Which neighborhoods win NYC's rat race?

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - Rats are some of New York City's hardiest pests, continuing to thrive in the city despite the best attempts to shrink their numbers. And, just like the humans they share the city with, there are certain boroughs and neighborhoods they prefer to call home.

A new study by RentHop.com used 3-1-1 calls from 2014 to 2018 concerning rodent complaints and then connected those calls to their corresponding neighborhoods to create a map of New York City's most rodent-infested areas. 

"We were able to figure out which neighborhoods had the highest density of complaints and you can see it on our map, it's Prospect Heights, East Village and it's places in upper Manhattan," said Lee Lin, the co-founder of RentHop.com.

While Manhattan had the most complaints per square mile with 188.2, twice the amount of Brooklyn, Brooklyn had the most overall complaints with over 6,500 and is home to the neighborhood with the most rat complaints, Prospect Heights. 

According to Lin, however, there is some promising news for people who are tired of sharing the city, or even worse, their apartments with the rodents.

"The number of complaints are actually dropping, there's been a lot of programs in the city to try to reduce the number of mice, rodents and rats and thankfully we're down 10 percent year over year," Lin said.