vermin

Rats Make Out in the Recession

Hard Times? Getting Repoed, Foreclosed on? Well one population segment is loving it, the rats. In the U.K. rats are having a party:

As the biggest economic bust in 60 years fostered a boom for rodents, municipalities were called an estimated 700,000 times to deal with infestations in the last 12 months, compared with 650,000 the previous year, said Peter Crowden, chairman of National Pest Technicians Association Ltd.

The rat population has swollen by 13 percent this year to more than 50 million, one for every person living in England, according to an industry consensus cited by Crowden. Rats and mice are capable of spreading more than 35 diseases, including a fever inducing nausea and muscle aches passed to humans either via a bite or the rodent’s urine.

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