Eric Adams really, really hates rats. But one does not win a war with hatred alone, and the mayor of New York City may have learned that the hard way on Tuesday, when a judge ordered him to pay a $300 fine for an untreated rat infestation at a Brooklyn rowhouse he owns. A city hearing officer denied Adams’ appeal of two rodent-related tickets he received in December after a health inspector found rat-friendly conditions at his Bedford-Stuyvesant property. Specifically, the inspector wrote, recyclables outside of rodent-proof bins there had created “harborage conditions that encourage the nesting of rats.” The hearing officer said that Adams’ argument that he’d consulted with the city’s sanitation department on the subject and added a recycling receptacle were an invalid defense. But the officer threw out Adams’ second summons, which cited him for “an active rat runway” at the property. In that instance, the officer wrote in her decision, the mayor had presented “credible proof of ongoing efforts” that he’d been attempting to valiantly battle the rats.
