VIDEO: Is This For Real? NYC Subway Rat Nibbles Crumbs Off of Passed Out Dude’s Lips

I travel to 20+ countries a year sharing my firsthand knowledge of reward travel, travel credit card deals, travel tips and more.

This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. For an explanation of our Advertising Disclosure, visit this page.

I don’t spend much time on Instagram these days but when I get bored or if I’m looking for travel videos to feature in my newsletter (you can subscribe here), I almost always find something interesting on Instagram. RELATED: VIDEO: Woman’s Selfie Photo Shoot on the NYC Subway

It’s really remarkable some of the travel content that you’ll find, everything from ultra-luxury vacations to some of the grossest things on the planet, some things that are so bad, they’re funny. It’s also difficult not to get sucked in for at least 15 minutes.

Yesterday, I came across a video titled: “Andddd that’ll be enough for the day” reposted by @subwaycreatures (originally posted by @connorduffy.mp3). FYI: I always want to make sure we credit the artist and not just the aggregator.

If you watch the 7-second video below, you may scream out loud like my wife did. It’s of a man passed out on a bench inside the Fulton Street subway station. His cell phone is on the ground and a rat is on his chest going for the crumbs left over on this poor guy’s face.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SubwayCreatures (@subwaycreatures)

I’m not sure this is staged or not but if it is staged (one commenter wondered if the rat is his pet), it’s brilliant and hilarious. If it’s not, then oh my. The only reason I’m suspicious it may be a set-up is because I’ve never seen a white rat in New York City. They’re always brown, black or gray and I’ve seen plenty in all my time there. If you take the subway and just stare out at the tracks, you will most likely see one scurrying around too.

NYC statistics make it likely that this wasn’t a set-up, though. The New York Times ran a story titled, “N.Y.C. Rats: They’re in the Park, on Your Block and Even at Your Table” in November 2021. According to the article, “Through Wednesday, there had been more than 21,000 rat sightings reported to 311 this year, compared with 15,000 in the same period in 2019 (and about 12,000 in 2014).”

That’s a huge increase and there’s also been an increase in diseases from rats as the Times writes: “The rate of initial health inspections to uncover “active rats signs” nearly doubled in the latest fiscal year. There have also been 15 cases this year — the most since at least 2006 — of leptospirosis, which can cause serious liver and kidney damage and, in the city, typically spreads via rat urine, according to health officials. One case was fatal.”

So, I really hope this was a set-up because if it was real, the person filming should have tried to scare the rat away to help the passed out dude.

MORE VIDEOS

Want more travel news, tips and deals? Sign up here for Johnny Jet’s Daily Travel Tip newsletter! Just fill in your email address and check the Daily Travel Tip box—and you’ll have Johnny’s best tips, straight to your inbox each day!