Life in the second rattiest city in America, where cars are eaten by rodents

When San Francisco was ranked as the second most rat-infested city in America in 2024, it came as no surprise to Rich Neumann.

Neumann, founder and CEO of a video technology company, has been dealing with the plague for years. Things have gotten so bad lately that cars are being gnawed on and businesses are being forced to close their doors.

In 2022, more than 40,000 homes in the city showed signs of rats, and damage to cars on Neumann’s street alone cost more than $15,000.

“When I moved into this house, the garage across from the ally and the crawl space under the house was infested with rats,” Neumann told DailyMail.com.

“It is not uncommon to see rats running along the ally, especially at night,” he added.

Terminix, a national pest control company, released its ranking of the most ratted cities in September.

While New York sits at the top, San Francisco shot from fifth to second in recent years.

‘San Francisco is pushing for higher human density, for example by letting people convert garages into rental housing. More people means more rats,” Neumann said.

He also cited the city’s pervasive homelessness problem as a cause of the increasing rat infestation.

“People who defecate in the streets attract more rats,” he said.

In Oakland, a family’s apartment has become overrun with rodents, forcing them to move because neither the landlord nor the city have resolved the problem.

And in May, workers at a McDonald’s in Oakland went on strike after becoming fed up with the rat infestation that was ravaging their workplace.

“The rat problem has only gotten worse since I started here,” an employee told CBS News in Spanish through a translator. “We’ve seen dead rats; the smell is terrible. The smell of their feces and urine. It has brought us to the point where we can now make our voices heard.’

Several other McDonald’s locations in the city have been forced to close.

While closed businesses made headlines, local residents like Neumann suffered in silence.

“San Francisco has earned the distinction of being the third most rat-infested city in the country,” he said.

‘Granted, I’m sure Mayor Breed has a lot of other problems to deal with than someone having their truck eaten by rats. I have not yet received a response to the letters I wrote to Mayor Breed for help.’ (This is the best I have, but does it ruin the reveal?)

Neumann lives in the Inner Sunset District, which he described as a “very nice rural area.”

He parks his Dodge Ram 1500 quad cab in an alley near his house every day. For the first few years, this situation worked well for Neumann. It was safe, easy and reliable.

But in the spring of 2017, he discovered his check engine light was coming on.

After failing to figure out the reason behind the check engine light himself, a visit to the mechanic revealed that rats had chewed through his gas tank.

Rats will chew through virtually anything, including plastic, wood, aluminum, and even brick and concrete.

They chew inedible materials such as plastic to keep their teeth clipped. If they grow too long, it can become painful or difficult to eat.

Most modern gas tanks – including Neumann’s at the time – are made of plastic. This material is no match for the sharp teeth of rats.

Neumann repaired the damage to his gas tank, installed some preventative hardware and continued to park his car in the alley.

But the check engine light came on again. Between 2017 and 2021, the rodents had chewed through his gas tank three times.

He has spent more than $6,400 on repairs and preventive hardware to fix the problem three times and said his neighbors have also experienced the rodent invasion, which completely destroyed one of their vehicles.

‘That’s three people in fifteen minutes. “It’s not unreasonable to assume this is a citywide problem,” he added.

Since 2019, San Francisco has been using ContraPest – a form of birth control for rats – to control its rapidly growing rodent population.

According to a ContraPest report, this oral contraceptive had reduced the number of dens by 65 percent as of 2023.

But with reports of rodents in Terminix at an all-time high this year, it appears the problem is still pervasive.

And if rats enter people’s homes, businesses or vehicles, the city will do little to help, Neumann said.

“The responsibility for the rats lies with the store owner or homeowner. “The city won’t do anything about it,” he said.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.

By July 2021, Neumann had had enough. He replaced his plastic gas tank with a steel tank from Long Range America, an American company that sells replacement and spare fuel tanks. It cost him almost $2,000.

But although his truck passed emissions tests with the new metal gas tank, it failed inspection because the model was not approved by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which enforces vehicle standards to reduce pollution.

“My truck passes 100 percent emissions testing. The only difference is it has a rat-proof gas tank,” he said.

“Since the 1970s, fuel tanks have been subject to California and federal anti-tampering laws to ensure they meet vehicle emissions control requirements,” CARB public information officer Lynda Lambert wrote in an emailed statement to DailyMail.com.

That was in 2021. Since then, Neumann has contacted CARB to request a waiver. This would allow him to drive his truck with the non-CARB certified tank due to his unique circumstances.

But CARB has not responded to any of his 16 request letters, he said.

“CARB has become a huge entity that throws out these mandates, with absolutely no consequences. They are not accountable to anyone,” he said.

Left with no other choice, Neumann continues to drive his truck with the metal gas tank.

“I’m honestly waiting to be pulled over so I can stand in front of a judge and tell him my story,” he said.