Rat complaints from the Chinatown area in New York have increased 140 percent in five years, reports NBC NY.
Calls to the city’s 311 hotline about rats increased from 228 in 2010 to 549 last year.
“I’ve never seen such a rat-infested neighborhood,” said Eric Lee who found rats had chewed through the wiring of his vehicle after nesting in his engine.
Sightings soared despite a $32 million rat eradication program which began in 2017 in six New York neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the Lower East Side and the East Village, according to Patch.
Mike Deutsch, a local exterminator, said rats are not only a nuisance, but carry such diseases as E. coli and the plague. He told NBC New York that he thinks contraceptives can help control the rat population.
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