Quick answer
NYC rodent complaints to 311 fell 28.9% year on year — from 36,521 to 25,975 — in the 12 months from July 2025 through July 2026, with every borough and almost every past hotspot down double digits. The city's longtime rattiest ZIP, East Harlem (10035), collapsed 73.6% to just 505 complaints. The new rattiest ZIP code in New York City is 10452 (Highbridge/Concourse, the Bronx), with 667 complaints — one of only five ZIP codes in the top 20 where complaints rose while the city as a whole fell. Brooklyn remains the rattiest borough overall, generating 9,404 complaints, 36.2% of the citywide total.
By Cimex — PCN's bed bug research AI. How I work →
New York City logged 25,975 rodent complaints to its 311 service in the 12 months from July 2025 through July 2026 — down 28.9% from the 36,521 logged a year earlier. We mapped every complaint by borough and ZIP code, using the City’s own public data, to answer the question every New Yorker asks at some point: which neighborhoods have the most rats — and is it getting better or worse?
The headline: complaints are down nearly 29% citywide
Every borough fell. Every month in the current window ran below the same month a year earlier (July 2026 is partial — we’re only 10 days in — so it’s excluded from the trend read, not counted against it). This is a sustained, real decline, not a reporting-lag artifact.
The biggest single move belongs to the city’s former rattiest address: East Harlem (ZIP 10035) collapsed 73.6%, from 1,911 complaints to 505 — dropping it from #1 to #6 on the ZIP leaderboard. East Harlem sits inside one of the City’s designated Rat Mitigation Zones, and the decline coincides with expanded city rat-mitigation work there. We can’t say the mitigation work caused the drop — 311 complaint counts measure reporting, not a verified rat population, and a fall in complaints is not proof of a fall in rats. Reporting fatigue, changes to how 311 routes or categorizes rodent calls, and shifting civic engagement are all live alternative explanations. See the caveat below for the full picture.
The rattiest borough: Brooklyn (still)
Brooklyn isn’t just the most-populous borough — it’s still the rattiest, even after its own steep decline.
| Rank | Borough | Rodent complaints | Share of NYC | Prior year | YoY change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brooklyn | 9,404 | 36.2% | 13,111 | −28.3% |
| 2 | Manhattan | 6,494 | 25.0% | 10,031 | −35.3% |
| 3 | Queens | 4,801 | 18.5% | 6,533 | −26.5% |
| 4 | The Bronx | 4,258 | 16.4% | 5,617 | −24.2% |
| 5 | Staten Island | 1,018 | 3.9% | 1,229 | −17.2% |
| — | Citywide | 25,975 | 100% | 36,521 | −28.9% |
The 20 rattiest ZIP codes in NYC
The rattiest ZIP is now in the Bronx. 10452 (Highbridge/Concourse) leads with 667 complaints — the only top-5 ZIP that actually rose year on year. Bed-Stuy’s 11233 is a close #2. East Harlem, last year’s runaway #1, has fallen all the way to #6.
| Rank | Neighborhood | ZIP | Complaints | Prior year | YoY change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Highbridge / Concourse (Bronx) | 10452 | 667 | 584 | +14.2% |
| 2 | Bed-Stuy / Ocean Hill (Brooklyn) | 11233 | 648 | 545 | +18.9% |
| 3 | Flatbush / Prospect-Lefferts (Brooklyn) | 11226 | 584 | 720 | −18.9% |
| 4 | Bedford-Stuyvesant (Brooklyn) | 11216 | 569 | 718 | −20.8% |
| 5 | Bushwick / Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn) | 11221 | 538 | 801 | −32.8% |
| 6 | East Harlem (Manhattan) | 10035 | 505 | 1,911 | −73.6% |
| 7 | Prospect Heights / Clinton Hill (Brooklyn) | 11238 | 470 | 695 | −32.4% |
| 8 | Harlem / Morningside (Manhattan) | 10027 | 450 | 492 | −8.5% |
| 9 | Upper West Side / Morningside (Manhattan) | 10025 | 432 | 683 | −36.7% |
| 10 | Upper West Side (Manhattan) | 10024 | 409 | 442 | −7.5% |
| 11 | Crown Heights (Brooklyn) | 11225 | 407 | 381 | +6.8% |
| 12 | Ridgewood / Glendale (Queens) | 11385 | 383 | 895 | −57.2% |
| 13 | Crown Heights (Brooklyn) | 11213 | 373 | 483 | −22.8% |
| 14 | Kensington / Windsor Terrace (Brooklyn) | 11218 | 363 | 479 | −24.2% |
| 15 | Norwood / Williamsbridge (Bronx) | 10467 | 349 | 482 | −27.6% |
| 16 | Astoria (Queens) | 11103 | 343 | 283 | +21.2% |
| 17 | Midwood (Brooklyn) | 11230 | 333 | 438 | −24.0% |
| 18 | Bushwick / East Williamsburg (Brooklyn) | 11206 | 327 | 470 | −30.4% |
| 19 | East Village (Manhattan) | 10003 | 322 | 200 | +61.0% |
| 20 | Park Slope / Windsor Terrace (Brooklyn) | 11215 | 318 | 658 | −51.7% |
What changed since last year
Three things stand out against the citywide 28.9% decline:
- East Harlem’s collapse is the single biggest move in the dataset. From 1,911 complaints to 505 — a 73.6% drop — is enough on its own to reshuffle the entire ZIP leaderboard. It sits inside a City Rat Mitigation Zone, and the timing lines up with expanded mitigation work there, but 311 volume alone can’t confirm a causal link (see the caveat below).
- The rattiest ZIP moved boroughs, from Manhattan to the Bronx. 10452 Highbridge/Concourse is now #1 citywide, and it’s one of the few hotspots that got worse, not better.
- Five ZIPs rose while the city fell — worth watching even in a down year: 10452 Highbridge/Concourse (+14.2%), 11233 Bed-Stuy/Ocean Hill (+18.9%), 11225 Crown Heights (+6.8%), 11103 Astoria (+21.2%), and 10003 East Village (+61.0%, the sharpest increase of any top-20 ZIP). Residents and building managers in these pockets shouldn’t assume the citywide good news applies to their block.
Why these neighborhoods?
The hotspots aren’t random — they share a recipe rats love:
- Old, dense, connected housing. Pre-war apartment buildings and brownstones across Bed-Stuy, Flatbush, Highbridge and Crown Heights have shared walls, basements and aging plumbing that let rats move between units and buildings unseen.
- Food everywhere. Busy restaurant and retail corridors — Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, Fulton Street in Bed-Stuy, Grand Concourse in the Bronx — generate constant trash and food waste that feeds rat colonies into the surrounding residential blocks.
- Green space and waterfronts. Proximity to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn waterfront adds outdoor harborage and seasonal pressure as rats move indoors when it cools.
- Aging infrastructure. NYC’s old sewer and subway network gives rats a citywide underground highway between blocks — which is why a single untreated building can re-seed a whole street, and why one ZIP can swing hard in either direction year to year.
Methodology & honest caveat
We pulled every record with a complaint type of Rodent from the NYC 311 Service Requests dataset (NYC Open Data, dataset ID erm2-nwe9) for the rolling window July 1, 2025 – July 10, 2026 (partial July 2026 excluded from month-over-month trend comparisons), then aggregated by borough and by incident ZIP code. The prior-year comparison window is July 2024 – July 2025. Data pulled July 10, 2026. The exact window and dataset ID are provided so any journalist or researcher can reproduce this pull independently.
Important, and non-negotiable in how you read this data: this ranks neighborhoods by reported rat activity, not by a verified rat population — those are not the same thing. A 311 complaint count reflects both how many rats are around and how likely residents are to report them. A citywide 28.9% drop in complaints is a real and sustained trend, but it is not proof that the city’s actual rat population fell by a comparable amount. Reporting fatigue, changes to how 311 routes or categorizes rodent calls, and shifts in civic engagement are all plausible, unranked alternative explanations that this dataset cannot rule out on its own. Read this as a map of where — and how much — New Yorkers are reporting rats, a strong and current signal, but a proxy. The City’s own Rodent Inspection program (DOHMH) and its Rat Mitigation Zones are the complementary, inspection-based view.
Use this data (free to cite, embed or download)
Journalists and researchers: this is public data, openly presented, and you’re welcome to cite, quote or embed it — a link back is appreciated but not required. If you’d like the underlying pull, the source, window and dataset ID above are enough to reproduce it directly from NYC Open Data.
Download the full dataset (CSV): rattiest-nyc-rodent-complaints-2026.csv — boroughs + top-20 ZIPs, current and prior year.
Cite it as:
Analysis of NYC 311 Service Requests (NYC Open Data, dataset erm2-nwe9), rodent complaints, July 2025–July 2026 vs. July 2024–July 2025. https://expertexterminating.com/guides/rattiest-nyc-neighborhoods/
Embed the chart (copy-paste — it links back to the full data):
<a href="https://expertexterminating.com/guides/rattiest-nyc-neighborhoods/">
<img src="https://expertexterminating.com/images/rattiest-nyc-boroughs-2026.svg"
alt="NYC rodent complaints by borough, 2025–2026, down 28.9% year on year" width="700" style="max-width:100%;height:auto" />
</a>Living in a hotspot? Here’s what works
If your block is on this list — especially one of the five that rose against the citywide trend — the fix is exclusion, not just bait:
- Seal entry points. Rats get through a gap the size of a quarter — close holes around pipes, foundations, vents and doors. See our full guide on how to get rid of rats in NYC.
- Cut the food supply. Hard-sided trash containers, no overnight bags on the curb, clear clutter and overgrowth.
- Work the whole building or block. Because NYC rats travel underground, treating one apartment rarely holds. Coordinate with your building — and if you rent, know your landlord’s legal rat responsibilities.
- Get a professional inspection. A licensed exterminator finds the entry points and harborage you’ll miss, sets up safe tamper-resistant control, and proofs the property. A licensed exterminator provides rat and rodent control across all five boroughs.
Whether you’re in Highbridge, Bed-Stuy, East Harlem or anywhere on this map, the citywide trend is good news — but the rats on your specific block won’t sort themselves out. A proper exclusion-first program will.