{"id":31862,"date":"2019-08-07T10:21:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T15:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/?p=31862"},"modified":"2019-08-28T13:35:49","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T18:35:49","slug":"rat-capital-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/rat-capital-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Study Names Chicago the &#8216;Rat Capital&#8217; of America"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York and their infamous pizza rat ain&#8217;t got nothing on us, apparently. Chicago is Rat Capital of America for the second year running.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/chicago_rodent_map_2019.html\" width=\"100%\" height=\"685px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Based on a recent survey of four, large American cities, popular apartment search service, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/studies\/national\/is-your-city-rodent-infested#chicago\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RentHop<\/a>, has come to the conclusion that Chicago has the largest rodent infestation of them all, officially dubbing it the &#8220;rat capital&#8221; of America for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n<p>The study \u2013 which also examined the rat populations in NYC, Boston, and Washington D.C. \u2013 analyzed Chicago City data on the number of rat complaints made to 311 in the year 2018. And, according to RentHop&#8217;s findings, there were<em> a lot<\/em> of them, though down from last year&#8217;s 50,963. There were 40,057 Chicago rat complaints logged in 2018, to be exact, with the highest complaints spike seen in August. This year&#8217;s numbers are a 7% increase from those complaints lodged in the same period in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The report proceeds to discuss Chicago&#8217;s rat problem further, stating that &#8220;the abundance of garbage and buildings in The Windy City makes it a great location for these rats to seek shelter and food for survival,&#8221; meaning that the hometown we hear often hailed as a &#8220;cleaner New York&#8221; is actually the &#8220;rat capital&#8221; of America. And though highly trafficked areas like The Loop remain relatively rat-free, neighborhoods like Ukrainian Village, Lakeview, and West Ridge have the highest rate of complaints regarding Chicago rats, perhaps, RentHop presumes, due to their respectively large dog populations.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, to be fair, the study that named us the Chicago rat capital was based on complaints and complaints alone so, who knows, maybe Chicago&#8217;s just whiny instead.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><center><a class=\"vc_general vc_btn3 vc_btn3-size-md vc_btn3-shape-square vc_btn3-style-flat vc_btn3-block vc_btn3-color-warning\" title=\"\" href=\"\/chicago\/read-more\/\">READ MORE LIKE THIS<\/a><\/center><center><a class=\"vc_general vc_btn3 vc_btn3-size-md vc_btn3-shape-square vc_btn3-style-flat vc_btn3-block vc_btn3-color-primary\" title=\"\" href=\"\/app\/\">DOWNLOAD THE URBANMATTER APP<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York and their infamous pizza rat ain&#8217;t got nothing on us, apparently. Chicago is Rat Capital of America for the second year running. Based on a recent&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2008,"featured_media":31867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1554],"tags":[2056,5999,4064,559,1024,5998,6001,6000],"class_list":["post-31862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-category-news","tag-apartments","tag-chicago-rats","tag-englewood","tag-logan-square","tag-neighborhoods","tag-rats","tag-renthop","tag-rodents"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.4 (Yoast SEO v26.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Study Names Chicago the &#039;Rat Capital&#039; of America | UrbanMatter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Based on a recent survey of four, large American cities, popular apartment search service, RentHop, has named Chicago the &quot;rat capital&quot; of America.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/rat-capital-america\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Study Names Chicago the &#039;Rat Capital&#039; of America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Based on a recent survey of four, large American cities, popular apartment search service, RentHop, has named Chicago the &quot;rat capital&quot; of America.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/rat-capital-america\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UrbanMatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/Pluggchicago\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-07T15:21:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-08-28T18:35:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_751231396.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"667\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jessica Hamrick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@UMatterChicago\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@UMatterChicago\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jessica Hamrick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/rat-capital-america\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/rat-capital-america\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jessica Hamrick\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/urbanmatter.com\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/d629de13054480675aa4bfe6fd70ef2e\"},\"headline\":\"Study Names Chicago the &#8216;Rat Capital&#8217; 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