New York City Mayor Eric Adams has appointed Kathleen Corradi as the first “czar” to combat rats, the city’s “public enemy number one.” Corradi, who has a background in the Department of Education managing rat control and pest control in public schools, will coordinate the efforts of different agencies, community organizations, and the private sector to reduce the population of these animals that represent a public health problem. Her first project will be to implement a $3.5 million plan against rodents in Harlem, one of Manhattan’s neighborhoods.
The appointment of Corradi, who according to the local press will have a salary of 155,000 dollars a year, is part of a series of measures adopted by Adams to minimize the appearance of rodents, such as restricting the hours for taking garbage out to the sidewalks for collection and increasing fines for violators.
New York is notorious for its rat population and the conditions that help them thrive. Sidewalk filth, unmanaged spaces, and burrows in plain sight are some of the symptoms of systemic problems such as sanitation, health, housing, and economic justice. Rats represent a quality of life and public health issue, so Corradi’s appointment is an important step in combating this problem.
Authorities have tried in the past to use different methods to combat rats, such as poison, birth control pills, trained dogs, dry ice or carbonic snow, sticky traps, or drowning them in alcohol, but without much success. The appointment of Corradi with his “killer instinct” to wipe out this “relentless population” is one more effort in the fight against rats in New York.