I just saw a report on the NBC affiliate WLEX Lexington news that would make anybody shiver, in fact, this is the stuff that horror movies are made of. Think of “The Birds”, and then think of “Willard”. Need I say more?
The setting is
She feeds them. Every day. A ten pound bag of dog food. There are so many rats, they go through this ten pound bag of feed in just a little over two hours. Then, they start to get active. There are so many of them, she places the full bag inside a big plastic garbage can, into which they climb. By the time they are finished, the container is laying on it’s side on the ground, and has been moved several feet from where it started.
The rats wander about the neighborhood. They seem to be immune to rat poison. The police say there is nothing they can do about it, as the woman has really broken no laws they know of. Other neighborhood residents insist the house should be condemned, burned down, destroyed. Ah, but then, where would the rats go?
So why does the lady feed them? According to one of the area residents, the woman claims the rats are her pets. Truthfully, if she said this, it may have been in sarcasm. When asked why she continued to feed them, her answer was curt,and to the point.
“So they won’t bite me”, she replied.
12 comments:
Wow.
I have to say, if you want to keep a horde of "pet" rats, more power to ya . . .
Well, they finally condemned the house, and some Catholic charitiy group is going to help the old lady get her another place. I don't know what they're going to do about the rats though. They're immune to poison. It will take some time to kill them and keep them from spreading out to who knows how far. The latest news is, when she first moved in and started feeding them she thought they were gerbils, and started feeding them gerbil food. Strange byond belief.
This woman must have never seen a real live gerbil before in her life . . . I sure hope they find a nice place for her . . .
She sure needs it. They are sayig now that she isn't all there, which actually in retrospect should seem pretty obvious. If I found out I'd moved into a rat infested house, I couldn't get the hell out of there fast enough. Can you imagine the type of mentality that would lead you to not only stay there, but feed them ten pounds of feed a day, so they won't bite you?
The only animal that I am afraid of is rats. It seems strange to people up in Ontario, but I grew up outside of Washington DC, where there are more rats than people. They're mean little bastards. I can understand if she was afraid of them biting her. I would have moved to Alaska.
I would imagine that some areas of Alaska such as the port cities and surrounding areas might have their own problems with rats. In addition to being prolific procreators, they are highly adaptable creatures. All this, and in addition to being highly aggressive, especially in lage groups, they carry a variety of diseases. This is one animal that the world would be well served if it could be totally exterminated, with the exceptiopn of trained lab rats.
C-R-A-Z-Y
Well, you know, humans can be highly aggressive too, especially in large groups. But, I agree- the world's rats could go and no ill would come of it.
They are one of the few groups of life forms that has outlived it's usefulness to the eco-system, at least from the perspective of any creature outside their selves. Of course, one could make the argument that their usefulness is precisely in spreading diseases to help eradicate other overly large populations, but I find it difficult to be very enthusiastic toward that viewpoint.
It's scary to think, too, that I could be living a mere fifty odd miles from what could well be the epicienter of the next rat population explosion, and it's potential attendant consequences.
Okay, now I have my daily gross-out going full speed.
I don't even want mice in my apartment. WOW!
I returned the favor, and added this interesting blog, to my blogroll.
Thank you, Renegade. By the way, I had mice once when I lived in Cincinnati, the only thing potentially good about them is, according to what I've heard, if you have mice you don't have to worry about rats. Evidently mice will kill baby rats, I think. But I could do without either of these vermin.
Your blog too is very interesting, as is that of your friend from Africa, with his blog SHHH.
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