Central Park is turning into a squeak show.
New York City is losing the rat war in the iconic green space — where the vermin are so brazen, they routinely raid baby strollers for snacks at a besieged playground for toddlers, The Post found.
And after the rotating posse of at least a dozen “guinea pig” sized rats is done ransacking strollers at Tarr-Coyne Tots Playground at West 67th Street, some will defiantly frolic by the jungle gym near young kids, disgusted parents told The Post.
“Every single day that I go to play with my son, there will be one, two, three [rats], scurrying around and even jumping up in an area where our kids are eating their snacks. They have no shame,” said Upper West Side mom of a 3-year-old son, Amy Meyers.
Meyers, 48, said the “scariest part” about the invasion is that “rats could end up in our homes.”
“It’s disgusting. I’m actually quite nervous for my child to be playing here, because rats carry diseases and whatnot,” Meyers said.
One brave mom last week snapped a revolting photo of a beady-eyed interloper casually sitting on a carriage wheel after gobbling whatever snacks it could find in the stroller.
Meyers said she’s even heard about moms or caretakers who have found rats, “as they were leaving the park, still inside their stroller.”
And another mom said she’s seen hangry rats make “mini lunging motions” toward two tots gobbling a snack.
Rattled mom of two Lauren was aghast when she first saw the rodents hop from carriage to carriage near the playground’s entrance.
“I saw a rat crawl into the seat of a stroller one day in July, and I called out, ‘Who’s stroller is this?’ And two weeks ago, I saw a rat crawling around the bottom of a stroller,” Lauren recalled.
“It’s happened to the point where, if I see someone parking their stroller near the entrance, I warn them not to, because I’m afraid a rat will crawl into it,” continued the 42-year-old.
Lauren said her 1- and 3-year-old have been forced to take the offensive as they enter and exit the playground, clapping, yelling and making loud “rat noises” to deter the rodents.
Mom of two Sofia Genes is worried the vermin — which can carry a range of scary diseases including hantavirus, which can cause severe respiratory problems; leptospirosis, which can cause kidney damage; and the potentially fatal rat-bite fever, among many other illnesses — could contaminate the sandbox.
“If their feces or urine was in the sandbox – I mean, the kids play in there all the time and, you know, kids put things in their mouths . . . that could be life threatening,” said Genes, 35, who has a 3-year-old son.
The rat-astrophe has ruined the once-thriving playground, the parents lamented.
“Sadly, in the last few weeks, we’ve scaled back on what were once daily visits because of this rat situation, and because it’s just so unpleasant to spend your entire playground experience scanning the perimeter of the playground looking for rodents that may or may not dart toward your children,” Lauren said.
So far in 2025, NYC 311 has received 6,614 rat complaints in Manhattan – slightly less than the 6,973 at this point last year – and 3,855 calls about rodent sightings, down from the 3,934 during the same period in 2024.
Mayor Adams has made it his mission to eradicate the city’s rodent problems — hiring a $170,000 a year Rat Czar in 2023; establishing a more than $877,000 rat “death squad” in 2024 to gas the creatures, and requiring property owners to purchase supposedly rodent-proof, containerized trash bins.
He even crowed last week that rat sightings have dropped for eight straight months, claiming rats are “running scared.”
City Hall also established four “rat mitigation zones,” or RMZs — pouring resources into Harlem, the East Village and Chinatown, parts of the Bronx’s Grand Concourse and a stretch of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick in Brooklyn — where the problem has been especially bad.
The West 67th Street playground falls far outside the closest RMZ in Harlem, which stretches from West 110th to about West 155th.
“This being a kid-friendly zone, you’d think that would be a high priority to make sure they’re not in harm’s way,” a 37-year-old dad of two said from the Central Park playground. “But it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything about it.”
The war on rats has been a losing battle, City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) told The Post.
“Everything is getting progressively worse,” she said when told of the overrun play space. “Am I shocked? No. I’m horrified, but I’m not shocked.”
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