NYC Mayor reveals the city’s new $155k a year rat-catcher who’s hated vermin since she was ten

New York City hired a Pied Piper for $155,000 a year, and she’s had a passion for eliminating pests since she was just ten years old.

The appointment of 34-year-old former elementary school teacher Kathleen Corradi was announced Wednesday by Mayor Eric Adams and comes just months after he was ordered to pay $300 for a rat infestation at his own home in Brooklyn.

Corradi has become the first-ever Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation – a position Adams previously called “rat czar” – and will lead a team of rodent experts to tackle the city’s critical rat problem. According to city data, the number of sightings has doubled in the past year.

Corradi said the city would begin efforts to reduce street food waste, and Adams said a “rat-restricted zone” in Harlem would raise $3.5 million to rid the neighborhood of rodents.

Adams said a ‘rat restriction zone’ in Harlem would raise $3.5 million to rid the neighborhood of rodents

In December, Adams was served a subpoena for a rat infestation in the Brooklyn area where he lives with his son

“This is almost a job that is made for her,” Adams said at a press conference about Corradi on Wednesday.

Although she was chosen after a national search, she has worked in the Education Department and previously led the rodent control effort. The New York Times reported.

“Thanks to those efforts, nearly 70 percent of schools with persistent rodent problems have met their compliance goals,” said Corradi.

“As the first director of Rodent Mitigation in New York City, I will use a science and systems-based approach to reduce the rat population in New York City.”

“You’ll see a lot of me and a lot less rats,” she added.

Her mother told The Times that her hatred of rats is long-standing. She told how nearly 25 years ago, a ten-year-old Corradi saw a dead rat near a train track on Long Island.

Horrified, she handed out a note to neighbors and delivered it to the local authorities demanding that something be done.

“The Long Island Rail Road was listening,” her mother said. “They came and did rat control.”

At Wednesday’s conference, the city laid out on a table a variety of materials it proposed using to attack the rat population, including traps, caulk and poisons.

Adams declared war on the rats last December when he began looking for someone to fill the new position. “There’s nothing I hate more than rats,” he said as he promoted what is now Corradi’s job.

Corradi has become the first-ever Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation, but the long-awaited position was previously dubbed the ‘rattsaar’

At Wednesday’s conference, the city laid out a variety of materials it proposed using to attack the rat population, including traps, caulk and poisons.

The mayor’s borough of Brooklyn is known to have rat problems and has dealt with the problem with the help of the Department of Health

The position was intended for anyone with a background in urban planning, project management or government work. It explained that the job would require “the impossible” to reduce the number of rats in the city.

It also suggested that the right candidate would have a “reckless attitude, sly wit and a general aura of badassery.” Knowledge of PowerPoint was also required.

The job also required ‘stamina and stage skills’ and the list suggested ‘the ideal candidate is highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty’.

Despite their successful public engagement strategy and brutal social media presence, rats are not our friends. Rodents spread disease, damage homes and wiring, and even try to control the movements of kitchen workers in an attempt to take over human jobs,” the report read.

Adams’ citywide rat problem has also affected his own home. In December, he was served a subpoena for a rat infestation at the Brooklyn home where he lives with his son.

His criminal record showed an unpaid $330 subpoena he received in May — after his home in Bedford Stuyvesant was found to be overrun with rodents.

Adams challenged the ticket at a hearing before the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings in February, but an officer denied the challenge and the mayor was ordered to pay $300.

The ‘Director of Rodent Mitigation’ vacancy, for which Corradi has now been hired

Adams invited reporters on a tour of his Brooklyn basement last year, in an effort to prove he actually lived in the city — rather than New Jersey

When Adams was Brooklyn ward president, he hosted a press conference to illustrate his living on the premises

Adams’ house serves as a partially leased property. The mayor had previously not put his home on the rental list, and critics have accused him of actually living in New Jersey with his girlfriend Tracey Collins.

To debunk those claims, he invited reporters to his home in Brooklyn last year. He said he lived in the basement and rented out the floors above to pay for his son Jordan’s tuition.

Adams is registered to vote on the first floor, but a tenant who has lived there for years is listed under the same unit in multiple documents obtained by Politico last year.

Adams’ rat problem persists outside his home and on the streets of New York City.