Rats Running Amok All Over Chicago
By Samantha Abernethy in News on Aug 22, 2012 10:20PM
Thanks to the warm winter, rats are ruling the alleys of Chicago, and according to the Chicago Tribune, the number of Chicagoans reporting rat sightings to 311 is up 28 percent. The 2nd Ward and the South Loop saw the biggest increase in complaints, up 176 percent. Rabbits are proliferating like... well, like they're fucking like bunnies... thanks to the warmth, but we're less concerned about the Peter Cottontails than the Splinters and Templetons.
Through the end of July, the number of calls to the city's 311 center asking for a crew to get rid of rats was up more than 28 percent compared with last year. The raw figures: 15,895 calls this year, compared with 12,375 over the same period in 2011.Department of Streets and Sanitation officials say they've put out more rat poison and are working more efficiently this year. Teams are responding within six days instead of an average of nearly eight days a year ago, according to city records. And the number of cases where crews put out poison to kill rats was up more than 19 percent, to 18,339.
The city is stepping up its rat enforcement, and in light of the Tribune study, Streets and Sanitation Thomas Byrne announced today that the city would add two more crews to handle rat complaints.
If this rat infestation doesn't give you nightmares, here's something that probably will, from the city website via ABC7, "They can crawl through holes the size of a quarter, tread water for three days and land unharmed after a five-story fall." Alright, that's enough to get us hoping for a few cold snaps this winter. Or at least you could all pick up your dog feces, ok?