Giant rats, bright green flies, putrid smells: Boyle Heights residents describe unbearable conditions

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Set us as preferred Along Union Pacific Avenue in Boyle Heights, rat traps sit about every 10 feet along the sidewalk, with the aim of catching hungry rodents drawn to the burned-out warehouse holding millions of pounds of rotting meat.But Lisett Navarrete, a 34-year-old resident, has little faith that they’ll do the job.“It’s not like little house rats.They’re giant rats,” she says.

“They don’t fit there.”Since the Lineage cold-storage warehouse burned last month, the company has been trying to remove tons of rotting meat.But with temperatures spiking, the crisis over smoke from the fire has given way to a second crisis over putrid smells, insects, rodents and growing concerns over sanitation.To hear neighbors tell it, the deodorizers, misters and other efforts to mitigate the issues aren’t enough.There are flies, rats and, if the wind shifts every so slightly, a waft of thick, nauseating air from the warehouse.“We can’t run away from it, it’s all around us,” Navarrete said.

“It smells so bad, you don’t even want to have breakfast.”There are also challenges for local businesses, which say customers are staying away because the stench is so sickening.Air regulators say they have received nearly 1,000 complaints about smells from the facility.And no one is sure how long it is going to take to remove all the meat.On Tuesday, residents from East L.A.

went to the county Board of Supervisors meeting to air their grievances about how things are going at the warehouse and called for the county to issue an evacuation order for the area so the government could provide them assistance.“No one is taking responsibility for it,” said Alma Marquez, an organizer with the local group Protect L.A.Now, which has been communicating with neighborhood residents about conditions around the warehouse.Last week,...