Which SC city is most infested with rats? Orkin has the answer

Greenville has been on so many ‘best of’ lists, it’s a bit shocking to see the Upstate city on a list that’s not so complimentary — one of the most rat-infested cities in the U.S.

CBS News reported on a survey by Orkin, which ranks cities based on how many new residential and commercial rodent treatments it performs in a 12-month period and reports on the top one in each state.

The latest survey was based on work done from Sept. 15, 2020 to Sept. 15, 2021.

That was during a time when COVID forced some restaurants — natural rat attractors — to close. In South Carolina, Gov, Henry McMaster ordered restaurants to close for dine-in customers the previous spring.

“Orkin says those closures forced rats to find new food sources — and new homes. All this drove up the overall number of rodent sightings,” CBS said.

It could also mean people in the cited communities are more adamant about not living with rats.

The good news for Greenville is that even though it’s on a list of rat-infested cities, it is No. 41 of 50.

CBS said the most common species of rat in South Carolina is the brown rat.

“The rodent is typically brown or gray in color, has scaly tails and weighs up to 1 pound,” CBS said.

The pest control companies didn’t offer numbers as to how many inspections they did.

Still, rats can’t take away all the superlatives Greenville gets. Best place to live, best place to visit this fall, best place to work remotely, friendliest — the list goes on and on.

And it could be worse for the rat problem.

Consider that rat calls increased 30% in Portland, Maine, No. 38; or Raleigh, North Carolina, No. 35, which had rats and snakes.

No. 28 Richmond, Virginia, had such a bad rat problem at a public-housing complex, one resident called a crisis hotline, saying, “I’m tired of crying.”

In Kansas City, Missouri, No. 25, they have rats the size of rabbits, according to WDAF-TV.

The worst cities for rats, Orkin says, are San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles and, taking the top spot for the second year in a row, Chicago.

Chicago has been fighting rats for a decade through a program called Cats at Work. The Tree House Humane Society traps feral cats, neuters them and then puts them back in neighborhoods. Residents feed and care for them and in turn the cats scare away the rats because the rats sense the pheromones cats produce and move along.