Rat Lover & City Rat Hats

Rats have a fan base that the rest of the city does not quite understand. Pet owners call themselves rat moms and rat dads, and Walmart carries a whole rat-shirt category built on RAT MOM, RAT SQUAD and MY RAT THINKS I'M COOL. A pet rat lives only two to three years, which is part of why the people who keep them are so devoted. Then there are the city rats, which have their own folklore. Pizza Rat dragged a slice down the stairs of a New York subway station in September 2015 and became a national headline. In October 2022 Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced new trash pick-up times with the line "The rats don't run this city, we do," and the Department of Sanitation sold a shirt with it. In April 2023 New York hired Kathleen Corradi as its first rat czar, at $155,000 a year, and she stepped down in September 2025. This page is for the other side of that argument. The badges name the two tribes, RAT LOVER and CITY RAT. The sentences claim the rats' side with a straight face: unbothered like a subway rat, a pro-rat czar, a wearer who aspires to Pizza Rat levels of commitment and who finds the landlord scarier than the rodent. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear one to the pet store, the subway platform or the next city council meeting about trash.