The Rush-Hour Menagerie Beneath Your Feet

By · March 3, 2010 at 16:50 pm · No comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

0303_cockroach.jpg A cheerful new report claims that your common-or-garden commuter train plays unwitting host to 1,000 cockroaches, with hundreds of bedbugs and fleas also nestling in every single seat: a veritable Ark of anthropods that would’ve tickled Noah’s fancy. But which worthy, unbiased organisation has disgorged these uncomfortable “facts”? Why, it’s none other than Rentokil, the “UK’s leading pest control organisation”, according to their website blurb. Seems we may have another puff publicity piece being treated like serious news by freesheets that should know better. Rentokil must be struggling if they’re resorting to such cheap tactics: perhaps in these credit-pinched times, Londoners are happier to let their insect housemates survive rather than fork out money to have them whacked.

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  • cobo04

    I heard this tale a while ago when an email went round with ‘facts and figures of Tube travel’. stating that there was a plague of mice/rats running about the tunnels, eacgh seat on every train was infested with some bug or another and even that there was a unique type of bug that only existed on the London underground.

    This was put down as total fantasy but TfL and a well known rodent killer company (no not Rentokil).

    Then this report came up. Will the plague of facts and figures ever go away?

  • M@

    For anyone who hasn’t already seen it, Ben Goldacre’s doing battle with Rentokil over these somewhat dubious PR tactics.

  • http://undefined Scott

    This is waay old, snopes has had it since 2005 and it has entered urban legend since:
    http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/london.asp

  • http://undefined M@

    Scott – this is different. Rentokil actually did do the research (and put a press release out), but the quality of the research is what’s questionable.

  • http://undefined Scott

    Yeah, I was referring to the insects part of the snopes story and the general idea of what lurks in London as I think there is echo here of the earlier story. I may see urban legends everywhere though…

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