The Paris town hall wants to hunt down the rats. Nearly a dozen parks and gardens infested by rodents were closed while the services intervened.
The film Ratatouille did not soften the town hall of Paris. Irritated to see those little long-tailed furballs crossing the streets and playing on the slides, the capital has decided to go to war against the rats. By “punch operations”, the rat control teams will have the mission of driving them out of the basements of buildings, parks and gardens of the city where they have taken up residence.
Like the Cambronne and Garibaldi squares in the 15e district closed since November 22, nearly ten Parisian gardens of the 10e, 11e and 4e districts will be closed to the public to be treated for at least 15 days. Even the Champ-de-Mars will not escape this “large-scale action plan”.
(Almost) total eradication
However, the health services assure that there is no risk of disease. Rats will not spread rabies, plague or cholera in the streets of the capital. What really bothers the town hall is the image these rodents give of Paris. Rat often rhymes with lack of hygiene and screaming cleanliness, “which poses health, aesthetic and economic problems, and rightly causes inconvenience for Parisians and tourists”, underline the municipal services.
If complete eradication of rodents is not possible, the city hopes to see their numbers drastically drop by preventing them from coming out of sewers and targeting rats that venture outside. To do this, the deratisers will fill the burrows and place secure boxes containing anticoagulant baits, deadly traps that will cause internal hemorrhages in rats. A cadaver count will also be carried out to assess the effectiveness of this approach.
At the same time, longer-term measures will be taken to prevent a new infestation. The city could thus review the hours of passage of the garbage collectors to avoid that the garbage does not accumulate too long on the sidewalks. Communication actions should also be initiated with the general public to prevent Parisians and tourists from feeding pigeons, and therefore rats. The brigade to fight against incivility, the feeding of pests and the abandonment of waste should also multiply its rounds.
The war is also being played out in Marseille
And Paris is not the only one to embark on the rat hunt. In Marseille, some 8 million rats are said to be walking quietly in the streets. They would be 9 times more numerous than the Marseillais. Colonies that are rotting the lives of the inhabitants of the Phocaean city.
The town hall has also decided to act. Deposit of rat poison in the city’s outlets, distribution of leaflets, an awareness campaign has started. Elected officials also reminded residents to take out their trash in closed bags before 7 p.m. and call the “Hello Town Hall” device, 0810 813 813, to declare the presence of rodents.
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