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, who is the founder and CEO of a video tech company, has been dealing with the scourge for years. It has become so bad recently that cars are being gnawed into and businesses have been forced to shutter.
More than 40,000 homes in the city had signs of rats in 2022, and on Neumann’s street alone, the damage to cars has cost more than $15,000.
‘When I moved into this house, the garage which faces the ally and the crawl space under the house was infested with rats,’ Neumann told DailyMail.com.
‘It’s not uncommon to see rats scurrying down the ally – especially at night,’ he added.
More than 40,000 homes in San Francisco had signs of rats in 2022, and on Neumann’s street alone, the damage to cars has cost more than $15,000
Terminix, a nationwide pest control company, released its rattiest city rankings in September.
While New York ranked at the top, San Francisco shot up from fifth place to second place in recent years.
‘San Francisco is pushing for higher human density, like having people convert garages into rental units. More people equals more rats,’ Neumann said.
He also cited the city’s pervasive homelessness problem as a driver of rising rat infestation.
‘Humans defecating on the street attracts more rats,’ he said.
In Oakland, a family’s apartment has become overrun with rodents, forcing them to move out as neither the landlord nor the city have solved the problem.
And in May, workers at a McDonald’s in Oakland went on strike after becoming fed-up with the rat infestation plaguing their workplace.
‘The rat problem has progressed since I started my job here,’ one employee told CBS news in Spanish through a translator. ‘We’ve seen dead rats; the smell is terrible. The odor from their feces and urine. It’s gotten us to this point where we’re now speaking up.’
Rich Neumann, a San Francisco resident, has had rats gnaw through his truck’s gas tank three times over the last several years
Several other McDonald’s locations throughout the city have been forced to close.
While shuttered businesses have made headlines, locals like Neumann have been suffering in silence.
‘San Francisco has earned the honor of being the number two most rat infested city in the nation,’ he said.
‘Granted, I am sure Mayor Breed has a ton of other issues to deal with than some guy getting his truck eaten by rats. As of yet, I have not received a response to the letters I have written Mayor Breed asking 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 couple of years, this situation worked great for Neumann. It was safe, convenient and reliable.
But in the spring of 2017, he discovered his check engine light turned on.
After failing to identify the reason behind the check engine light himself, a trip to the mechanic revealed that rats had chewed through his gas tank.
Rats will chew through pretty much anything, including plastic, wood, aluminum, and even brick and concrete.
They chew on inedible materials like plastic in order to keep their teeth trimmed. When 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 rats’ sharp teeth.
Neumann fixed the damage to his gas tank, installed some preventative hardware and continued parking his car in the alley.
Neumann has repeatedly found rat droppings and tracks around the gas tank in his vehicle
The damage that the rats have inflicted on his gas tank have cost Neumann over $6,400
San Francisco ranked second on Terminix’s list of the top most rat infested cities in the US for 2024
But the check engine light turned 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 preventative hardware to fix the issue three times and said his neighbors also experienced the rodent invasion, with one of their vehicles being completely totaled.
‘That’s three people in a quarter block. Not unreasonable to assume this is a problem across the city,’ he added.
Since 2019, San Francisco has used ContraPest – a form of birth control for rats – to try and control the booming rodent population.
This oral contraceptive had reduced burrow counts by 65 percent as of 2023, according to a ContraPest report.
But with resident reports of rodent infestation to Terminix higher than ever this year, it seems the problem is still pervasive.
And when rats move into people’s homes, businesses or vehicles, there’s little that the city will do to help, Neumann said.
Neumann has since replaced his plastic gas tank with a metal one, but now he’s fighting the California Air and Resources Board for approval to use it
‘Responsibility for the rats belongs to the store owner or the homeowner. The city is not going to come out and 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 made by Long Range America, a US company that sells replacement and auxiliary fuel tanks. It cost him almost $2,000.
But even though his trucked 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 emissions [tests] 100 percent. The only difference is it has a rat-proof gas tank,’ he said.
‘Since the 1970s, fuel tanks have been covered by California and federal anti-tampering laws to ensure they meet vehicle emissions control requirements,’ wrote CARB public information officer Lynda Lambert in a statement emailed to DailyMail.com.
That was in 2021. Since then, Neumann has been reaching out to CARB to request a waiver. This would allow him to operate his truck with the non-CARB-certified tank due to his unique circumstances.
But CARB has failed to respond to any of his 16 letters of request, he said.
‘CARB has become this massive entity that throws out these mandates, and there is absolutely no repercussions to them. They answer to nobody,’ he said.
Left with no other choice, Neumann continues to drive his truck with the metal gas tank.
‘I am honestly waiting to get pulled over so I can stand in front of a judge and tell him my story,’ he said.
