NYC Rat Laws: Landlord and Tenant Responsibilities Explained

Plain-English summary, not legal advice. This explains how NYC rat law generally works for rental housing and commercial property. For a specific dispute, consult a tenant or landlord attorney, or contact NYC 311, HPD, or the Health Department.

The short answer

In New York City, the building owner — not the tenant — is legally responsible for rats. A proactive housing duty, a harborage rule, and a separate Health Department enforcement program all put the duty to find, fix, and pay for rat control on the property owner. A confirmed rodent infestation in a rental is treated as one of the most serious housing violations there is. This guide breaks down exactly who owes what, how the city enforces it, and how a tenant or property manager gets a rat problem fixed.

If you just want the rats gone, start with our practical guide on how to get rid of rats in NYC and our rat and mouse control service. If you want to understand your rights and obligations, read on.

The law that puts rats on the landlord

Local Law 55 of 2018 — the Asthma-Free Housing Act (§ 27-2017.8)

The core rule lives in the NYC Housing Maintenance Code as part of Local Law 55 of 2018, the Asthma-Free Housing Act. (LL55 replaced the older, now-repealed § 27-2018 “mandatory extermination” provision — so when you see § 27-2018 quoted in an old article, it’s no longer the operative law. The current scheme sits at § 27-2017.8 and § 27-2017.9.)

Under § 27-2017.8, the owner of a multiple dwelling (a residential building with three or more units) must use Integrated Pest Management (IPM) measures and eliminate conditions conducive to pests — and the code’s definition of “pest” expressly includes mice and Norway rats. IPM means source-level work, not a can of spray: physically removing pests and nesting debris, sealing holes, gaps, and cracks that let pests in, fixing the water and food sources they depend on, and using licensed applicators only as a supplement — never as a substitute — for those physical measures.

LL55 also makes the duty proactive. Owners must investigate every unit and common area at least annually for indoor allergen hazards — and more often when a tenant complains or HPD issues a violation — and then remediate any pests they find along with the underlying defects. According to HPD’s guidance on indoor allergen hazards, mice, rats, and cockroaches found in a unit or common area are cited as hazards under this law.

The harborage rule (§ 27-2019)

A companion section, § 27-2019, still in force, targets harborage — the clutter, gaps, and burrows that shelter rats. It requires that all material “which may afford harborage or provide food for such rodents” be stored and handled by the owner and tenants of every dwelling as the department requires, and it authorizes the city to order harborage removal from whoever is responsible for the condition.

In plain terms: the law doesn’t just say “no rats.” It says the owner must also fix the conditions that bring rats in — the hole around a basement pipe, the broken garbage area, the cracked sidewalk vault. That distinction matters in a NYC brownstone or pre-war walk-up, where rats travel between connected basements and through foundation gaps the size of a quarter.

Together, § 27-2017.8 and § 27-2019 point to professional, source-level treatment — inspect proactively, exterminate with IPM, and eliminate harborage — which is exactly what our rodent-control program is built around.

How serious is a rat violation? (Class C)

When HPD inspects a unit or common area and confirms mice, rats, or cockroaches, it issues a Class C — “immediately hazardous” violation. Class C is the most severe of HPD’s three violation classes. For rodents and cockroaches, the owner generally has 21 days to correct and certify the repair, and the certification must include affidavits that LL55 work practices were properly performed.

If the owner doesn’t fix and certify, the consequences escalate: HPD can pursue civil penalties, and under its Emergency Repair Program the city can hire a contractor to do the work and bill the owner. For a property manager, an open Class C rodent violation is also a red flag that surfaces in building-complaint lookups and during refinancing or sale.

The Health Department track: DOHMH, the Rat Map, and rat reservoirs

Separate from the housing system, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) runs its own rat inspection and enforcement program for properties, yards, and lots.

• Inspections are triggered two ways: by a 311 complaint, or proactively through the neighborhood rat indexing program, where inspectors sweep every property in a targeted area. Properties inside a rat reservoir — an area the Health Department has identified as a persistent rat hotspot — are inspected whether or not anyone complained.
• The Rat Information Portal (the public Rat Map at nyc.gov) publishes the results of these inspections for the past several years. Anyone can search by address or by borough, block and lot (BBL) to see whether a property passed, failed, or had active rat signs. For tenants vetting an apartment, or buyers doing diligence, it’s a free public record of a building’s rat history.

What inspectors look for

A DOHMH inspector documents active signs (live rats, fresh droppings, gnaw marks, burrows, runways, grease rub marks) and conditions that attract rats (uncontained garbage, harborage, food debris, gaps and openings). Any of these can fail an inspection.

What happens when a property fails

If a property fails, the owner receives a Commissioner’s Order to Abate (COTA) with an inspection report and a fix-it guide. The Health Department then conducts a compliance reinspection roughly 12 to 30 days later. If the conditions are still there, the owner gets a summons returnable before the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), with fines — and the city can perform extermination or cleanup itself and bill the owner. This is the part many owners don’t see coming: the city will do the job and send the invoice.

Rat Mitigation Zones and the trash rules

To attack the worst hotspots, the Health Department designated Rat Mitigation Zones (RMZs) — neighborhoods with the highest complaint and inspection rates that get intensified enforcement and free “Rat Academy” training. The designated zones cover:

• Manhattan — West, Central, and East Harlem; and the East Village / Chinatown / Lower East Side
• The Bronx — the Grand Concourse corridor
• Brooklyn — Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Prospect Heights

If your building sits in one of these zones, expect more frequent proactive inspections and tighter follow-up. Restaurants and bodegas on these blocks are under particular pressure, because food-service trash is what feeds the population.

That ties into the city’s trash containerization push. Through 2023 and 2024, DSNY phased in rules requiring food-related businesses, then all businesses, then residential buildings with one to nine units to set refuse out in sealed, lidded containers instead of loose bags, and pushed set-out times later (to 8 p.m. for bagged refuse) to cut the hours garbage sits on the curb. The city credits these rules with a real decline: DSNY reported 311 rat-sighting complaints down roughly 20% year over year (about 25,200 sightings falling to about 20,000 over a comparable 12-month period), with the decline sustained through 2025. For a commercial client, uncontained trash isn’t just a rat magnet — it’s now a sanitation violation in its own right.

What the tenant must do

The law puts the duty on the owner, but tenants have responsibilities too:

• Report in writing. Notify the owner or managing agent in writing as soon as you see rats or droppings, and keep a dated copy. Written notice starts the clock and protects you.
• Allow access for inspection and treatment, and follow any prep instructions.
• Don’t sustain the infestation — don’t leave food out, let trash accumulate, or create harborage that feeds the problem. Under § 27-2019, tenants share the duty to keep their unit free of harborage.

If you caused the infestation through your own conduct, you can be on the hook for the cost. Otherwise, the owner pays.

How to get a rat problem fixed (step by step)

1. Document it. Photograph droppings, gnaw marks, burrows, or live rats with dates.
2. Notify the owner in writing. Email or letter to the owner or management; keep the dated copy.
3. File a 311 complaint. Call 311, or use the website or app, and choose “Rat or Mouse Complaint.” Conditions inside an apartment route to HPD; rats on the property, yard, or lot route to DOHMH. You can file anonymously.
4. Check the Rat Map. Look up the address on the Rat Information Portal to see the building’s inspection history — useful evidence and useful before you rent.
5. Insist on professional, source-level treatment. Under Local Law 55 the owner is supposed to use IPM, not a can of spray. DIY rarely clears a building-borne rat problem in NYC.
6. Escalate if ignored. An unaddressed Class C violation, or a failed DOHMH inspection, carries real penalties — that’s your leverage.

For more on the practical side, see how to get rid of rats in NYC and what professional treatment runs in our guide to rat exterminator cost in NYC.

Commercial and property-manager duties

Commercial owners and managers carry the same Housing Maintenance Code and DOHMH obligations, plus a few more:

• Food-service businesses are inspected by DOHMH for active rat signs as part of restaurant grading; rodent evidence is a common and costly violation. They must also containerize waste under the DSNY rules.
• Multi-family owners and co-op/condo boards must treat the building as a whole — shared basements, risers, trash rooms, and the building envelope — because treating one unit while rats travel the block just relocates the problem. LL55’s annual-inspection duty applies to every unit and common area.
• Documentation matters. For HPD certification, OATH hearings, and DOHMH compliance, you need records that show professional IPM treatment and that conducive conditions were corrected — including the work-practice affidavits LL55 certification requires.

This is precisely where a documented, building-wide rodent-control program earns its keep: it satisfies the legal obligation and produces the paper trail that clears violations and passes reinspection.

Get it handled

If you’re a NYC landlord, managing agent, co-op board, or tenant who needs documented, professional rat treatment that satisfies these obligations, our rat and mouse control service covers all five boroughs with licensed technicians, source-level IPM, and records you can show HPD or DOHMH. Don’t wait for the 21-day clock or a Commissioner’s Order to Abate to start running.