NEW YORK — Rats are everywhere in New York City — but more abundant in certain areas.
An interactive map can help you figure out where rat sightings are the worst, and it could have helped Alec Steinfeld.
Steinfeld, who lives in Brooklyn, came in contact with his own rat problem when he tried to drive his car to work after it sat for a week on his block.
“When I started driving initially I smelled roadkill,” he explained.
But Steinfeld says he kept driving from Brooklyn into Manhattan. His car troubles became much more serious around Rivington and Essex Streets on the Lower East Side.
“It seemed like my engine was overheating and then all of a sudden it started catching fire,” he told PIX11 News.
“I tried to open up my hood and there were two baby dead rats on the ledge so there was a lot of confusion.”
Steinfeld called 911 and the FDNY responded a short time later.
“By the time the fire department came they actually had to smash open my windshield.”
Before last Friday, Steinfeld’s car was parked in the same place for a week. It appears several rats made themselves at home below the hood of his Volkswagen and then started chewing.
Steinfeld believes “rats ate through the engine.”
And just when you thought this story was already crazy…
“So I am watching my car get mauled by a rat fire seeing Tony Hawk capture this across the street”
That’s right. Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk recorded this insane rat inferno and shared it on Instragram. Next Hawk snapped a selfie with Alec.
Then Alec had to figure out what to do next.
Once the fire was extinguished, Steinfeld says he waited for four hours for a tow truck to come.
One of the ravaging rodents was still hanging on, ready for a ride.