New York City has a new weapon in its decades-long war against rats, and it looks like a wheeled vacuum cleaner that pumps poison gas into the ground. The device, called BurrowRx, has been credited with wiping out more than 100 rat burrows along a single stretch of Manhattan's East 86th Street, according to officials who say the results have been dramatic enough to expand the program.
The machine works by generating carbon monoxide and forcing it directly into rat burrows, typically found in the sidewalk tree pits that line city blocks, according to Gothamist. Exterminator Matt Deodato operates the small, wheeled unit, which mixes in vegetable-oil smoke so he can visually track where the fumes travel and confirm they aren't seeping into unventilated underground spaces, per The Guardian. The carbon monoxide is meant to render rats unconscious before they suffocate, and the gas dissipates naturally afterward, the newspaper reported.
City Councilmember Julie Menin has touted the elimination of more than 100 rat burrows between Second and Park avenues on East 86th Street, the same stretch highlighted in The New York Times's recent video on the city's rat-killing machine. Menin's office reported an eradication rate of nearly 100% in the tree pits where crews deployed the technique, though she has been careful to temper expectations. “This is not the panacea that's going to solve all of New York City's rat problems,” Menin said, according to the same Gothamist report.
From a Hundred Burrows to Just a Couple
Urban Pest Management, the firm that ran the Burrow Rx machine on East 86th Street, cleared out more than 100 rat burrows in just a few months, Patch reported. Local resident Andrew Fine described the turnaround starkly, telling the outlet, “We went from an ongoing battle against 100 burrows to occasional maintenance of 1 or 2.” Patch notes the program has run on roughly $20,000 in City Council funding, though other accounts describe different figures tied to the effort.
Those other figures come from reporting that doesn't fully square up. The Guardian reported Menin's office paid for the first year of Deodato's services with a $10,000 city grant and doubled that amount the following year, while Gothamist separately reported the office allocated a total of $30,000 in supplemental sanitation funds to the technique. The exact funding breakdown remains unclear across these accounts, but all point to a relatively modest public investment for a program officials consider a success. The BurrowRx machine itself costs about $3,000, according to Business Insider, which also reported the program is set to expand to other areas, including East 75th Street between Second and Third avenues.
A Population Estimated in the Millions
The stakes behind the gadget are hard to overstate. The Guardian cited an estimate putting New York City's rat population at as many as 3 million, an increase of nearly 1 million over the previous decade. For Manhattan residents like Arnette Scott, the cost of coexisting with that population has been painfully literal: she told Bloomberg that rats chewed through the wiring in her car's headlights, a repair that cost her almost $1,000.
Still, there are signs the tide may be turning. Bloomberg reported that rodent sightings across the city fell 22% in 2026, crediting changes to how trash is collected and contained. Gothamist's reporting likewise noted that rat complaints are down citywide as new garbage-collection approaches cut off rats' easy access to food. Patch's report on the East 86th Street program echoed that same theme, noting that removing rats' access to food sources is widely considered the only way to truly manage rodent populations over the long term — a shift reinforced by a city requirement, highlighted by Patch, that buildings with fewer than 10 units use official trash containers by 2026.
Other Cities Are Trying the Same Trick
New York isn't alone in turning to carbon monoxide against its rats. The Guardian reported that Menin's staff learned Boston and San Diego had already started fumigating rat burrows with the gas before New York adopted the approach. Business Insider reported that Boston's Inspectional Services Department had treated 1,875 burrows using BurrowRX, citing an assistant commissioner for the agency.
In Somerville, Massachusetts, the city has leaned into the method as part of what it calls deRATification Week, using BurrowRX to pump carbon monoxide into burrows, according to NBC Boston. Somerville's rat czar, Alicia Privett, described the process simply: “You cover up all the burrows, you put the hose in there, and it sprays the carbon monoxide.” Privett said one treated location went from at least a dozen active burrows down to just two.
Back on East 86th Street, the numbers tell a similar story of a problem shrinking rather than disappearing. Whether BurrowRx becomes a fixture of the city's broader rat-fighting arsenal or remains a block-by-block fix, officials have been clear that no single tool, gas-powered or otherwise, is expected to end New York's rat problem on its own.
