S.F. at loss over Rat Girl’s rodent hoarding (video)

First, there was Batkid. Now, sadly, there is “Rat Girl” — and she’s contributing to a skin-crawling public health problem in San Francisco.

KTVU’s David Stevenson reports that a troubled San Francisco woman has been “breeding” rats and letting them loose into the city for years.

Identified only as 43-year-old Erica J., the woman first came to the attention of the city in 2011 when Animal Care and Control discovered she had bred “hundreds” of rats out of her room at a Minna Street residential hotel in the South of Market neighborhood.

By the end of that May, public health officials had exterminated ”thousands” of rats from the surrounding area.

Later, KTVU reported, Animal Care and Control reported finding Erica living under a Japantown pedestrian bridge with rats living off of her cart. Not surprisingly, several of the rats had escaped and infested the nearby area.

Then, this month, a passerby reported seeing Erica living with at least eight rats in a park at Golden Gate Avenue and Steiner Street. Video obtained by KTVU caught the vermin eating out of a plastic bowl filled with dog food.

Read More: http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/05/30/s-f-at-loss-over-rat-girls-rodent-hoarding-video/