Back in April, I reported that Los Angeles had recorded a surge in the flea-borne disease known as typhus, with 220 confirmed human cases in 2025 and about 90% requiring hospitalization.
The previous outbreaks I reviewed in 2018 and 2019 paled in comparison to the current numbers, which is troubling as the city is poised to host the 2028 Olympic Games. Furthermore, there were multiple localized “outbreak zones” besides Skid Row, including in Santa Monica.
Now Los Angeles County Department of Public Health officials have issued a warning about another outbreak of typhus in the Pico-Union area.
The announcement comes after five people were hospitalized with the bacterial infection but have since recovered, public health officials said, noting that the county has seen an increase in cases.”People are often exposed to typhus in and around their homes, when infected fleas are carried indoors on pets or other animals,” LADPH officials said in a news release. “In Los Angeles County, infected fleas are commonly found on rats, free-roaming cats, and opossums.”They said that in 2025, nine of the 10 people who were diagnosed with flea-borne typhus required hospitalization.Typhus symptoms develop one to two weeks after a person becomes infected, and can include fever, headache, body aches, chills, rash, nausea and vomiting. Health officials urged that anyone experiencing symptoms seek medical care immediately, as the sickness can be treated with antibiotics when diagnosed early.
Once again, “experts” are lumping rats in with free-roaming pets to avoid focus on the explosion in the rat populations around homeless encampments.
“As flea-borne typhus cases continue to increase across Los Angeles County, preventing exposure to infected fleas is more important than ever,” said Muntu Davis, MD, MPH, Los Angeles County Health Officer. “Community members can help protect themselves and their neighbors by keeping pets on flea control year-round, avoiding stray animals, and making sure wildlife cannot live in or around their homes.”The Department of Public Health said people are often exposed to typhus around their homes, when infected fleas are carried indoors by pets or other animals. In LA County, fleas are commonly found on rats, free-roaming cats, and opossums.Infected animals typically don’t appear to be ill, so people sometimes don’t realize they’re at risk because of it. However, flea-borne typhus isn’t contagious from person to person….The Department of Public Health recommends that people protect themselves and their pets by using flea-control products, keeping pets indoors, avoiding wild or stray animals, keeping yards free of debris and trash and reporting concerns to animal control, among other preventive measures.
The Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo indicates that a review of over 1,000 pages of public health documents shows the city has a massive rat problem that its officials seem unable or unwilling to address.
A review of the data suggests that Los Angeles is the rattiest city in the United States.
Today, Los Angeles has all the necessary conditions that allow a rat population to thrive. On a recent reporting trip to the city, we saw those conditions up close. In Skid Row, for example, we spoke with several homeless people who told us that seeing large and aggressive rats in the area is a common occurrence….Another told us that he’d seen a rat eating through the bandage of an injured man while he was asleep. “The rat chewed off the bandage he had, and literally the flesh off him, eating the dead flesh off his arm,” he said.In Koreatown, we found a large rat burrow under a sidewalk near a homeless encampment. At dusk, a horde of rats could be seen scurrying among the trash littered on the sidewalk, feasting on leftover food.A few blocks away, during an interview with Niamh Quinn, the human-wildlife interactions advisor for the University of California’s agriculture and natural resources division, we came across an entire city block where the sidewalk was covered in open, unbagged trash. “What this is, is a lot of harborage,” Quinn said. “This is a lot of places for rats to hide, so this is not good.”
As Rufo notes in the video, California’s AB 1788 (the California Ecosystems Protection Act of 2020) put a statewide moratorium on most uses of second‑generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs), which cause blood thinning and are highly effective. The reasons for the move were the potential harm to mountain lions, raptors, and other non‑target wildlife.
Then, in 2025, the list of restricted rodenticides was expanded via AB 2552, the California Poison‑Free Wildlife Act.
These policies have unintended consequences, especially when paired with the Los Angeles Wildfire disaster.
“My prediction is that probably by the end of the year, we will become the rattiest city in the United States, for sure,” Rico, owner of American Rat Control in Los Angeles, said. “I’m wishing, hoping that we can get some of the old rodenticide back. That really worked.”The Southern California wildfires are another factor in the booming rat population.Many people were displaced during the deadly blaze, and rodents have been as well, so many have made their way into surrounding communities.Rat sightings are up in San Francisco as well, prompting a column just yesterday in SFist on whether that city needs a rat czar like the one in New York City.
California’s ongoing struggle with typhus is a stark reminder that slogans about “healthy environments” ring hollow when basic public health and sanitation are treated as optional.
Until Sacramento, Los Angeles, and other California’s major urban centers are willing to confront the hard truth that permissive policies on encampments, rodents, and urban blight are fueling preventable diseases (as well as balance the use of rodenticides in a way that sensibly protects humans), Californians will remain collateral damage in an ideological experiment gone wrong.
One can only hope that someday a California leader will emerge with the courage and common sense to champion a “California Typhus-Free City Act,” putting the safety and health of ordinary citizens ahead of activist fantasies and bureaucratic inertia.
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