[dropcap size=big]A[/dropcap] person built a ramshackle dwelling set amid trash piled five feet high and strewn along a wall for a hundred feet. Rats darted out from under the retch and rotten food, zigzagging every which way.
These are not conditions you usually expect to see in the United States. But this is Ceres Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, just yesterday, Wednesday Oct. 10, and this is where trash comes to sleep.
Sprawling piles of rat-infested trash were left ignored by the city and now could be a source of the recent typhus outbreak, NBC Los Angeles said in a report. The city’s Department of Sanitation received more than 2,200 calls to 311 over a two-year period to pick up trash near homeless encampments, but failed to respond to more than half of those calls, according to the investigative report.
“If someone is calling 311 and not getting through, that's unacceptable," Mayor Garcetti told NBC, responding to the information. The NBC report dubbed the area in downtown L.A. where nine typhus cases have been reported as "The Typhus Zone." The areas encompasses Skid Row, as well as nearby upscale residences and businesses.