Most Rats in America: Chicago takes the crown.
 

This is interesting.

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-new...0's%20list.

Chicago
Los Angeles
New York
Washington, D.C.
San Francisco
Baltimore (+2)
Philadelphia
Detroit (-2)
Denver
Cleveland (+1)
Seattle (+1)
Minneapolis (-2)
Boston
Indianapolis (+1)
Atlanta (-1)
Pittsburgh (+2)
San Diego (+2)
Houston (-1)
Cincinnati (+3)
Dallas (-4)

Chicago seems to "win" this title ever year.

Throwing out a guess here, but I suspect that being the most thoroughly alleyed city in the nation plays a role in it.

Those thousand of miles of alleys bisecting nearly every single block in the city provide all kinds of "unseen" nooks for rats to hide in.

I would have thought that NY would rank first due to the unparalleled density. Other very densely populated cities like Paris and London have serious rodent infestation.

Yeah, I don't know how NYC doesn't win this one. I've heard numerous stories of people having a rat get inside their apartment since the pandemic started.

Do New Yorkers even report rats to pest control? I figure it must be a household skill over there.

DC had a pretty terrible rat problem when I lived there in the early 2010s. I'd often see scores of them running around the Foggy Bottom area at night.

I actually don't see too many rats in LA. When I lived by USC, we had lots of alley cats that seemed to keep the rat population in check. And in Los Feliz, we often have coyotes roaming the neighborhood after dark. Maybe they help to keep the visible presence of rats down?

Rats in a residence would definitely get reported. It used to be very unusual, but I've heard a few too many stories since the start of the pandemic.

It's always been common to see them on the street. And they're also far more visible on the street than they were before.

I'm surprised SF made the list too given the prevalence of natural predators but I guess it is a dense city with the most restaurants per capita.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...09fca1ac_o.jpg

I never see rats in LA but these guys are basically rats and they're everywhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califo...round_squirrel

I've seen more rats in New York on a single night than I have in all my time living in Chicago.

I call bull on this. I go to Boston for extended periods of time. There is absolutely no way in any dimension Chicago has more rats than Boston. I have been back in Chicago for 5 months now and have seen less rats, maybe a handful in all that time, than I do on a one time one block walk at night in Boston.

DC is the only American city where I've seen rats just strolling down the street. I even (accidentally) kicked a rat in DC one night, sending it flying.

Don't think I've ever seen a rat in NYC except on subway tracks. Our neighborhood has skunks and raccoons, due to proximity to Prospect Park forestland, but never seen a rat.

Rats apparently have good taste.

I feel like I see more rat traps than I do rats in LA, usually along alleys.
https://static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/...536&$adapimg$=

But I have seen some rats over the years, mainly in downtown LA's older sections or the Arts District.

Where I live in South Pasadena, I'm more apt to see raccoons, possums, skunks, squirrels, coyotes, parrots, peacocks... I live near Garfield Park, and I also live near a wash that forms a border between the cities of South Pasadena and San Marino---coyotes tend to wander along washes and riverbeds, so I've read. About a month ago, I saw what I presume was the same coyote walking down the street 3 days in a row, on my morning drive to work.

Really? I see them strolling in the streets all the time around the city. I won't wear flip flops around the city past late afternoon because I've had them run across my feet before.

Our rats don't hide. Look down into the hole left by any demolished building and you'll see lots of them, big and fat, scurrying around.

I blame it partly on the fact the city may have more restaurants per capita but it has fewer trash cans and the ones it has get regularly turned over with the contents dumped on the sidewalk by scavengers looking for recyclables they can turn in for cash. Also, lots of people discard their waste into those same holes where the demolished buildings were and the rats are.

It's the deep dish pizza..... There are costs to having the best pizza scene in America ;)

We need a followup from the media because I'm not sure how this turned out but it may be an "only in San Francisco" experience. Note that San Francisco has long had other sorts of "dungeon" experiences but without rats so far as I'm aware. Plenty of whips and black leather though.

https://sfist.com/2019/05/31/rat-bar...ns-wharf-next/

There's a lot rats in NYC but a lot of them have been tied to a cinderblock underneath the East River.

As for Chicago, I can only surmise that the copious amounts of cheese and carbohydrates in their Pizza doesn't all get eaten because their pizza is a cheese cinderblock, the same thing used to get rid of rats in NY... only with Cheese of the non-lactose type and so it gets throw away and rots in the many alleys that they have, the rats smell this, they eat the pizza, than with all of the carbs have tremendous energy, they mate with a rat female, and a rat baby is born. Leads to overpopulation. The census needs to start measuring this and add it to the population figures!

You're also forgetting the rats are probably getting drunk off Malort that's been dumped down the drain from wimps that couldn't handle a proper shot of it. They get that deep dish and Malort into their system..... make bad Rat life choices, then boom - You have record numbers of rats in Chicago.