Chicago isn't in first place with other animals like Bears, Cubs, and Bulls, but when it comes to rats, Chicago is title-town once again. The Bulls grabbed six titles for Chicago at one time, but the rats may just keep on repeating.

Given the year that Chicago had in 2020, this information from pest-control company Orkin is just the disgusting icing on a lousy cake.

There are lots of jobs out there that would seem, to an outsider, to be just awful. I would think being the person or group in charge of totaling up a city's rat population would qualify as one of those jobs. It turns out that Orkin did their calculating a different way.

In a press release, Orkin explains that they came up with the numbers for their Top 50 Rattiest Cities List by counting all the "new rodent treatments," both in homes and businesses around the country from September 1st, 2019 through August 31st of 2020.

It appears that Orkin's phones in and around Chicago have been ringing quite a bit. But then again, since Chicago tops the list for the 6th consecutive year, those phones have been going strong for the better part of a decade.

Reader's Digest, in a piece about the rodent infestation, makes a pretty interesting point about rats and their reaction to the pandemic.

Rodents also hated the pandemic just as much as humans did in 2020. All of the restaurant closures forced them to find new sources of food. Many rats were seen scavenging new areas and showing signs of unusual and aggressive behavior.

Just like us, they were denied the opportunity to enjoy a "dine-in" experience, so they looked all over for the best take-out they could find. It seems residential and business garbage cans and dumpsters around Chicago that weren't connected to a restaurant fit the bill nicely.

  • Chicago
  • Los Angeles
  • New York
  • Washington, DC
  • San Francisco

 

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