Discover Crown Heights' Secret Weapon in New York's War on Rats

Mounds of garbage bags full of mouth-watering trash are complicating New York City’s efforts to control its rat population. But in one section of central Brooklyn, a 31-pound killer is offering up her rat control services at no cost.

Meet Luna, a 7-year-old schnauzer mix and Crown Heights’ secret weapon in the war on rats.

“She’s very cuddly,” said her owner Zach Henson, a 39-year old cybersecurity professional. “But when she sees a rat, it’s like a scene in a movie where there’s a friendly robot and someone presses the Terminator button and then its eyes turn red and the claws come out and it’s like, ‘Must kill.’”

Luna and Henson hunt on the edge of Brooklyn’s “rat mitigation zone,” an area covering parts of Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights where city officials are stepping up inspections and encouraging building owners to store their trash in sealed containers to reduce the number of rats. So far, the strategies seem to be working. Rodent complaints are dropping, according to 311 data.

The efforts to control the city’s rat population reached a crescendo with Mayor Eric Adams, who made “fighting rats” one of his pillars for ensuring the five boroughs remain a “livable city.” Last year, Adams appointed a “rat czar” to carry out his vision and will host a rat summit this fall.

Luna’s unofficial role as rat hunter is supplementing the city’s official policies.

Henson said she’s nabbed 65 rats so far this year — enough of a haul to earn a special citation honoring Luna’s services from local Councilmember Chi Ossé earlier this month.

Henson takes a photo of each one of her kills, laying the rats next to his size 10½ Adidas high-tops. Some are monstrous.

“They’re big,” he said. “They’re no joke.”

Gothamist accompanied Luna and Henson on one of their nightly excursions earlier this month. It was Monday — garbage night — and mountains of trash bags teetered on the curb.

Luna came up empty, but not for lack of trying.

She pounced on bags pockmarked with holes chewed by hungry rats, flushed the critters out of a tarp-covered pile of sand and tracked one down inside the wheel well of a Ford Explorer.

The hunt snaked along Atlantic, Troy and Kingston avenues, and up and down Pacific and Dean streets, showcasing the strategies that are working in the city’s war on rats — such as lidded garbage cans — and highlighting lingering problems.

Anthony Hardison watched Luna pounce on bags piled against the wall of his apartment building. He said rats have invaded his four-story complex and wander through a neighbor’s apartment.

“All I can do is fight back,” Hardison said. “Traps, glue, whatever I can do. I find holes, I seal them up, because I know once my wife sees one of those big things in there, she’s going to want to move. She’s going to want to leave.”

He said he appreciates Luna’s efforts.

“[She’s] brilliant,” Hardison said. “Put about 10 in each district.”

Ossé, the councilmember who honored Luna’s rat control work, said he also appreciates her efforts, but added that an army of vigilante rat assassins isn’t a sustainable solution.

“I don’t think that’s the best use of our resources,” he said. “But I would like to see the city move more expeditiously on curbside containerization. Continuing to reduce the amount of food that is accessible to rats is our best way to win this war.”

He said the city’s rat mitigation zone strategies are helping to drive down the rat population and called on individual building owners to put their bags in bins.

“I know a lot of people don’t really believe this, but we have seen that rodent sightings have dropped,” Ossé said. “The emphasis to push for more containerization, as well as composting, has helped in parts of our community.”

The number of rodent complaints in the three Brooklyn community districts included in the “rat mitigation zone” dropped from 470 in April 2023 to 338 in April of this year, according to a Gothamist review of 311 data.

But huge piles of garbage bags still beckon like all-you-can-eat buffets for famished rats along Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. Rats chew little holes through the thin plastic membranes to get at rotting bananas and discarded chicken bones.

It’s prime hunting grounds for Luna, whom Henson and his wife Stephanie Russell-Kraft adopted from a rescue shelter in south Florida.

Luna is mild-mannered and gentle with their two young children, but quickly transforms into an apex predator when she picks up a rodent’s scent.

“You’ll just be walking by and she’ll just pounce on a bag and grab one right out of there,” Henson said.

Along the walk, Luna sniffed an overgrown tree box and slipped through a gate to bound onto another pile of bags. The rats narrowly escaped each time.

“It’s like baseball,” Henson said. “You have streaks. You have dry periods.”

That night, Luna performed like Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor – trying her best but still striking out.

Henson said she’d return to the batter’s box the next night. Plenty of rats are still roaming free, he said.

“There was one time I kicked a trash can and it was like a fountain of fur came out,” he said. “Probably, conservatively, 10 or 15 rats flew out of this hole in the side of the trash can at once. It was like fur but as a liquid.”