Chicago, Los Angeles and New York are the three cities with the most rats in the country

This year's ranking put together by Orkin (a pest control company) - which lists the 50 cities with the most rodents in the country - revealed that Chicago (Illinois) is the "rattiest" city in the nation for the ninth consecutive year.

In second place was Los Angeles (California), which rose one position compared to last year. New York City (which dropped one place in the ranking) rounds out the top three cities on the list.

The company ranks cities based on the number of services they performed (in a period of one year 2022-2023) to exterminate rats in both homes and businesses.

The cities with the most rats in the country

The ranking states that "Each fall, mice and other rodents invade an estimated 21 million homes in the United States. They typically enter homes between October and February looking for food, water and shelter from the cold":

Rodents multiply swiftly and when an infestation is left unattended, they can cause extensive damage to homes and yards," said Ben Hottel, an Orkin entomologist. "Rats are capable of squeezing into spaces through holes as small as a quarter, which makes it especially important to seal cracks from the outside.

The cities with the most rats in the country are:

1. 1. Chicago
   2. Los Angeles
   3. New York City
   4. Washington D.C.
   5. San Francisco
   6. Philadelphia
   7. Baltimore
   8. Denver
   9. Detroit (+1)
   10. Cleveland-Akron (-1)
   11. Minneapolis-St. Paul
   12. Seattle
   13. Boston
   14. Atlanta
   15. Indianapolis
   16. Pittsburgh
   17. Hartford
   18. Columbus, OH (+3)
   19. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale (+1)
   20. Houston (+10)
   21. Charlotte (+16)
   22. Dallas-Ft. Worth (+2)
   23. Raleigh-Durham (+8)
   24. Milwaukee (-6)
   25. Great Rapids (-2)
   26. Portland, OR (-4)
   27. Norfolk-Portsmth (+1)
   28. San Diego (-9)
   29. Richmond-Petersburg (+3)
   30. New Orleans (+8)
   31. Cincinnati (-6)
   32. Greenville-Spartanburg (+10)
   33. Sacramento (+7)
   34. Kansas City (-5)
   35. Nashville (-9)
   36. Tampa-St. Pete (+5)
   37. Orlando-Daytona Beach (+12)
   38. Buffalo (-5)
   39. St. Louis (-5)
   40. Phoenix (+5)
   41. Champaign, Illinois (-14)
   42. Albany-Troy (-6)
   43. Flint (-8)
   44. Burlington-Plattsburgh (+4)
   45. Albuquerque (+17)
   46. Rochester, New York (+5)
   47. South Bend, IN (-4)
   48. Syracuse (-9)
   49. Charleston-Huntington (-2)
   50. Greensboro, North Carolina (+17)

NYC appointed a "rat czar"

A few months ago, New York City reached its breaking point. There were so many rats that Mayor Eric Adams announced he appointed Kathleen Corradi as the city's first Director of Rodent Mitigation.

The well-known 'rat czar' makes $155,000 a year and her job is to organize joint strategies with government agencies, community groups and private sector companies to address the health problem that rodents pose in the city and reduce their population:

New York City has done a lot recently when it comes to fighting public enemy number one: rats (...) We needed someone focused solely on leading our rat abatement efforts and today I am proud to announce Kathy Corradi as the city's first rat czar (...) Kathy has the knowledge, drive, experience and energy to send the rats packing and create a cleaner, more welcoming city for all New Yorkers.

Although the number of rats in the city is unknown, a 2014 study estimated that at that time there were two million rats, one for every four residents.