Bangkok chief answers residents’ call after rats as big as cats take over
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt answered a call by residents in the Din Daeng district after their community became infested with rats.
The problem became public knowledge after a woman posted a video on her TikTok account, panadda010, featuring hundreds of rats running around the community area.
The woman said, “They will climb over me very soon. I’m still in shock.”
After the video went viral several media outlets visited Din Daeng Flats to investigate and interview residents. One female resident said rats and pigeons have been a big problem for a long time but didn’t expect the place to be overrun by so many of them.
She added a neighbour feeding them, which is only encouraging more to come out. She revealed some people had been bitten by them and that they couldn’t sit outside on the community benches.
A male resident told a reporter that garbage wasn’t cleared, it was allowed to build up, which encouraged the rats to return in numbers. He said the rodents don’t scare easily either and confidently walk around freely. He added that a cat couldn’t help because some of the rats were bigger than cats.
Chadchart acknowledged the issue, admitting he was aware of the problem even before he was elected governor.
The 56 year old said Bangkok officers discussed the problem with the National Housing Authority on how to deal better with the waste management system in the community.
Officers from Bangkok Public Health Department, and National Housing Authority, yesterday visited the community to clean up the area and captured the rats. The officers placed rat traps, glue traps, and rat poison all over the area and put a sign up telling residents not to feed them.
A reporter managed to track down the 75 year old woman who exacerbated the problem by feeding the rodents.
The woman admitted she fed the rats because she felt sorry that they had to fight for food. The old woman insisted she wasn’t the cause of the increasing number of rats in the community.
“The rats didn’t bother anyone. They just came out from a sewer to eat and then went back.”
The reporter asked how she felt now officers have rid the community of the rats. The woman said, “I don’t feel anything. It’s their karmas.”
The National Housing Authority built Din Daeng Flats 56 years ago after the authority turned a wasteland into a housing project for residents with a low income.
SOURCE: Thairath | Khaosod | PPTV HD
SOURCE: Thairath | Khaosod | PPTV HD
