Along Union Pacific Avenue in Boyle Heights, rat traps sit about every 10 feet along the sidewalk, intended to catch rats drawn to a burned-out warehouse holding millions of pounds of rotting meat.
But Lisett Navarrete, a 34-year-old resident, has little faith that they will do the job.
“It’s not like the little rats that live in the house, they’re big rats,” he said. “It doesn’t fit in there.”
Flies congregate near a food source outside a home near the Lineage Logistics warehouse in Boyle Heights.
Ever since the Lineage cold storage facility burned down last month, the company has been trying to get rid of tons of rotten meat.
But as temperatures rise, the fire’s smoke problem has given way to a secondary problem with bad smells, insects, rodents and growing concerns about sanitation.
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To hear neighbors say, deodorants, cleaners and other efforts to reduce problems are not enough. There are flies, rats and, if the air changes ever so slightly, thick, irritating air from the warehouse.
“We can’t run away from them, they surround us,” said Navarrete. “It smells so bad, you don’t even want to eat breakfast.”
There are also challenges for local businesses who say customers are not going because the smell makes them sick.
A pedestrian protects his mask as he passes Lineage Logistics, where residents and nearby businesses have registered complaints about the smell as rotting food settles inside the Boyle Heights warehouse.
Air regulators say they have received about 1,000 complaints about the smell coming from the facility. And no one is sure how long it will take to get rid of all the flesh.
On Tuesday, East LA residents went to a county Board of Supervisors meeting to voice their grievances about how things are going at the warehouse and asked the county to issue an evacuation order so the government can help them.
“No one is taking responsibility for it,” said Alma Marquez, an organizer with the local group Protect LA Now, which has been communicating with local residents about the situation surrounding the warehouse.
Last week, Mayor Karen Bass announced that Airbnb has committed $1 million to emergency housing for city and county residents in the area near the warehouse. The company, according to a statement from Bass’ office, has provided more than 1,000 nights of free emergency housing.
But Marquez said the eviction order would open up other services for many residents, including homeowners insurance policies that provide assistance. Sitting still is not only a nuisance but also unhealthy.
Supt. Hilda Solis, in a statement, said she understands the frustration and concern of residents, including those seeking forced eviction.
But Solis said the decision to force evacuations depends on the city’s emergency response plan because the warehouse is located within city limits.
Solis said he has ordered the Department of Public Health to assign teams to recruit people from the neighborhood. During those efforts, Solis said in a statement, the residents shared that they want the bad smell to be checked and the area cleaned, but most of the residents want to stay in their homes.
“The mandatory evacuation order will affect many residents who have indicated that they do not want to leave their homes, as well as any businesses in the area,” he said in a statement.
Since the fire, Southern California’s Air Quality Management District has slapped Lineage with multiple violations tied to the storage facility.
Deodorants are used during work at Lineage Logistics.
The company on Tuesday presented its latest action plan to LA city officials to reduce the odor, but some elected officials are skeptical.
“Lineage has met with regulators and provided the same explanations the public has already heard,” said Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado in a statement. “Boyle Heights residents shouldn’t have to file multiple complaints before someone takes action. … They shouldn’t be expected to put up with conditions that would be unacceptable in affluent communities.”
According to Lineage officials, 521 dump trucks – more than 1,506 tons of waste – have been removed from the warehouse, which held 85 million pounds of food, including the Kirkland brand of meat that fills Costco’s freezers.
The company previously said it would comply with Mayor Bass’ order to remove the waste within 45 days and weeks ahead.
A spokesperson for the company said in a statement Wednesday that Lineage has been in discussions with AQMD, and that it has already initiated, or is in the process of implementing, “all reasonable and effective mitigation efforts throughout the cleanup process.”
That includes surrounding the affected building with odor control sprays, applying a scented product to the skin several times a day, wrapping the building to contain the odor, and placing carbon filters in the building to reduce pollution. Food waste, the company said in a statement, is transported in sealed containers, loaded trucks are sealed, and workers wash water and load areas daily.
“Lineage is committed to cleaning as quickly and safely as possible, including rigorous efforts to reduce odors and monitor air quality throughout the process,” said Alex Rodriguez, Lineage’s vice president of operations, in a statement to The Times. “We are committed to working closely with South Coast AQMD to address the issues and minimize the impact of the warehouse fire on the surrounding community.”
When the warehouse is finished, 70-year-old Sabino Soto hopes to see things return to normal. The Boyle Heights resident said it had been weeks since she had been able to keep her cat, Push Push, inside. It, along with about half a dozen other deer, is always hunting, Soto said.
“I call them cat watchers,” he said.
Martin Ramirez, who works at the body shop across the street from the Lineage Logistics store, became emotional when he spoke to a reporter about the stench, which he said has caused him headaches, sore throats and breathing problems.
Martin Ramirez, 49, who runs a nearby body shop, said a rat entered his shop days after the fire. He has been hiding somewhere in his office for three weeks.
“This is big,” Ramirez said, spreading his hands about a foot apart. “We couldn’t get it out. We can’t get the poison out because we have a little dog. So we put glue traps or something.”
Despite getting used to the smell, he said he was losing about $10,000 a week in business because customers refused to go to his store after learning it was near a Lineage warehouse.
“They said, ‘Well, maybe we’ll wait,'” he said. “A client came and almost threw up.”
Residents near the Lineage warehouse in Boyle Heights are dealing with flies in their homes.
There are also houseflies – large blue and green flies with large, bright red heads – that residents regularly swatte outside doors and windows. Many have placed traps outside their homes, hanging sticky tape on trees and fences to catch flies and reduce the size of these pests.
But soon, the traps are full and the flies are left behind.
The two traps Soto set outside his home — vertical, clear cylinders reminiscent of a hummingbird feeder — were filled with dead flies within days, he said.
On some roads, flies congregate near fruit trees or parked cars, making it difficult to pass without swishing a bunch of them in the air. The villagers have to sweep the dead off the ground every day.
But it’s not just the hustle and bustle that annoys residents in this working-class neighborhood — there are health concerns.
Many of them keep their windows closed, fearing that one of the flies might sit on their lunch or sip a refreshing drink.
What if that fly, they wonder, was just in the warehouse?
“We can’t even eat food,” said Ramirez. “Just imagine a fly sitting on it, we don’t know what that fly will be carrying.
Bryan Regis, manager of Xclusive Grills near the Lineage warehouse, goes through his business’s air purifier, provided by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
These days, Ramirez and his staff drive about a mile to the restaurant on their lunch break to escape the smell and the flies. When they can’t, they close the door to a small, crowded office to eat their lunch – the same office where the mouse has been hiding for three weeks.
Bryan Regis, 26, the manager of Xclusive Grills, which is near the warehouse, said that the workers of his store set up a small rest room and blew up a big fan to try to stop flies from their food.
On Monday, Regis said, he briefly walked out of his hamburger when an employee called him. When he went back, there was a fly sitting on it.
He threw it out.
“It just ruined my day,” she said.
