Photo by guy_incognito

Washington, D.C., home of the rat summit, is the third rattiest area in the country, according to a company that kills bugs and rodents professionally.

The ranking comes from Orkin and is based off of the number of rodent treatments conducted in 2013. The city, which has been lumped in with Hagerstown, Md. for some reason, came in under Chicago and Los Angeles, and bested New York City.

Rats are everywhere in D.C., not just on Capitol Hill. (Sorry, not sorry.) But perhaps the best viewing area is Dupont Circle, a.k.a. the Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary. From Yelp:

As rat sanctuaries go, the Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary is one of the best in the country, IMHO. It’s not just that the DCRS has so many wild rats, it’s that the rats are also so big and afraid of almost nothing. On warm nights, I’ve seen over a dozen fat rats scurrying here and there, looking for food scraps, and I’ve had to stamp my feet to keep them from running over my shoes. In lesser rat sanctuaries, you’re just not likely to see nature like this, up close, frightening and possibly rabid. Kudos, DC!

Visited the rat sanctuary this evening, and must agree with the last poster. If you like rats, this is the place to be! The rats at the sanctuary were very active, appeared to be in great health, and definitely have been breeding successfully. The highlight of my visit was one particularly cheeky rat jumping out from a bush and eliciting a high pitched yelp (shoutout Yelp) from a grown man in front of his girlfriend. Docking a star because it doesn’t seem as though they have learned to swim in the fountain yet.