A Los Angeles neighborhood was terrorized by a raging warehouse inferno. Now it’s tormented by the suffocating stench | CNN

Los Angeles —

For eight brutal days, residents of Boyle Heights watched smoke billow from a burning warehouse and prayed the flames would spare their homes.

There was no escaping the black pollution that choked the neighborhood then, and no reprieve now, even five weeks after the fire was extinguished. The smell of burning plastic has been replaced by something else: the pungent odor of rotting food, and everything that comes with it.

The inescapable stench – equal parts sour and cloying – has settled like a thick haze over the neighborhood, baked by the Southern California heat.

Boyle Heights locals say the stink is making them physically sick, and that swarms of flies and giant rats have followed the noxious odor into their neighborhood.