Rats overrun LA city hall

LOS ANGELES: are ripping out carpets, setting traps and fumigating as they battle a rat infestation at City Hall that one attorney says left her battling a bout of typhus.

The historic building, located in the downtown area, has apparently been overrun with rodents after a nearby structure was demolished last year.

City council members and staff

day in the 91-year-old building, nesting in potted plants, gnawing at carpets and leaving droppings

Elizabeth Greenwood, a city attorney, believes she contracted typhus last November after working in a building connected to City Hall.

“It was terrifying, I thought I was

out what was wrong with me,” she told the local CBS station.

The rat problem has gotten so bad that city council president Herb Wesson this week submitted a motion calling for a probe into “the scope of vermin and pest control issues” in the building and adjacent structures.

“Employees shouldn’t have to come to work worried about rodents,” Wesson told the Los Angeles Times. “I intend to do whatever it is we need” to solve the issue.

He said the problem of vermin

he removed his staff from the art-deco building during the endof-year holidays and ripped out all the carpeting.

He is now asking the city to consider taking out all the rugs in the 27-story building, a popular

movies including “Chinatown”

Questioned by AFP, the Los Angeles mayor’s office said it was concerned about the rodent issue and was seeking to eradicate the critters.