A woman has captured the internet’s attention for the creative way she measures the size of New York City’s rampant rats.
On 12 August, the city’s first Anti-Rat Day of Action was held in Harlem as part of mayor Eric Adams ambitious effort to clean the streets of rodents. None other than the city’s “rat czar,” director of rodent mitigation Kathleen Corradi, was present to kick off the day’s events.
“Rats need food, water, and shelter to survive,” Corradi said in her impassioned speech. “Today, we’re going to cut off their food source and reduce their habitat, take away the places they can live.”
While Corradi’s rallying press conference inspired city officials and sanitation department workers to rid the neighbourhood of rats, it was one Harlem resident who went viral for her extremely specific description of the vermin.
“We’ve had rats the size of Crocs just running up and down the street,” Ruth McDaniels, the president of the Harlem Street Tenants Association, told CBS. “Like a Croc shoe?” she added, not to be confused with the reptile. “An average size eight, running up and down the street.”
Unsurprisingly, the amusing soundbite instantly went viral on social media, where one clip of McDaniels’ segment has received more than 17 million views on TikTok.
“We love a queen that’s creative with her unit of measure,” one TikTok user commented.
“The Croc shoe is sending me,” said another.
One person seemed to believe McDaniels was comparing the city’s rats to an actual crocodile when they wrote: “At first I was like: ‘Hold up, you got rats the size of crocodiles?’”
Others couldn’t help but feel like the viral news spot was taken from an episode of the comedy series Parks and Recreation.
“Why does this feel like a Parks and Rec scene,” said one user.
“You cannot convince me this isn’t an outtake from Parks and Rec,” another agreed.
“I’m so glad someone said this LMAO like this is literally a scene made for the show,” a third person wrote.
Throughout his tenure as New York City mayor, Adams has waged war on rats - a constant presence in the city since the 1700s, with historical attempts at citywide eradication ranging from open-season shooting in the 1800s to the proposed demolitions of burrow nests in the 1960s.
In December, the city began hiring for the new position of “director of rodent mitigation”, a so-called “rat czar” who would be tasked with eradicating the longstanding rats. The ideal candidate was described as having “a virulent vehemence for vermin” as well as “a background in urban planning, project management, or government” and “most importantly, the drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy”.
Former school teacher Corradi was declared the new “rat czar” in April, with her first task to launch a “rat mitigation zone” in Harlem. The city will invest $3.5m to roll out “an accelerated rat reduction plan” deploying 19 full-time and 14 seasonal employees to combat rats.
