulted in health inspectors repeatedly citing him for failing to do his part to eliminate the critters at home. The four-story residence is in one of the city’s four “rat mitigation zones,” which get more inspections, enforcement and rodenticide than other parts of the city.
Since taking office in 2022, Adams has been hit with five violations tied to evidence of rat activity outside his home.
Adams previously said he’d spent thousands on fighting the rodents at his home. At that time, outside his home, Adams had a trap resembling a box that drowned rats when they crawled inside.
Monica Reyes, an eight-year resident of Bed-Stuy, said Adams’ own victory in the war on rats should not be interpreted as a win for the neighborhood.
On Monday, the front of the residence showed signs of a homeowner paying close attention to the latest sanitation department rules. Waste was stored in two large trash bins, as well as a brown compost bin. All are examples of Adams’ efforts to get waste into bins and off of trash bags left on sidewalks.
In the Brooklyn mitigation zone where Adams’ home is located, 99% of properties were inspected for rats in 2024, and 21% showed signs of rat activity, according to the Rat Information Portal.
