NYC's $32M multi-agency Rat Task Force

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the plan will target rats in the Grand Concourse area of the Bronx; Chinatown, the East Village and the Lower East Side in Manhattan; and the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant areas of Brooklyn.

By September, the city will start installing solar compactors with rat-resistant openings and replacing wire waste baskets with steel cans. It also plans to cement basement floors in public housing. Proposed legislation would regulate the hours garbage could be left at the curb, and increase fines for illegal dumping.

In February, health officials said one person had died and two others were severely sickened in a Bronx neighborhood due to a rare disease transmitted by rats.

The city's rat battle is far from new. Experts say it's impossible to accurately estimate the number, though they say efforts in recent years have greatly reduced "active rat signs."

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