I lived in the Lower East Side for 11 years, on Ludlow Street, from 1995-2006. It was common to see rats on the street at night, and one evening while walking home, a rat ran towards me and jumped. It landed on my leg, scurried up and jumped off.

But nothing quite as frightening as finding three rats one evening zipping around in my kitchen, ripping apart ketchup packets. Or the time my downstairs neighbors had an angry rat trapped in their kitchen (which was disposed of with a hockey stick).

I called the NYC Health Department hotline maybe 5-6 times. At that time, calling the number led to a voice mail menu, and the first options was "if you would like to report a rat infestation, press 1". This is no joke, some buildings were really and truly infested.

The city did nothing but to place poison rat traps on the streets. Only once did someone respond and come to our building, he just suggested that we fill up all known holes in our building with steel wool. The local hardware store had bulk packages of the stuff for sale, a popular item.

Our Chinese landlord solved the problem by calling a neighborhood expert. He brought his gigantic cat, who lived downstairs in the basement for several weeks. After that, we had no more rat problems for a long time.