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The first clue that Los Angeles city council president, Herb Wesson, had learned that rats were invading the city hall, possibly carrying a potentially life-threatening disease, was the beating of their feet.
"We had an employee or two who said they heard something in the ceiling," Wesson said Thursday while he was leading a tour in his office, where he recently had all the carpets removed. "Then we had an employee identify what she thought was paw prints."
After a flea hid in a rug invaded one of its employees late last year, Wesson had enough: he closed the office and had all the carpets removed.
Now, after learning that an employee from another city hall office had been infected with typhus at about the same time, he asked the city's staff for the typhus. consider how much it would cost to remove all carpets from the 91-year-old building and its city. Annex Hall East.
"When you go to work, the only thing that should worry you, is to be able to work on time," Wesson said. He wants both to remove the rugs and better fight against vermin. "You should not be afraid to come to work and get a virus."
According to health officials, the city center is in full bloom of typhus. Several homeless people living near City Hall are among those affected. It blooms in unhealthy conditions and is often spread by infected fleas that pull rats. It is rarely fatal when it is treated quickly with antibiotics, but epidemics have killed thousands of people in the Middle Ages.
Wesson acknowledged that he had not seen any rat carrying fleas in his office, but he spoke to enough people at City Hall to be certain that there was had a lot. In any case, there was surely something to chew on his potted plants before it removed them on the notice of the exterminators.
"We had a beautiful orchid right here," he says pointing to an empty plant container.
He thinks that many rats are relatively recent arrivals, displaced when the city began demolishing its former police headquarters, located next door.
On Thursday, police, security guards and staff at several other council offices said they did not see rats either. But they do not doubt to be there either.
"When we work late at the office, you sometimes hear something in the wall," said Mark Pampanin, Communications Assistant to Councilor David Ryu.
Wesson says he does not know how much it would cost to replace all the carpets in the 27-storey building, some of which are decades old. But he does not plan to replace his.
He polished the original concrete floor and says he and his team love the new retro LA look, perfect for an iconic building.
The white art-deco structure has played a prominent role in clbadic films such as Chinese district and LA Confidential, has been the centerpiece of almost every background shot during decades of films and has been featured in television shows from the 1950s as The adventures of Superman "Goliath", the current series of Billy Bob Thornton.
This story is one of the reasons why locals in Ryu's office said they removed their carpet after the city councilor's appointment in 2015, years before the rat problem began.
"This kind of standard government rugs was not really our style," said Pampanin. "This building is a living story of 100 years ago – and the floor is charming. And now, it seems that our aesthetic has served us well too. "
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