Check Any NYC Building for Rats
Enter an address and read the building's rodent record — city inspections, failed inspections, and complaint history — before you sign.
The city inspects for rats, and writes down what it finds
The Department of Health runs rodent inspections across the city and records the result for every one — 378,887 of them on file, across 119,607 buildings. The results are refreshingly blunt: an inspection “Passed,” or it “Failed for Rat Activity,” in the city's own words. When an inspector finds active signs — burrows, droppings, runways — the building gets a failing result on its permanent record. Roughly 106,935 inspection results in the current data reflect rat activity or a failure.
What “failed for rat activity” actually means
It means an inspector stood in or around the building and found current, physical evidence of rats — not a complaint, not a guess, a confirmed finding. A single failed inspection followed by a passed re-inspection is a building that had a problem and dealt with it. A string of failures, or failures that recur across years, is a building where the rats keep winning — and rats are a building-level problem, not a unit-level one. They don't respect your lease line.
Why complaint clusters beat a single sighting
Alongside inspections, tenants report rodents through 311, and those complaints land on the record too. One complaint is one bad night. A cluster — the same building, month after month, year after year — is the signal that matters, because it means the problem is established, not incidental. Read the pattern, not the incident: frequency and recency tell you far more than any single report.
Ground floor vs. building-wide
Where the signals sit changes what they mean. Rodent activity concentrated around the ground floor, cellar, and trash areas is close to universal in dense city buildings and partly a fact of urban life. Activity reported across multiple floors, or inspections failing repeatedly building-wide, points to a structural problem — gaps, harborage, a garbage regime that isn't working — that a top-floor apartment won't spare you from. If you're looking at a ground-floor or garden unit specifically, weight this record more heavily. Pests travel: the same file also carries the building's bedbug filing history.
FAQ
How do I check a NYC building for rats?
Enter the address in the search above. The building's report includes its rodent inspection results and complaint history alongside the rest of its file. Your first three reports are full reports, free.
What does “failed for rat activity” mean?
A health-department inspector found active physical signs of rats at the building — a confirmed finding on the public record, distinct from a tenant complaint.
Is one rodent complaint a dealbreaker?
No — in a dense city, occasional reports are normal, especially near ground floor and trash areas. Recurring complaints or repeated failed inspections are the real warning.
Are ground-floor apartments worse for rats?
They carry more exposure to cellar and trash-area activity. Building-wide inspection failures matter regardless of your floor.