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Paris has an interactive map where you can report rat sightings

The website was set up after a daycare centre’s playground was found to be infested with rats.

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A PARISIEN COUNCIL official has launched an interactive map for residents to report sightings of rats in the city centre.

Geoffroy Boulard, who heads the municipal council of the 17th Arrondissement, has set up an interactive map where residents can signal rodent sightings in real-time.

He said the website, Signalerunrat.paris (“Report a rat”), would indicate each sighting with a rat symbol that would be replaced with a shovel once the authorities respond.

“It was the case of a daycare centre whose playground was infested with rats that convinced me that we had to try something else,” Boulard told Le Parisien.

Rat Signalerunrat Signalerunrat

He said that the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo and previous mayors had not done enough to tackle a problem that regularly requires officials to close parks and other sites to carry out extermination programmes.

Hidalgo launched a €1.5 million campaign last year to wage a “war on rats” along with other measures to clean up the capital, promising new traps and plans to protect rubbish bins with wooden or plexiglass bases.

Experts say the rat population has in fact remained stable in recent years at 1.75 for every resident – of which there are some 2.2 million in the city’s 20 inner arrondissements – but they periodically become more visible in some areas because of construction work which forces them from their dens.

Boulard said his office was often unable to get sanitation services to respond to rat sightings, which have become more frequent in his part of northwest Paris because of work on the new city courthouse and a metro line extension.

“If it’s a priority for them then they need to be working twice as hard,” he told the newspaper.

- with reporting from AFP 

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    Mute Rodney Williams
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    Jun 25th 2019, 6:06 AM

    I hope they issue the warden with a taser!

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    Mute Michael Kavanagh
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    Jun 25th 2019, 7:27 AM

    @Rodney Williams:
    No.
    The threat of stiff suspended sentences for the first hundred offences will keep the baddies in line!

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    Mute Seamus Mac
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    Jun 25th 2019, 8:20 AM

    @Michael Kavanagh: followed by intensive probation.

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    Mute Rodney Williams
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    Jun 25th 2019, 10:01 AM

    @Michael Kavanagh:
    Wardens could hand out free “sweeties”, that keep them calm?World gone mad with “rights” these days!
    Except normal law abiding citizens have no rights.

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    Mute M
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    Jun 25th 2019, 12:16 PM

    @Rodney Williams: or a bazooka

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    Mute Rathminder
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    Jun 25th 2019, 7:29 AM

    Regular walk throughs by the Garda would be helpful. I’ve seen middle class teenagers refuse to listen to a warden. The guards improved the area on the south side of the O’Connell Street bridge when they had a regular appearance there.

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    Mute Aidan Kearney, Wicklow CCRO.Leinsterrugby
    Favourite Aidan Kearney, Wicklow CCRO.Leinsterrugby
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    Jun 25th 2019, 8:28 AM

    A great little country to visit yet a minority who are anti social close down a public park? Full time warden with a body webcam is a minimum requirement. Take pride in our city and parks.

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    Mute Hans Flouride
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    Jun 25th 2019, 8:40 AM

    Simple solution – open the supervised injection centre on merchants quay. No more open heroin use in nearby public parks.

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    Mute ConPhoto
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    Jun 25th 2019, 1:37 PM

    Area is rife with anti social behaviour, they are deluded if they think a warden will keep it at bay

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    Mute Artugal
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    Jun 25th 2019, 12:37 PM

    So wait, they upgraded the park?

    Hi, I’m from outside Dublin. Wtf kind of msg is that? Be antisocial enough and we’ll upgrade your junkie park?

    Country is so centralised it makes me sick

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    Mute Grainne Tallon
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    Jun 25th 2019, 1:17 PM

    @Artugal: I don’t think the kids are being anti-social with the aim to get the park facilities upgraded…

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