Comptroller: City Too Slow on Rat Complaints

Street rat

New York City health inspectors assigned to complaints about rat infestations sometimes marked cases as closed if they arrived at a property and no one was home, according to the city comptroller's office. In other instances, supervisors failed to follow up and make sure that properties that had failed inspection had been cleaned up as ordered.

And in dozens of cases, the New York City Department of Health failed to meet its own 10-day goal for responding to complaints about rat infestations.

The New York City Comptroller’s Office released these findings in a 37-page audit that looked at how the city’s Department of Health responds to citizen pest control complaints.

“Our inspectors went out to see what exactly what was going on,” Comptroller Scott Stringer told WNYC after releasing the audit. “In 160 cases we looked at, there was no inspection at all. The department closes some cases before they’re even resolved … I believe we need to put pressure on the Department of Health to better manage their rat infestation program and to respond to citizens who are calling because they are seeing some very troubling things out in the street."

The city health department strongly disputed the audit, saying in a statement that the audit focused on complaint-driven inspections, rather than on inspections initiated by the health department that make up a much larger portion of its work. It said the department’s overall approach includes “discovering where rats are present, notifying owners about how to respond, and carrying out targeted efforts to exterminate and prevent rats from reemerging.”

The Comptroller’s Office accompanied health department inspectors on cases around the five boroughs as part of its audit. It looked at how the department followed procedures for addressing pest control complaints between July 1, 2011 and April 8, 2014.

The Comptroller’s Office issued a list of recommendations, including creating timelines to make sure that inspections were initiated in a timely manner, and using technology to track inspection data reliably in the field.