Rodents!
Want to know the latest tourist craze in New York City? Rat tours. Yup, you read it right. Rat tours!
Tourists are flocking to the Big Apple to check out its exploding rat population, and tour guides are tailoring excursions to introduce them to the city’s most beady-eyed natives—rodents!
Well-known Tik Tok star, Kenny Bollwerk, of “Rat Tok” fame, helps connects tourists with a yen for vermin with rodents:
People are walking by, there’s rats running across people’s feet, there’s piles of trash on the sidewalk. Rats are like a New York City mascot. People want to see it for themselves.”
Up to 10,000 people at a time tune in to Bollwerk’s TikTok live streams as he explores rodent-infested areas, encouraging viewers to call 311 to report them. There were over 60,000 reports of rat activity citywide in 2022—a shocking 102% increase from 2021. So far this year, there have been over 39,000 reports of rat activity.
Rat populations grew exponentially during the pandemic thanks to ample shelter and food from dining sheds.
Said city Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch:
Outdoor dining was designed without a plan to keep the rats from becoming its biggest patrons.”
The city launched a crackdown in 2022 that included new rules for securing garbage and what times it could be put out. Mayor Eric Adams—who has publicly declared his hatred of rats—nominated a “Rat Czar” earlier this year to lead the charge to eradicate them.
Mayor Adams:
New York City used to be known for our mean streets, but, going forward, we’re going to be known for our clean streets.”
But not everyone shares Hizzoner’s musophobia (which includes mice, too).
Declared “RatTok” fan Patrick Norris of St. Louis, MO:
I loved it ever since I started watching it. It made me want to go there and actually see the setting and the scenery and, you know, ‘What’s behind this corner? What’s behind that corner?’”
Norris traveled to the Big Apple earlier this year and visited a construction site on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside that was a haven for rats.
It was awesome!”
So did Aaron Lidwell and his wife Christine from Altoona, PA.
It’s one of those things you just have to see.”
For David Fraticelli and his 12-year-old daughter Noelia of the Bronx, NY, rat tours have become a highlight of summer vacation. Noelia has become a regular in Bollwerk’s TikTok videos. Now, even her friends tune in to see if she makes a guest appearance.
Rodents can spread over 30 different diseases to humans including salmonellosis, typhus, and Lyme disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fleas that traveled to humans from dead rats spread the Black Death, which wiped out 25 million Europeans by 1351.
Confessed Rat Tok-er, Kenny Bollwerk:
I’m scared of them. Any time one comes running at me I jump. I don’t want them anywhere near me.”
That’s a great attitude. Not only towards rats. But towards all sin and evil. I wouldn’t recommend looking at them, far less touring to see sin and evil. Or even to think about these things:
Do not incline my heart to an evil matter.
Psalm 141:4
Rather:
Depart from evil and do good.
Psalm 34:14
Those loving Yahweh, hate evil.
Psalm 97:10
Because
… You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; with You no evil dwells.
Psalm 5:4
So
From every evil path I have withheld my feet,
in order that I may keep Your word.
Psalm 119:101
SOURCES: The Guardian; The New York Post
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.