New York City has a new rat tsar, and it is impossible to overstate the urgency of her mission. The rats are everywhere.

Everyone who lives in New York has rat tales to tell. For most of us, encounters with rats are persistent, but fleeting. A jump scare in the night, from rodents skittering across the sidewalk. The sound of track rats scrambling, deftly avoiding the third rail, in the subway station during the commute home. A rat-clogged car engine.