ITHACA, N.Y. — Rats! New York residents have long had a toxic neighborly relationship with the notorious rodents, and in the city of Ithaca the pest problems seem to be getting more noticeable. While city and county officials say there has not been a significant increase in reports of rodents, anecdotes traveling via word-of-mouth and online on platforms like Nextdoor claim there has been a rise in rat encounters locally. A few residents have shared hair-raising stories of rodents scurrying through apartments in Ithaca without much sense of what to blame, particularly as the weather cooled in late summer.
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But the seasonal change didn’t bring as much cold weather as it typically would. One local expert said the 50-degree days Ithaca saw as late as mid-November this year may have something to do with the seeming uptick.The Northeast Regional Climate Center shows that Ithaca’s average daily temperature in November from 1991-2020 was 38.6 degrees. In 2024, the average was far milder according to the National Weather Service, closer to 50 degrees with several days that peaked at temperatures warmer than 70 degrees.
In Ithaca, warming winters improve rats’ survivability through the cold months, leading to higher reproductive rates in the spring, said Matt Frye, a rodent and structural pest specialist for Cornell University. Frye works with the pest management industry as well as state and federal regulators to address pest problems in or around buildings. “If we have warmer winters, we have better survival of rat populations through the winter, which means more individuals that are around in the spring, when they really have a peak of reproduction,” Frye said.
There is a second peak that occurs during the fall, which is one explanation for why there may be a rise in rats throughout the city. To counteract the pest problem, it’ll take a community-wide effort, Frye said. Temperatures and climate play a role, but there are other factors at play as well. An abundance of food sources can also attract rodents — typically in the form of mismanaged waste or poorly secured animal food, especially in agricultural settings.
“Rats are opportunistic omnivores, which means they take advantage of whatever they can find,” Frye said. While rats would not eat chickens, they do eat their feed, eggs and even feces if they have access to the coop.
Frye said it is important to proactively monitor for pest problems because the sooner the issue is identified, the sooner management practices can be put in place. Rats can cause a slew of problems for humans. Structural damage, Frye said, is often the first thing people note when they have rat issues. If rats dig extensive burrow systems underneath a structure like a house, it could weaken the base that holds a structure’s foundation. As rats gnaw their way through a home in search of food or shelter, they can also cause weatherization issues,