Tourists are flocking to New York to check out its exploding rat population and tour guides are tailoring excursions to introduce ‘rat tours’.
Kenny Bollwerk — or as he’s sometimes called the “rat guy” — has built up a substantial following in recent years livestreaming some of the city’s most rat-infested areas on TikTok.
The videos aren’t enough “RatTok” fans so he started taking tourists and locals along with him as he documents the critters, offering what are essentially free walking tours of New York’s rat hotspots.
“I can’t believe this is actually a thing,” Bollwerk told a podcast host. “I think it’s because of the excitement. Like, there’s so many things that they’ve come and they’ve done already. They’ve seen the Empire State Building already. They’ve seen Central Park already. They want to see something different.”
Bollwerk is not the only one offering ‘rat tours’. Luke Miller, owner of Real New York Tours, says several years ago he added a stop to his tours in Columbus Park for tourists who are curious about the rodents.
He said one location has generally been enough for rat enthusiasts on his tours but requests are skyrocketing after he was quoted in an article about rat tourism.
Bollwerk says that when he moved to New York from Missouri in 2019, he was taken aback by its robust rat population. He says he’s seen as many as 100 rats in a single location, especially on construction sites and uncovered garbage bags.
“I didn’t think it could be as bad as people are saying but I’ve gone through a couple infested spots around the city, and they’re just running from underneath construction sites, going to the sidewalk where there’s just trash bags laying on the sidewalk,” he said.
“The bags are moving. And it’s not the wind blowing the bags, it’s the rats inside. It looks like a heart pumping from your chest.” About a dozen rats emerge from a construction side and cross the sidewalk in a line towards a pile of garbage bags.
He says he started filming them to draw attention to what he believes is a real problem. “The ultimate goal when I started shooting the videos was to make sure people knew what was going on at first, and how to report the issue,” he said.
Upwards of 2,000 people tune into his RatTok streams, he says. And of those, several hundred will call the city to report the rat infestation he’s filming.
New York is making progress in its war on rats since it appointed a director of citywide rodent mitigation — a.k.a. the “rat czar” — in April.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams — a self-proclaimed rat hater — credits new rat-curbing measures that limit when and how long garbage can be placed outside, and mandate the use of covered bins.
“Every food scrap that we keep out of the trash and every black bag that we keep off the street is a meal that we’re taking out of a hungry rodent’s stomach,” Adams said in the release.
Some people have accused Bollwerk of feeding the rats to lure them for his videos, like a boat tour operator chumming the waters for sharks. He denies the claims.
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