New York City wants to hire a ‘rat czar’—and could pay them $170,000 per year

New York Metropolis is hiring a frontrunner to battle towards residents’ widespread enemy: rats.

This week, the NYC Mayor’s Workplace posted a job itemizing for a “citywide director of rodent mitigation,” or as a metropolis corridor spokesperson dubbed it, “a rat czar.” The director, who will obtain an annual wage between $120,000 and $170,000, will probably be anticipated to develop methods, handle initiatives and lead groups towards town’s rodents.

The position’s listed necessities embrace a “background in city planning” and a “virulent vehemence for vermin.”

“The perfect candidate is very motivated and considerably bloodthirsty, decided to have a look at all options from varied angles, together with enhancing operational effectivity, knowledge assortment, know-how innovation, trash administration, and wholesale slaughter,” the job posting added.

It additionally mentioned the chosen applicant may have a “swashbuckling angle, artful humor and common aura of badassery.”

The position’s extra severe {qualifications} embrace a capability to “self-manage and conduct rigorous analysis and outreach,” a “want to be entrepreneurial with an curiosity in social affect” and both expertise in native authorities or a background in a “related” subject.

New York is the nation’s “second-rattiest” metropolis, based on pest management firm Orkin’s most up-to-date annual rankings. As of October, New York’s sanitation division has reported greater than 21,600 rat complaints in 2022, a pointy improve over pre-pandemic occasions.

Town is topped by Chicago in Orkin’s rankings, which has held the “rattiest metropolis” title for eight consecutive years now — however New York rodents have a particular place within the cultural zeitgeist.

They regularly go viral on social media after dragging varied gadgets — most popularly, pizza — down streets and sidewalks. One efficiency actor, Jonothon Lyons, patrols town’s subway stations and park trash cans sporting a latex rat head.

That is no cause to maintain the rats round, based on town’s new job posting.

“Regardless of their profitable public engagement technique and cheeky social media presence, rats are usually not our buddies,” the itemizing reads. “They’re enemies that should be vanquished by the mixed forces of our metropolis authorities. Rodents unfold illness, injury properties and wiring, and even try to regulate the actions of kitchen staffers in an effort to take over human jobs.”

Mayor Eric Adams seems significantly motivated to search out an efficient rat czar. On Thursday, he tweeted an article concerning the place, writing: “If in case you have the drive, willpower, and killer intuition wanted to battle New York Metropolis’s relentless rat inhabitants — then your dream job awaits.”

This is not town’s first rat extermination effort of 2022. In October, the New York Sanitation Division introduced that New Yorkers will probably be fined for placing trash on the curb earlier than 8 p.m. beginning in April 2023. At present, residents may be fined for placing their trash out earlier than 4 p.m.

“I wish to be clear: The rats are completely going to hate this announcement,” New York sanitation commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned whereas asserting the brand new coverage. “However the rats do not run town. We do.”

Candidates for the rat czar position should submit a resume, cowl letter and three references. In addition they will need to have a New York residency inside 90 days of their appointment, and be vaccinated towards Covid-19 — a coverage for all metropolis staff employed since Aug. 2, 2021.

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