The Debts of the Spenders: British Vermin Population Rises in Empty Buildings

A somewhat yellow piece of journalism. It's still a very lurid account and a nice break from reading about numbers and legal jargon all day long. It makes me wonder what the situation is like in US cities:

“Sometimes I drive into the car park and there are at least 20 of them in the bins,” said Paul Hood, 46, a north London resident. “You see them running away in the headlights. During the day, they just sit in the bushes sunbathing.”

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.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601109&sid=a7XWhB9as2Xg&refer=home