As if New Orleans doesn't have enough problems to deal with right now. With restaurants closed save for take-out service, far less food waste is being discarded in the city's alleyways.
So that's driving the local rodent population out into the open to search for scraps. Now with Bourbon Street's famous bars all closed and people social distancing, videos show dozens of rats scurrying through the empty streets.
Charles Marsala of New Orleans Insider Tours said, "I turn the corner, there's about 30 rats at the corner, feasting on something in the middle of the street. I've never" seen anything like it before."
To control the population, city crews started putting bait in the gutters and placing rat traps throughout the French Quarter neighborhood. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the rats were going "crazy."
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