Rats

Before I moved to New York City five and a half years ago, the warnings were never about astronomical rent prices, apocalyptic winters or days-long subway delays. They were about rats. Former Manhattanites authoritatively spoke of them with the kind of hushed dread usually reserved to conjure biblical plagues. These weren’t mere animals, I was told, but tiny demons in fur coats – miniature Tony Sopranos with tails – who were quick to scuttle from the shadows at the merest whiff of a discarded bagel, bold enough to set up camp in your kitchen and perfectly willing to maul a callow pug or nibble on an unsuspecting baby. One friend cautioned me to keep the toilet lid shut at all times.

The rat hunter opens the tongs, takes a breath and lunges forward. It takes him a few seconds to get a firm hold on the Norway rat, who claws, bites and shrieks at the wrought iron. Tim wrestles it into the bucket, holding its flailing form underneath the water for several seconds before slamming the top shut. “He put up a good fight,” says Tim, exhaling while he shakes his head. “Supervisor didn’t tell me it was a live one.” Two days earlier, he’d been called to a home of a young woman – a “little girl” as he described her – where a rat had been caught in a trap inside a cabinet. He got to the house. He opened the cabinet. He saw the trap. He saw the rat. There was a problem: the trap was empty.