travelchat

Nikki, all kidding aside, would you consider posting live on the ground when you are in Paris - if time allows - and give us a reality check on how creepy crawly things really are? We’ll be in Paris in two weeks and hilarious as this may seem to some, my son and I are very concerned.

Nikki

I will only be in the airport in Paris. We are taking the train from the airport to Rennes and will be driving around Brittany. But I will be sure to report back if we encounter any bedbugs.

When a similar situation was reported in New York a few years ago, a friend insisted that we stay in a hotel that said they had dogs to sniff out bedbugs. I never saw any dogs but I also didn’t see any bedbugs. Coincidence? Maybe I should pack a special dog along with the roaches.

kerouac

Any member here is sure to report bedbugs if they are encountered; The fact that nobody has done so can be considered a clue as to whether there is really a "crisis" or not.

dfourh

If you encounter problems with the airline or at customs, I can provide you with a certificate with a stamp and seal verifying that they are Emotional Support Roaches.

AJPeabody

But it is hell trying to get the roaches to wear the support roach jackets.

bvlenci

Do as they do in Naples. Paint support roach jackets on their shells.

gomiki

Just back from Paris. Glorious weather, no bedbugs but lots of rats in the parks after dusk.

kerouac

The rats remove the trash that the park users have negligently abandoned.

gomiki

kerouac, by trash, I assume you mean the food left behind? What is done to reduce the rat population? Don't they multiply out of control if nothing is done?

bilboburgler

rats just come to where there is food and warmth. Remove the food and they go away.

bedbugs seem to be creeping further north now that Climate Change is extending the warm season. London Tube now has some. Google it

kerouac

There are signs at every park explaining (in French) exactly what is being done about the rats. Since Paris is an ecological city, I would imagine that they are doing the same thing as with the pigeons -- contraceptive bait. Poison is evil.

Meanwhile, I read today that I have a better chance of winning the lotto jackpot than getting bedbugs in the metro. Can't claim the same thing about hotels, unfortunately.

Christina

I don't know about that (contraception). I read they are using ferrets, and then euthanize them when the ferret catches them. They do that in some other cities. The city is studying them and thinks people have a bad attitude to rats and wants to change it. They are learning to "co-exist" with them, there is some research project being done by the Natural History Museum, the Pasteur Institute and a few others,
called Rat Armaguedon. AS they say, one of the main goals of the project is to

Lutter contre les préjugés pour aider les Parisiens à mieux cohabiter avec les rats.
and
... il interroge les Parisiens sur leurs perceptions du rat afin de mieux saisir pourquoi ce dernier est parfois si décrié.

https://isyeb.mnhn.fr/fr/actualites/...tshumains-7323

Of course this has to include a history of rats in Paris and how they are part of the city and you can buy a book one of their collaborators wrote on the subject

https://www.editions-du-murmure.fr/c...-Rats-de-Paris

I read somewhere the Paris is a city with a lot of rats, which surprised me (relative to other cities, but that it is actually behind London and New York City. I think they proliferated a lot during the garbage strike in March and that's why there are more now.

dfourh

Apparently, rats, dogs, roaches, ferrets, pigeons, and bedbugs are all capable of simultaneously interbreeding. Your punchline here.

scrb11

Cohabit with rats?

Given the history in Europe with the plague, that's a strange idea.

With climate change, they could be bearing more infectious diseases.

kerouac

Weren't the fleas on the rats responsible rather than the rats themselves?

Traveler_Nick

So send somebody around putting flea collars on all the rats?

scrb11

Um, yessss?

Can you have rats without the fleas?

bilboburgler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratatouille_(film)

Paris, well any city without rats is unthinkable. Our little town had an "investation" in a park. All tracked down to badly controlled bins, cracked drains etc. Humans is dumb.

bvlenci

Yes, but the rats were the carriers of the fleas. It is thought that the rat culprits were black rats (rattus rattus) whereas the most common species today is the Norwegian brown rat. The black rats are susceptible to the bubonic plague themselves and outbreaks were often preceded by unusual numbers of dead rats

Rats sometimes kill small pets, and even, on rare occasions, human babies. I'm not sure the coexistence campaign is going anywhere. Maybe the Disney film Ratatouille will help.

bilboburgler

around 100 million mice and rats are killed in labs every year

I think some might deserve a little park time