Editorial: New York has declared war on its legions of rats. Chicago should do the same

Facing budget shortfalls, an ongoing public safety crisis and a contract negotiation with the Chicago Teachers Union underscoring how in thrall Brandon Johnson is to his political benefactors, Chicago’s mayor should take a page from his New York counterpart.

Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams has had a rocky tenure in office, too, but at least he has shown sufficient savvy to embrace an issue that appeals even to his many critics: going after the city’s rats.

Adams has just introduced new anti-rat trash containers shaped like pizza boxes to help people who otherwise would be trying to jam a square box into a round trash can. He’s convening a National Urban Rat Summit later this month at Cornell University to “advance the science of urban rat management.”

He’s also recruited anti-rat volunteers (inevitably dubbed the Rat Pack) to spread the word about rodent mitigation throughout the city, equipping them with hats, T-shirts and other meme-able swag. And while Chicago’s behind-the-scenes rat expert recently announced her retirement from City Hall with little fanfare, New York’s “Rat Czar,” Kathleen Corradi, is one of its highest-profile city officials.

At a joint news conference in late July, Adams and Corradi proudly announced that “rat sightings” in New York were down in 12 of the previous 13 months. “Thanks to our citywide integrated pest-management strategy, and our trash revolution, we’re giving rats the boot,” Adams proclaimed.

Reality check: New York is still strewn with garbage, those new pizza-box trash cans aren’t being widely used and Adams’ approval ratings remain weak. Still, at least New York is dealing with its rat problem head-on.

Chicago, meantime, has become a magnet for these unwanted rodents. For nine straight years, pest-control firm Orkin has named Chicago the nation’s rattiest city, based on the number of rodent treatments it performs. Anyone want to bet what city makes it 10 years straight when Orkin announces the latest “winner” of its rat race next month?

Mayor Johnson has pushed for more anti-rat services, but quietly. For the most part, Chicago seems content to let rodents have their way, and close-in suburbs are reporting new rat infestations, too. As the weather turns colder, rats head indoors, spreading disease, damaging property and otherwise wreaking havoc.

The main culprit in Chicago and the suburbs is the brown rat, also known as the Norway rat, and practically every city resident has seen these critters bounding around parkways and alleys.

They’re widest at the skull, so they can squeeze through pipes or holes the size of a quarter. They burrow like coal miners and chew through wood, plastic and plaster to get at the human-generated garbage they adore. They live in families, breed at impressive rates and they’re smart enough to avoid the traps and rodenticides commonly deployed against them.

Chicago has run rat-abatement programs for as long as anyone can remember, and its website includes tips on how to keep down the numbers, mostly by denying food and shelter. There’s also a dated but still stomach-turning map of rat complaints made to the 311 hot line, numbering in the thousands across all parts of the city.

When rat complaints surged during the pandemic, the city’s rodent first-responders reportedly were overmatched, taking forever to make inspections, deal with festering problems and issue tickets that property owners then routinely ignored.

The city has a history of allowing construction projects to proceed without first dealing with rat infestations, which spreads the problem to neighbors: A rat outbreak in affluent north Evanston and south Wilmette is being blamed in part on the recent demolition of Northwestern University’s football stadium.

In short, the rats are winning. And while Mayor Johnson certainly has other big problems to address, it’s surprising he’s done nothing proactive that we can recall to curb the city’s rat population.

These tough little creatures have become a plague and reducing their numbers would be a popular move — unlike, say, a ruinous giveaway to the self-interested teachers union that used to employ him. Chicagoans can smell a rat like that one a mile away. Getting after the real rats surely would make better political sense, if Mayor Johnson harbors realistic hopes of winning another term.

During the news conference with his rat czar, New York’s Mayor Adams bragged about having “taken this war on rats to the street,” highlighting a trash-container program that is removing millions of pounds of rat-attracting garbage bags from the sidewalks.

Chicago, meanwhile, evidently looks like an all-you-can-eat buffet — from the rat’s perspective, that is. It’s time to shut down the meal train and do more to get these pests out of the city’s neighborhoods, businesses and homes.

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