Long Island towns, villages keep up the fight against rats

The visual was both striking and unsettling: dozens of rats scurrying about a property in the heart of downtown Huntington this summer.

In videos that went viral, they were seen taking over a vacant property not far from popular restaurants. The sight was a shock to many residents, who might be used to seeing the rodents only on the streets of New York City and in other urban settings.

And it prompted a question: Does Long Island have a rat problem?

Health and municipal officials said that while large infestations are rare on the Island, rats exist in every town and village — in some places more than others — and keeping their numbers low requires diligence. Nassau and Suffolk counties' health departments combined received more than 1,400 rat complaints last year. 

Two major factors contribute to the presence of rats, experts say: density and the availability of what the rodents consider to be food. And there's no shortage of either here.

“Rats are very ubiquitous; they’re pretty much all over the Island at this point,” said Babylon Department of Environmental Control specialist Vincent Biondo. “Rats thrive where humans thrive. ... They don’t discriminate, they don’t care if you’re rich or poor, they just pop up.”

Bobby Corrigan, who has a doctorate in urban rodentology and a consulting business that has helped cities worldwide address rat problems, said the equation is simple: Increased density equals increased rats.

Dubbed the “rat czar,” Corrigan grew up on Long Island and started his career working for a pest control company here. “For the past 15 years we are seeing more and more rat issues everywhere, and of course Long Island is not immune to that,” he said.

He said controlling their population often comes down to controlling trash — a main food source. “There’s not some great secret here,” Corrigan said. “In most cases, the amazing irony and simplicity of this is that we do not do well with our trash.”

The rodents most often can be found in residential areas on Long Island, where they seek food and then burrow underground, local officials said. Their menu can include birdseed or dog feces outside homes, or even traces of grease on a dumpster outside a restaurant.

“I’ve seen a pile of grease fat that has solidified, and you can see the rat teeth marks in it, almost like when a kid eats an ice pop and drags their teeth across,” Biondo said.

Once rats find a reliable food source, whether it’s a restaurant dumpster or a backyard bird feeder, they set up camp, Corrigan said.

“Their behavior says, 'You know what, there’s a grocery store nearby, it’s time to move into my house,'” he said.

Officials said they become detectives when rat complaints come in, trying to figure out what's attracting the rodents.

In one instance, Biondo said, workers exhaustedly searched a residential property and couldn't find an obvious food source. Then they spotted a cornhole game: The wily rats were eating the corn used in beanbags for the game.

In Huntington, town officials said the property owner hired an extermination company, and restaurants were issued citations for violations such as improper waste storage. A few weeks after the rats were seen, officials there said there was "significant improvement," Newsday previously reported.

Disparity in county complaints

In cases such as Huntington’s, or if a municipality needs help, the county’s health departments step in to investigate.

Nassau County Department of Health spokeswoman Alyssa Zohrabian said that in 2024, the department had 1,189 rat complaints. The department does not provide extermination, but residents are edcuated on how to reduce rodent activity. The figure is down from the last two years, with the department recording 1,216 complaints in 2023 and 1,416 in 2022.

When rats are confirmed on-site, “property owners are responsible for addressing the problem,” Zohrabian said in an email. “In multiunit dwellings ... the property owner must provide licensed extermination.”

Zohrabian said action is taken when violations remain uncorrected after other efforts, like education and guidance, are employed. Penalties can vary, she said, but the maximum civil penalty for violations of state Public Health Law is $2,000 per instance.

Suffolk’s health department reports having received 258 rodent-related complaints in 2024, the majority of which were for rats, spokeswoman Grace Kelly-McGovern said in an email. That number is up from the previous two years, with the department recording 233 rodent-related complaints in 2023 and 223 in 2022.

“A complaint triggers an investigation, which can lead to enforcement actions if the property owner does not resolve the issue,” Kelly-McGovern said. “The process involves inspections, education, abatement orders and potential fines for noncompliance.”

Suffolk County sanitary code allots possible fines of up to $2,000 per violation per day, she said.

According to Kelly-McGovern, the county has initiated 12 enforcement actions since 2020: two in Smithtown and one each in Amityville, Central Islip, Huntington Station, Deer Park, East Northport, Kings Park, Mastic, Melville, Sound Beach and West Islip. The largest fine was $750 for a rental property in Smithtown.

It’s not clear why there’s such a disparity between the two county health departments’ complaint numbers, but Corrigan speculated it might have to do with Nassau’s higher population density and proximity to Queens, as well as how the complaints are categorized.

On the lookout downtown 

As Long Island’s burgeoning downtowns become more populated with restaurants, villages have had to step up preventive measures.

In Farmingdale's bustling downtown, Mayor Ralph Ekstrand said, a village inspector is assigned to check on the businesses monthly. If a business is out of compliance, "he's there every day until he fixes it," Ekstrand said, with fines issued for violations like leaving food outside of garbage receptacles.

"We're very diligent, and the store owners know," Ekstrand said.

Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri said the village’s rat problems are “always in the parking lots around the dumpsters behind the restaurants.” Any complaint immediately brings a call to an exterminator, Pontieri said.

"[Rats] don’t ever really go away, they just go away and hide and pop up someplace else,” Pontieri said.

Corrigan said being proactive with businesses is key for municipalities.

“I’m always encouraging city governments or town governments to have some form of a dumpster task force,” he said.

Riverhead Town engineer Drew Dillingham credited “good housekeeping” and being strict with businesses with keeping rodent infestations at bay downtown.

“We're pretty good at making sure … that they lock the doors at night, and we make sure that there's no stray garbage outside of the dumpsters,” he said.

Similarly, Northport Village Administrator Roland Buzard said that with increased foot traffic in the warmer months, the village increases trash collection and strengthens trash receptacle maintenance. The village also performs weekly monitoring of bait stations and traps and uses record keeping to show trends and successes.  Buzard said the village had “under 10” rat complaints last year.

Biondo, the Babylon Town official, said rat complaints wax and wane based on suspected environmental factors, such as warm winters or a big acorn crop. Right now, the town is getting two to three complaints a week, he said.

Lindenhurst Village Administrator Joseph Barone said he’s lovingly referred to as “rat man” around Village Hall because he often fields rat-related complaints. He said the village gets about seven calls a year, mostly for residences. In the village's downtown, a property maintenance inspector speaks to business owners about prevention.

“We have a thriving downtown so we don’t want any issues, so everyone polices themselves,” Barone said. “If somebody sees something with a dumpster — I don’t want to say they ‘rat’ on their neighbor, but they do — and we go down there and knock on the door.”

'They try to remain unseen'

Some local towns and villages told Newsday they have received very few or even no complaints about rats.

Great Neck Village Clerk Abraham Cohan said they have had three reported rat sightings this year, but that he had not previously heard of any complaints in his 10 years as clerk.

Long Beach City spokesman John McNally reported getting only “a couple” of rat complaints a year. Islip Town spokeswoman Caroline Smith told Newsday the town has only had one complaint since 2023.

Corrigan said that while it’s possible for a municipality to have few or no rat complaints, many Long Islanders might not be aware of just how many rats are nearby because the intelligent rodents do their best to go undetected. Rats are night feeders because they are a prey species with a long list of wild animals hunting them, ranging from foxes and coyotes to hawks and owls.

“They try to remain unseen as best they can, so they kind of slink about in the shadows, usually from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” Corrigan said. “I call that ‘rat o’clock.’ ”

He also points out that some municipalities might be hesitant to admit a rat presence.

“Unfortunately, humans are forever tied to the stigma that if a block has rats, it must be a block of squalor and disrepair and — gasp — maybe the plague,” he said. “But that is not reality.”

The pest control debate

Corrigan said that once a rat problem is identified, professional pest control has to be employed. Any rodenticide must be put in locked boxes that will not poison nearby pets or wildlife.

But those bait boxes can still significantly injure wildlife, Corrigan said. A rat that ingests the poison won't die instantly — it will grow more sick and start slowing down, leading it to be more susceptible to being caught by predators such as hawks and foxes.

“The studies are just pouring in saying these things are the DDT of our time,” he said. “We are growing those rat colonies in our towns and cities and then saying, 'Well, can’t take care of the trash, so let’s put out the poison.'”

Some officials defended the use of rodenticide, saying animals would have to eat many rodents to incur its effects.

Corrigan said that “poisoning even at low levels, repeatedly ingested over several feedings," can decrease wildlife populations.

“Pest professionals do need the right tools to control rodents,” he said. “But the right tool is clearly not a poison box that can harm so many non-target animals."

People should maintain their properties so as to not attract rats in the first place, he said.

To that point, Corrigan said, rats will continue to inhabit and migrate on Long Island as long as the allure of trash is present.

“It’s easy for them to go and spread on a suburban block,” he said. “They just follow the fence rows ... and when things get crowded, they find the next house that’s not handling their garbage too well.”