Chicago takes top spot ahead of 9 other Democrat-run cities on list of America's most rat-infested cities

America's top 50 rattiest cities were announced Monday by the pest-control company Orkin. For the ninth year in a row, Chicago clinched the top spot, beating out nine other Democrat-run cities. Los Angeles jumped to the #2 spot, while New York City fell to #3.

"Rattiest" cities ranked 4-10 are as follows: Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Denver; Detroit; and Cleveland, Ohio.

The list is based on new extermination services rendered between Sept. 1, 2022, and Aug. 31.

Gold-medal rat hole

A Block Club Chicago and Illinois Answers Project investigation found that Chicago has chronically failed to keep up with rat complaints. It received over 50,000 complaints in 2022 and has already seen 38,742 complaints in 2023, as of Oct. 13.

Streets and Sanitation indicated the problem worsened during the pandemic, reported WFLD-TV.

Even when the city gets around to intervening, its efficacy leaves much to be desired. For instance, it has issued 117,000 rat-related tickets amounting to $153 million in penalties since 2019, but still has $126 million in ticket debt outstanding.

Facing a worsening trend, the city's inspector general's office indicated it would audit the Bureau of Rodent Control and investigate "multiple complaints about the efficiency and effectiveness of the City's rat abatement program."

Leftist Mayor Brandon Johnson's recommended budget would allocate $14.85 million to the Bureau of Rodent Control for the 2024 fiscal year. The budget documents also noted that the bureau's full-time staff will increase slightly from 114 to 118.

The proposed 118 rodent bureaucrats will be tasked with addressing the spread of the Norway rat, Chicago's only species. The Norway rat females reportedly can spawn 50 offspring per year. Their female offspring can, in turn, reproduce just months after birth. Block Club Chicago cited zoologists who suggested two rats could turn out several thousand more inside a year.

Tommy Lawler, a Chicago resident in Clearing's Chrysler Village, told Block Club Chicago he encountered 10 rats just cutting his friend's front lawn.

"They looked like they were in a fricking resort," said Lawler. "One of them was in a puddle like he was doing the doggy paddle or something. They were afraid of nothing! They didn’t care."

A McKinley Park resident complained to the city in April 2020 that rats had been eating her 76-year-old mother alive.

Not only do rats carry diseases, but they chew through car wires, power lines, and various structures.

Despite multitudes of rats chewing up Chicago, Rodent Control Deputy Commissioner Josie Cruz told WBEZ in April that Chicago's response to rats was "on the right track."

"I just feel like we're moving forward," said the rat czar of America's rattiest city. "As long as we're continuing with our preventatives and continue doing our education and contacting people."

Silver-medal rat hole

Prior to the pandemic, Los Angeles was already facing a rat problem.

A year after a rat-linked typhus outbreak, former San Diego mayor and prospective gubernatorial candidate Carl DeMaio sounded the alarm in 2019, saying, "California is being overrun by rodents – and without immediate emergency action by state and local government, we face significant economic costs and risk a public health crisis."

DeMaio cited a report by his group, Reform California, which claimed the problem was "directly related to the elimination of effective rodent control methods and a spike in the homeless population."

The city, which has lost recourse to another effective rat poison on account of Gov. Gavin Newsom's latest ban, has only seen its vermin problem worsen since.

Packs of rats have been filmed parading around in broad daylight. They have invaded schools, closing at least one. Earlier this month, merchants along Olvera Street indicated their livelihoods were at risk on account of infestations.

"Part of the problem here is there is such a bureaucracy the way the city operates," Edward Flores, owner of Juanita's Cafe, told KTLA-TV. "There doesn’t seem to be any staffers here that are tasked with gathering them up."

According to Flores, the homeless encampments littered throughout the city are full of human waste and food, feeding the problem.

KNBC-TV reported that this year, 75,518 homeless people were counted in Los Angeles County.

Bronze-medal rat hole

New York City, which dropped one spot, has claimed some recent success in addressing its rat problem, citing a sizeable drop in 311 calls about rat activity in July across the city. The drop appears to have been a relatively easy feat, given that the city set a record for rodent sightings in 2022.

"New Yorkers may not know this about me — but I hate rats," said Mayor Eric Adams. "It's still early, but these numbers show what we're doing is working and that we are moving in the right direction. Every food scrap that we keep out of the trash and every black bag that we keep off the street is a meal that we’re taking out of a hungry rodent's stomach. It takes all of us to win the war on rats, so I encourage New Yorkers to keep composting, keep putting your trash in containers, and I hope to see you out there at one of our 'Anti-Rat Community Days of Action.'"

The city has taken various steps to crush the rodent uprising. For instance, in June, Adams announced a new rule requiring restaurants and other food-related businesses to use trash cans with lids, hoping to cut down on the mountains of exposed garbage that had long been feeding armies of rats.

Adams' call to action comes in the wake of the pandemic, during which rodent sightings skyrocketed.

The problem persisted well into this year, such that so-called rat tourism has taken off.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!