The District was the nation’s third rattiest city in 2013, faring better than just Chicago and Los Angeles, according to pest control company Orkin. Orkin compiled these ranking based on how many rat treatments it performed in 2013, so take this ranking with a large cluster of rat dropping–sized skepticism.

For D.C. residents, this not-so-scientific ranking shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. The rat problem in the city has recently been exacerbated by the construction boom; last year, the city hired a rat consultant and hosted a series of rat summits throughout the city to educate people on how to reduce the number of the rodents.

In Orkin’s ratings, New York City ranked as the fourth rattiest city, coming in behind D.C. But, it should be noted, City Desk spoke to D.C.’s very own rat consultant, Robert Corrigan, back in November, who declared New York City as “probably the No. 1 ratropolis in the United States.” (Note: the rankings group D.C. with Hagerstown, MD.)

Corrigan said at the time:

There is a direct correlation between the density of the population and the number of rats…The average person generates up to five pounds of trash every 24 hours, and within that five pounds about one-third of it is food, and that’s where rats take advantage. 

According to the Orkin study, one-third of Americans spotted a rodent in their home in the last year. Here is Orkin’s list of top 10 rattiest cities:

1. Chicago

2. Los Angeles

3. Washington, D.C.-Hagerstown

4. New York

5. San Francisco-Oak-San Jose

6. Seattle-Tacoma

7. Detroit

8. Cleveland-Akron-Canton

9. Baltimore

10. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale

Photo by Charles Jeffrey Danoff via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0