Posted on 05/22/2019 2:21:30 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
After reporting LA's most notorious trash pile to the city's 311 services hotline, the I-Team was told it could take up to 90 days before it's cleaned up. An expert says there's no time to waste.
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.
"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.
LA Vows to Clean Filth From More City Streets "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, the I-Team learned 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 obtained by the I-Team. The agency did not provide details about where the fleas were found, saying that information would cause confusion and unnecessary alarm, but the I-Team discovered that typhus-infected fleas were found on animals waiting to be adopted at the North Central Animal Shelter.
Typhus Epidemic Worsens in Los Angeles 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.
The I-Team asked the Department of Public Health what became of the shelter animals carrying fleas that tested positive for typhus. We are still waiting to hear back.
Jut another reason to build that wall on the east side of CA.
Go away... ‘baitin’!
Los Angeles which already has an outbreak of typhus might as well add bubonic plague to the mix. Wonder how many of the illegals have been vaccinated for polio or even smallpox? I also expect a resurgence of TB.
Idiocracy is getting more real everyday.
A 12 gauge shotgun is a good way to shoot rats. I think they should hand a shotgun to every street person and a box of shells.
I thought Mayor Garcetti was going to be running for President. Given that being incompetent isn’t an impediment to joining the field, he should hurry up and jump in the clown car
The Socialist State of Kalifornia - not too long ago, it was known as "The Golden State", bus socialism quickly fixed that.
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out.
She’d wash the dishes and scrub the pans
Cook the yams and spice the hams,
And though her parents would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceiling:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas and rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the windows and blocked the door,
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peels,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans, and tangerines,
Crusts of black-burned buttered toast,
Grisly bits of beefy roast.
The garbage rolled on down the halls,
It raised the roof, it broke the walls,
I mean, greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Blobs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from old bologna,
Rubbery, blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk, and crusts of pie,
Rotting melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold French fries and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky,
And none of her friends would come to play,
And all of her neighbors moved away;
And finally, Sarah Cynthia Stout
Said, “Okay, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course it was too late,
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate;
And there in the garbage she did hate
Poor Sarah met an awful fate
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late
But children, remember Sarah Stout,
And always take the garbage out.
How about rat poison, instead of birth control? Are rats an endangered species in CA, and somehow illegal to kill?
No, but they vote.
California is a 3rd rate state run down by democrats.
The worse is yet to come.
California = Venezuela-lite
Drop it off in Malibu, Brentwood, Lajolla, and DelMar. Let them share the fruits of their labor.
Why bother?
We only have a little over 11 years before climate change kills us all anyway.
Renowned climatologists Bill Nye and AOC have told us this.
Or move to Minneapolis where a night on the town means going to the local light rail station and getting hammered.
#7 Try visiting now around Nordhoff and Topanga blvd and Canoga ave streets.
Lots and lots of bums in their run down motor homes and in makeshift tents.
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