Report: Homes in Philly Have More Mice Than in Any Other U.S. City
Homes in Philly are more likely to be rat or mice infested than households in any other U.S. city, according to a Bloomberg analysis of recent census data.
The report claims that nearly one in five homeowners in the Philly area have reported seeing mice or rats within the last year. While the city has known about its rat problem for a while now – an October report from Orkin placed Philly seventh on its “Top 50 Rattiest Cities” list – we didn’t know it was this bad.
Granted, it could be worse: we could be like New York, which was the only major city with numbers in the double-digits for households that reported seeing both rats AND cockroaches – 16 percent of residents in the Big Apple reported seeing roaches, and 15 percent reported seeing rodents.
Philly placed 13th for homes with roach infestations, with less than 10 percent of homeowners seeing roaches in the last year.
At least things aren’t as bad as they were in 1914, when Philly was trying to stave off the Bubonic Plague and the the city’s Bureau of Health established a “rat receiving station” at the Race Street Pier, offering a bounty of two cents for dead rats and five cents for live rats, according to a newspaper published at the time. (They reportedly collected 5,238 rats within four months.)
Check out Bloomberg for more information on the report.
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