Panic at the disco rice.
Soaring temps and mounds of waste could make a cold-storage warehouse in Boyle Heights the ideal breeding ground for human-infecting flies, a city-commissioned health inspection found.
The four-page report obtained by NBC Los Angeles focuses on the Lineage Facility in Boyle, which suffered fire damage last month, leaving millions of pounds of meat to rot.
However, as the company struggled to remove the putrid protein, another health concern arose — noxious odors, rodents, hygiene concerns and a biblical plague of green bottle flies.
“There’s a lot of flies because of the warehouse situation coming over here,” Boyle Heights resident Ashley told NBC of the pestilence.
According to the inspection, these tiny winged terrors green bottle flies reproduce rapidly in waste and that the hot weather sweeping LA is only accelerating their spread.
Officials worry that this pestilence will metastasize to nearby neighborhoods.
Along with being noisy and unsightly, these emerald-colored bugs can also cause myiasis, a potentially deadly infectious disease that occurs when the critters lay eggs in the “open wounds” of humans or animals, per the report.
“This disease can cause irritation, ulcers, and in some cases even death,” it stated, noting that the swarms could people and animals around the facility at risk.
The scourge has gotten so bad that some residents have sequestered themselves inside their homes with the doors and windows closed to keep the flies from getting in.
The crisis has made locals fret over what they’re putting in their mouths. “We can’t even eat food,” Martin Ramirez, 49, who manages a nearby body shop, told the Los Angeles Times. “Imagine that a fly lands on it. We don’t know what that fly is going to be carrying.”
So far, the malodorous meat locker has received over 900 complaints from nearby residents about the noxious smells.
Government officials have also raised a stink. In a July 21 letter to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the infestation the “worst manifestation” of the risks associated with the Boyle Heights property, and called upon Lineage to put a lid on the bug problem.
“Lineage must quickly be held equally accountable for the infestation of flies present in the adjacent communities and ordered to take direct action to eliminate the flies,” she wrote.
In response, Lineage said that it has expanded on-site pest control measures with support from Orkin, including distributing 350 fly traps to community members with plans to hand out 800 more, among other measures.
They also claimed to be keeping tabs on both flies and rats, which have also been drawn to warehouse by the rotten product.
LA City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents the Boyle Heights area, said in a statement that the “temporary traps” were insufficient and that the situation wouldn’t end until the waste had been “fully removed.”
As of Wednesday, Lineage claims that it had hauled 3,195 tons of the putrid product away from the site.
“Lineage is committed to the fastest and safest cleanup possible, including aggressive efforts to reduce odors and monitor air quality throughout the process,” said Alex Rodriguez, vice president of operations at Lineage, in a statement to The LA Times.
