Mapping rats… why not? Did you know that the Big Apple has a rat information portal? Oh, and its nothing new, the resource has been around for more than 5 years now thanks to the Dept. of Health. Details from a recent article in itWorld …
The point of the portal is to provide educational information for everybody (residents, landlords, businesses, etc.) about what attracts rats, signs of rat infestations, how to report rats to city health inspectors and so on. It also provides raw data on where the rats are, based on inspections done by the health department, as well as by their rat indexing initiative, which is an an effort to more comprehensively “index” the rat population by inspecting all properties in certain areas (currently, only Manhattan and the Bronx).
The most interesting part of the portal is the interactive heat map of rat inspection data. Using this interactive map, you can look up the inspection history, going back to 2009, for any address in the five boroughs. It will tell you the dates and results of any inspections, as well of any follow up compliance checks.
Note, the city also provides downloadable rat reports to mashup artists can get to it and create their own apps!
Weblink: Rat Information Portal & the Rat Webmap