If you live in New York City or another large metropolis, you probably spend a fair amount of time avoiding, trying to kill, or freaking out over rats. Now New York’s Department Of Health And Mental Hygiene has developed an interactive map to confirm our suspicions that New York is just a big rat city some humans occasionally live in.
The Rat Information Portal (RIP, fittingly) allows you to type or zoom in on any borough or address in the city and get the latest rat stats. For instance, when I looked up my own apartment it was able to provide me with records dating back to July 2013, including what kind of treatment had been taken against my “Active Rats.”
RIP is part of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s “Rat Initiative” — i.e., an all-out battle between rodents and mankind (or perhaps a rat battle?) to determine sovereignty over the city. The Rat Initiative is focused on reducing the presence of Active Rats in a community as a whole, rather than a single property, so in the end rats may be responsible for creating grater New York unity. RIP also offers common sense tips for reducing garbage, vegetation and other things rats love-although no word on what to do if you live in a house made of cheese.
While New York definitely needed a battle plan for taking back the city, I’m just glad the cannibal rat cruise ship isn’t headed our way. If that was going to wind up in the East River, I’d have to move to Santa Fe.
(via Jezebel, image via Caruba)
- A ghost ship filled with cannibal rats is headed towards Britain
- Maybe one day we can just control the rats’ brains
- Not everything in New York is disgusting!
