District bill would require city health officials to act against rat population

A recent D.C. Council bill would give DC Health more leeway to recoup the costs of dealing with rats and require them to create a centralized dashboard for rat data.

The Rodent Abatement and Transparency (RAT) Act “requires DC Health to create a publicly accessible rodent abatement dashboard by January 1, 2027. This dashboard will include rodent population estimates, geospatial trends in treatments and service requests,” per the introduction letter from Councilmember Janeese Lewis-George, Ward 4 Democrat.

To back up her legislative call to action, Ms. Lewis-George cited a 2025 study in the journal Science Advances.

The study showed that, out of 16 U.S. and world cities, the District had the highest rate of rat population growth due to climate change, higher human populations and other factors.

If passed, the bill would require the dashboard to allow users to look at rat data as filtered by ward, advisory neighborhood commission and single member district. Officials would also have to let advisory neighborhood commissions know when public trash cans were due to be removed from residential blocks, per Ms. Lewis-George’s letter.

Rat activity or populations found during city enforcement against trash violations would be forwarded directly to city health officials. As it currently stands, the District of Columbia Department of Public Works handles trash issues while DC Health handles rodents.

“This is to make sure we are not doing duplicate efforts but also that we are being effective,” Ms. Lewis-George told WUSA-TV.

DC Health also could get back money spent from corrective anti-rat actions against property owners and would also allow new costs to be assessed against “chronic problem properties.”

“This will strengthen our ability to hold property managers accountable,” Ms. Lewis-George told WUSA-TV.

A vote has not yet been scheduled for the bill, which has five other sponsors on the D.C. Council and which was referred to the council’s health committee on Dec. 2.