Rats have been spotted roaming completely freely around a New York Chinese restaurant at night in grim footage.

The video shot by a passerby shows at least three rodents at the Royal Queen eatery in Flushing, Queens.

The rats are seen sniffing around boxes as well as inside and on top of a hot food display counter of the Dim Sum restaurant.

Recent research by New York–based pest control company MMPC suggest a post-Covid spike in New York City’s rat population from two to three million of the rodents since 2010.

That means one for every two-to-three of NYC’s 8.5 million citizens.

A grim video has emerged showing three rats roaming freely around New York Chinese restaurant ‘Royal Queen’

The footage of the Flushing, Queens, eatery shows two rats scurrying around cardboard boxes while another sniffs round a hot food display counter

The video begins with the unnamed person behind the camera zooming in on the restaurant’s serving area to a set of boxes in front of which we can see a rat.

Another soon emerges form behind the box slightly further away. 

Panning left we see a third rodent on the hot food display, which still had some contents inside, before the shot zooms back out to reveal the restaurant’s logo on TV screens above the counter.

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Royal Queen restaurant has been approached for comment on the stomach-churning footage which was captured on September 28.

But this is not an isolated case. A darkly ironic video emerged in September of a rat crawling around a New York restaurant’s grade ‘A’ health inspection sign.

The large rodent was spotted through the window at Dixon Place, Manhattan, by a stunned pedestrian on September 17. 

In general, rat sightings have become viral on ‘RatTok’ with New York a hotspot for the clips. 

A spree of horrifying encounters have come after Dailymail.com reported that New York City is now so overrun with rats that tour guides are offering trips to see the worst rodent-infested areas. Pictured left: A rat crawling round a restaurant’s grade ‘A’ health inspection sign. Right: ‘Dozens’ of rats emerging from a bin by the roadside

One such video was taken on August 30 and captures ‘dozens’ of rats emerging from bins at the roadside, forcing a group of five New Yorkers to literally jump over them as the rodents frantically darted up and down the sidewalk.

Taryn Brady, 29, who filmed the incident, said she was left in ‘fear and disgust’. 

These horrifying encounters come after Dailymail.com reported that New York City is now so overrun with rats that tour guides are offering trips to see the worst rodent-infested areas. 

In April, New York City’s mayor Eric Adams appointed the city’s first ever ‘rat czar’, with a $155,000-a-year salary showing how serious an issue this is in the area.