One is something many D.C. residents really want, the other something most residents would probably be happy getting rid of. But together they’re an eye-catching combination.

Yes, we’re talking about ratzilla fighting for D.C. statehood. The unusual pairing popped up on a mural in an Adams Morgan alley last week, attracting quick attention from neighbors and becoming something of a viral sensation on Instagram.

But what the heck is it, and where did it come from?

The mural is the brainchild of Suzanne Allan, a federal government worker and longtime Adams Morgan resident who says she enjoys “creating interesting pockets in unexpected places.” An urban planner by trade, the 60-year-old tells DCist that the idea of using her home as a canvas started when then-president Trump took office. She spray-painted “Dump Trump” on her home’s roof, hoping it would be seen by federal officials traveling over the city by helicopter. That was eventually replaced with “FUBAR 45,” the military slang for “fucked up beyond all recognition.”

As the pandemic worsened and the election approached, Allan says she wanted to take a step up with something more visible to the public and whose message would last. “My partner and I were talking about subject matter and we really wanted something that would have some staying power and would last beyond the administration, so we landed on the subject of D.C. statehood,” she says.

Executing that idea was left to longtime Maryland-based muralist Juan Pineda, who Allan first met in 2014 when he was hired to restore the neighborhood’s well-known “Un pueblo sin murales es un pueblo desmuralizado” mural that remains on a wall in an alley just off of Calvert Street NW. They struck up a conversation, and she pitched him on using her garage door on that same alley as a canvas.

Pineda, 43, has been a street artist for more than two decades, and says he takes both official and private commissions. When Allan reached out years after their first meeting with a concrete commission for a mural, they went back and forth on ideas. Statehood would be incorporated, but Pineda says the mural’s scarier component was all Allan’s doing. “She came up with the ratzilla,” he says.

For many D.C. residents, rats are a scourge — a legendary one that city officials go to significant lengths to exterminate. (The only upside of the pandemic? Rats may be turning on each other.) But Allan turned what scares people most about rats into what she says is a symbol of strength. “I came up with the idea of featuring a rat because [the mural is] on an alley, and that grew into a ratzilla rising out of the darkness to take on the fight for statehood and encouraging others to join the pack,” she says.

Pineda brought ratzilla to life, figuratively. “I wanted to incorporate her vision but at the same time put a little smile on our faces, so it has a little sense of humor,” he says. He also ironed out the design by using D.C.’s license plate — with a statehood message on it — as the backdrop, tossed his ideas on paper and quickly set to work. He started the week before the inauguration, and was done in a few days.

“I was stopping some foot traffic. Even cars were driving through that alley. People were really commenting on it, giving me high-fives, taking pictures while I was painting out there,” he says.

It’s certainly not the first pro-statehood mural in town; last summer, D.C. commissioned 51 statehood murals that were painted by a dozen artists over the course of a week. But Allan’s may well be the first that lionizes the D.C. rat, and does so during a year that many activists hope could be historic for the fight for statehood. With Democrats in control of Congress, there’s more hope than ever that a statehood bill could clear both the House and the Senate and be sent to President Biden for his signature.

Allan says she loves the mural, and thinks it may well be the first of others to come.

“I would love to do another mural. It’s almost like getting a tattoo — once you get one, one is never enough. Maybe something on the roof of the garage?” she says. “My next door neighbor is getting inspiration from it, and there’s another big huge wall on the side of a condo in the alley I thought about reaching out to the owner about. It’d be really cool to have this outdoor alley gallery.”

Until then, all hail ratzilla.