Rotting trash piles in LA attract rats and raise concerns of a new TYPHUS EPIDEMIC

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Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year's record number of flea-borne typhus cases.
Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Even the city’s most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA’s busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up months ago. The rodents can carry typhus-infected fleas, which can spread the disease to humans through bacteria rubbed into the eyes or cuts and scrapes on the skin, resulting in severe flu-like symptoms.

The NBC4 I-Team first told Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office about the piles of filth in the 700 block of Ceres Avenue in October. At the time, he promised to make sure trash doesn’t pile up like that.

The garbage was cleaned after the interview, but conditions have worsened over the next seven months, offering an attractive source of food for rats:

I can’t walk down the street without thinking that a flea could jump on me,” said Estela Lopez, who represents business owners in the area.

After reporting the pile of waste to the city’s 311 services hotline, the I-Team was told it could take up to 90 days before it’s cleaned.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, of UCLA, said there’s no time to waste.Trash and food waste attracts rats,” said Klausner. “It does pose a public health risk.” An out-of-control rat population can even lead to the spread of dangerous strains of salmonella and bubonic plague, he noted.

Other large U.S. cities, like New York and Washington DC, have teams devoted to aggressive rat control. In the nation’s capital, they’re experimenting with bait stations laced with a rat contraceptive.

But in Los Angeles, there is no plan or program to control the growing rat population that feasts at trash piles like the one on Ceres Avenue.It’s something that we’ll look into,” said Pepe Garica, of Los Angeles’ bureau of sanitation.

Rats carrying typhus-infected fleas were found around LA last fall, according to county health department records. The agency did not provide details about where the fleas were found, saying that information would cause confusion and unnecessary alarm, but some typhus-infected fleas had been found on animals waiting to be adopted at the North Central Animal Shelter.  

Between 2013 and 2017, county residents reported a yearly average of nearly 60 cases. That’s twice as many the number reported in the previous five years. Last year, a record 124 cases were reported in Los Angeles County.

Symptoms of flea-borne typhus, which can start within two weeks after infection, include high fever, headache, chills, and body aches. Rashes can appear on the chest, back, arms and legs. Fatalities occur in less than 1 percent of cases.

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[NBC Los Angeles]

1 Comment

  1. The “homeless crisis” is deliberately planned and executed by the elite, an elite who will NEVER have to deal with the criminality, the problems and the health issues that are the direct result of their insane, so called “compassionate” liberal policies.
    The ruling elite will never have to live with a homeless camp parked right next door to their house, condo, or luxury apartment.
    The ruling class do not use public transportation, consequently they will never have the experience of riding along on a bus with people who are yelling, filthy, diseased, scabies and lice ridden, and stinking of urine.
    The ruling elite will not be terrorized or experience violence when the “homeless” decide to flip out, shoot up, rob, or assault the people around them.
    The ruling elite will not use public emergency rooms, and be forced to wait for endless hours while ER staff wrestle, subdue and treat disruptive, violent vagrants.
    We’ve decriminalized drug abuse, and in some instances, legalized it. We decriminalized vagrancy and loitering, and legalized public camping.
    It’s now acceptable to camp, defecate, urinate, vomit, act out, scream, rant, rave, shoot up and terrorize people on public sidewalks.

    One hundred percent of the homeless are abusing drugs.
    You do not see out of work construction workers, factory workers, etc. sitting on sidewalks begging for money and defecating on the pavement.
    Stop the drugs, and you will end homelessness.

    We’ve decriminalized certain crimes associated with drug abuse because in the words of the ruling elite, “these people need treatment, not jail time.”
    Meanwhile, hard working tax payers, vulnerable senior citizens, and children are forced to suffer the consequences of having to co-exist among these violent addicts, sex offenders, and criminals.

    The positive side of tolerating the intolerable for the ruling elite, the homeless industrial complex, or homeless industry, is that government and private NGO’s will pay and receive BILLIONS of dollars in order to “end homelessness.”
    It’s funny, but the more money we throw at homelessness, the worse the problem gets.

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