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In 2006 it was Glover Park, and before that, Dupont Circle, but NBC4 reports that the D.C. Department of Health has officially declared Tenleytown to be the rat hotspot of this year.
The neighborhood surrounding the intersection of Wisconsin and Nebraska Avenues is lousy with rats right now, and the "Rat Abatement Team" is putting out poison in the hopes of putting a stop to the vermin population explosion in the area. The nexus of the rat menace is a piece of city-owned land that's currently home to a deep and complex maze of rat boroughs. Yuck.
Spring is typically the biggest growth season for the rat population in the District. In 2007, complaints about rats logged by District health officials increased by 8 percent over the previous year. Former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams declared a "War on Rats" in 1999, and Mayor Adrian Fenty redeclared the war last year. But if this is a war we likely will never win, at least the worst infestations appear to be moving north. Maybe we can eventually fight our enemies in Maryland, so we don't have to fight them here at home?
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Aww. Alley bunnies!
The solution is obvious: introduce natural predators. I suggest wolves.
When life gives you rats, make strawberry tart.
Well, it's got some rat in it, anyway. Three. Quite a lot, actually.
And I'm pretty sure that, like Korea and Vietnam, there was no "official" declaration of war on rats. So technically, this has only been a "police action." Our best hope is to draw a de-rat-icized zone along the 38th parallel (i.e., Chevy Chase) and lay down a barbed-wire enclosed minefield.
Either that, or learn to speak rat and begin breeding with their women. Soon, our differences will disappear and we will be indistinguishable from K Street attorneys.
Poison in our parks is a total waste of our tax money.
It's time we have a sane approach to rats living in the city; I say we start with a large multi-million dollar ad campaign educating people that what they so hatefully call "rats" are really just short-hair night squirrels native to DC that help us clean up our garbage and dog poop. If only we could get the children [who are our future] to stop the war on rats. Free stuffed rats for all first graders!
Otherwise just release all house cats into the street twice a year for a cat-rat war the likes of which humanity has never seen before.
the rat population in those areas have been high for years. Not only that but their size is huge like on the size of small-medium size dogs....I say drop off a bunch pythons and let them have at it...
The poison is nice and all, but has anyone else noticed that a large percentage of the town now smells of decaying rat corpse?
Is no rat! Is filligree Siberian hamster!
How the f*** do you "re-declare" a war? You either win or you lose or you don't use a freaking war metaphor every time you run up against some nasty piece of reality that that's been around FOREVER that you can never conquer. So, lessee, we've had a War on Poverty, a War on Cancer, a War on Drugs, a War on Terror, and we still have more poverty, cancer, drugs, and TERROR than we've ever had before. Can we declare a War on War Metaphors so we can declare victory and frigging go home?
As for the rats, who can we negotiate an armistice with? Sue for peace and let them have Potomac. William Bennett lives there. He can be their nominal leader until they elect a rat council, lobby for voting representation, and are admitted as the 51st State. It's a cinch that will happen before DC gets voting rights because, y'know, the State of Rat-omic never elected Marion Barry.
I say we declare the rats immigrants and ask George Jr. to build a wall around the park.
Wow stmove, I though I was the only one who called them night squirrels!
In many parts of the city the night (and day) squirrels are kept in check by a healthy population of feral cats. Look, folks, a non-poisionous way to control the 'rat problem'! And no zoo animals will be harmed, either.
Take that, rats. The streets of America aren't paved with cheese anymore, are they. BOO YAH.
What if we make a deal with the rats and hire them for parking enforcement. Solve two problems at once.
I use to never see rats in my neighborhood until after I stopped seeing feral cats. They must of boarded up one of the nearby baby kitteh factories b/c now I see rats all the time.
Please come back you naughty tom cats! I don't mind you spraying all over my fence or you kitty battle royals keeping up late at night. i misses u totes!
hearts and kisses,
blittle
Tenleytown + rats = The Rats of NIMBY
Well-played, adamsmorgan.
I believe it was Mayor Williams who officially declared the war on rats during his first term with the Ratbusters program. But he never had his picture taken in a Chinatown alley with a "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him, so people have forgotten this war.
Clearly, a steady diet of Fort Reno arsenic has created a race of indestructible Super Rats that not even refuse from the Steak & Egg Kitchen can kill. God help us all.
Cue Michael Jackson's "Ben."
It took me a few minutes to realize that by rats, the post was not referring to AU students who had the attitude fitting a GW student, but not the reach mommy and daddy.
i dont think cats stand a chance in my alley. The rats are HUGE
"Infested" is such an ugly word. Can't we just say "gentrified?"
Didn't we kill a whole ton of birds at some metro station last year with rat poison?
I say we just have 2-week murder fest on rats, use bats, clubs, swords, tridents, crazy-purple-knockout gas, the whole arsenal.
If you don't kill 'em, just catch them and put them in a big container, we'll drop it off in bethesda at the end of the fest.
regentrified?
Considering how many drumsticks and wings I see on 14th and U streets in the morning when I walk my dogs (and, resultingly, pull drumsticks and wings out of their mouths), I am surprised that U street is not on the list yet.
There is but one solution to this problem:
genetically engineered shaved pandas that will build trebuchets to launch unsuspecting rates into MoCo territory. Some local NIMBYs and ANC types may accidentally get caught in the trebuchet bucket.
Steak & Egg. I once had to use the bathroom there. Wow.
monkeyrotica, your 2nd post ROCKS!!!
suances: if you remember using the bathroom there, you weren't drunk enough.
There's a bathroom at Steak and Egg?
See, it's a trick question. The "bathroom" at Steak & Egg is the second counter stool on the left. It's like Hogwarts. You have to want to see it.
genetically engineered shaved pandas
Yeah, sounds nice, but we know those motherfuckers eat them some rat poison.
If the rats head just a little further north, they'll wind up in Fort Reno Park. Problem solved.
Clearly there are not enough fast food Chinese restaurants up there. Or maybe there too many and hence a dearth of cats.
I second stmove's sentiment about the usefulness of the rat. (also love this : "release all house cats into the street twice a year for a cat-rat war the likes of which humanity has never seen before.")
maybe they could round up the rats and deploy them on the Mall to clean up the trash. I hear rats are very intelligent and easy to train.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.
Ian - That didn't work before. What makes you think it will now?
Game over, man! Game over!
Ratbusters won't work until they have a cool theme song...duh!
Who ya gonna call....rat busters!!!