Suzanne Reisman – Rat Tours NYC – An Xperience Interview

Suzanne Reisman – Rat Tours NYC – An Xperience Interview – by Liam Sweeny.

RRX: You hold garbage and rat tours in New York City. What got you started in this endeavor?

SR: I’d been working in nonprofit social services administration for a long time – over two decades – and, given the horrendous political environment, I decided to do something that brought more joy to my life. I love walking tours, and I’ve had my NYC tour guide license since 2009 or 2010. It seemed like a good time to put it to use talking about things I care about, but in an entertaining way.

RRX: Have you ever been attacked by a rat?

SR: LMAO! NO! Rats are far more scared of us than we are of them. Although I was looking in a trash can last night during a tour, when one jumped out. It scared the s*&t out of me! I screamed so loud, I also seemed to scare the shit out of it and its friends, because that rat and a few others bolted away.

RRX: Have the police or the city ever tried to dissuade you from showing people this side of New York?

SR: Actually, the City has been really supportive. There are a few initiatives underway to teach the community about rats and rat mitigation. I used their free trainings to develop material for my tour. I also encourage NYC residents to sign up for the trainings to learn more! It’s important that we understand why we have a rat problem, and it’s not the rats – it’s us. If people would change their behavior around trash – and this is true from Dutch times on – then we’d have many fewer rats.

RRX: What area would non-New Yorkers be surprised has a lot of rats? What area would native New Yorkers be surprised has a lot of rats?

SR: It seems both New Yorkers and visitors are surprised by how much rats really love living in parks. They don’t want to be in our buildings – they love burrowing into green areas!

RRX: What is the craziest thing you’ve come across in tours, rat-related or non-rat-related?

SR: Twice, the same very inebriated older woman has stopped the tour while we are in DeLury Square to tell us how she went into Ryders Alley at night in the 1990s to talk to some guys who had baseball bats and bags to find out what they were doing. They were beating rats to feed to their pet snakes.

RRX: Has anyone wanted to feed the rats on the tour, or do something weird like that?

SR: People joke about petting the rats, but no one has. Also, no one – thank god – has tried to feed them. I’m very serious that people understand that having so many rats and garbage around is bad. Once, a rat jumped out of a trash can and landed on one of my guests’ feet. He was pretty excited by that, which … OK. I admit that I screamed. LMAO.

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