Anonymous wrote:Folks: Rats are everywhere in cities, and have been for a century. That will not change. Yes, we can reduce them, but not eliminate them. More recently, given the changes in behavior due to COVID (fewer bars, delis, restaurants, etc), rats have had to look for new sources of foods and accordingly are in lots of new places. Even the residential areas of DC have rates, as well as those in the burbs.

Hmmm, I actually think there's no will to solve it. In 2022 of we can WarpSpeed a Covid vaccine we should be able to give them something that limits their ability to reproduce. Have you ever seen the night footage vision of them hopping around Lafeyette Park in front of the White House? It's astounding...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city should pay a cash bounty on dead rats.

Enterprising folks would pocket some serious $$$, and the rat population would be reduced. Not eliminated, but definitely reduced.

Right now there’s no incentive for anyone to do anything about getting rid of them. So incentivize it. Use economics to fight the problem. Assign a value to rats, and pay the people who turn them in.

This is a good idea. OP here - back in the rats in the sandbox days, we called city rat control twice. They came.in space suits, poked around for nests and left without doing anything. This was years ago... What are other cities doing? Any new methods? Sterilization??? I like the idea of leading them across the highway - very Pied Piper of Hamelin, but not super fair to our neighbors.

Pay $10 for each dead rat turned in to any designated collection site in the city. Homeless people would be catching and killing rats all day long.

$10 and the city would be bankrupt in a week . I'd start way lower. Maybe by the pound? I just threw up a little thinking about that...

I agree with you. There are many more than we think...
I remember returning cans and bottles in the 80s to the store for 5 cents each. People filled up carts... I guess it could work.
I worry about disease spreading--people catching them with their hands, rocks etc.

WHO would catch a rat with their hands for $10? So disgusting.

I wouldn’t bother catching 1 for $10.

But I’ll spend all night in an alley a few nights a month catching 100 for $1,000

I bet it could become weirdly satisfying. Like swatting flies. How would you catch them? Maybe they could pay by weight of the sack?

And no I'm not a sociopath and dont propose being cruel about it. I just think it's extremely unhygienic to live with so many rats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city should pay a cash bounty on dead rats.

Enterprising folks would pocket some serious $$$, and the rat population would be reduced. Not eliminated, but definitely reduced.

Right now there’s no incentive for anyone to do anything about getting rid of them. So incentivize it. Use economics to fight the problem. Assign a value to rats, and pay the people who turn them in.

This is a good idea. OP here - back in the rats in the sandbox days, we called city rat control twice. They came.in space suits, poked around for nests and left without doing anything. This was years ago... What are other cities doing? Any new methods? Sterilization??? I like the idea of leading them across the highway - very Pied Piper of Hamelin, but not super fair to our neighbors.

Pay $10 for each dead rat turned in to any designated collection site in the city. Homeless people would be catching and killing rats all day long.

$10 and the city would be bankrupt in a week . I'd start way lower. Maybe by the pound? I just threw up a little thinking about that...

I agree with you. There are many more than we think...
I remember returning cans and bottles in the 80s to the store for 5 cents each. People filled up carts... I guess it could work.
I worry about disease spreading--people catching them with their hands, rocks etc.

WHO would catch a rat with their hands for $10? So disgusting.

I wouldn’t bother catching 1 for $10.

But I’ll spend all night in an alley a few nights a month catching 100 for $1,000

I bet it could become weirdly satisfying. Like swatting flies. How would you catch them? Maybe they could pay by weight of the sack?

We need more cats.

It's funny this thread came up today because in my facebook memories, I had photos from a trip I took to Amsterdam many years ago. My childhood friend lives there, and every restaurant we went to had a cat just wandering around! I had posted about that, and one of my other friends told me it was to keep the rats away!

Obviously the solution is for more restaurants and homes to have cats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city should pay a cash bounty on dead rats.

Enterprising folks would pocket some serious $$$, and the rat population would be reduced. Not eliminated, but definitely reduced.

Right now there’s no incentive for anyone to do anything about getting rid of them. So incentivize it. Use economics to fight the problem. Assign a value to rats, and pay the people who turn them in.

This. A dollar a rat! Once they are more scarce and it's harder to find them, raise the price to $5 a rat.

But why dead? Think of the school lunch options and maybe find a way to milk the rats.

Folks: Rats are everywhere in cities, and have been for a century. That will not change. Yes, we can reduce them, but not eliminate them. More recently, given the changes in behavior due to COVID (fewer bars, delis, restaurants, etc), rats have had to look for new sources of foods and accordingly are in lots of new places. Even the residential areas of DC have rates, as well as those in the burbs.

Do we have a District Mammal, like states have a State Mammal? I’d suggest these lovely disease spreaders.

I really like how you people think! Anyone have connections with the Bowser administration?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city should pay a cash bounty on dead rats.

Enterprising folks would pocket some serious $$$, and the rat population would be reduced. Not eliminated, but definitely reduced.

Right now there’s no incentive for anyone to do anything about getting rid of them. So incentivize it. Use economics to fight the problem. Assign a value to rats, and pay the people who turn them in.

This is a good idea. OP here - back in the rats in the sandbox days, we called city rat control twice. They came.in space suits, poked around for nests and left without doing anything. This was years ago... What are other cities doing? Any new methods? Sterilization??? I like the idea of leading them across the highway - very Pied Piper of Hamelin, but not super fair to our neighbors.

Pay $10 for each dead rat turned in to any designated collection site in the city. Homeless people would be catching and killing rats all day long.

$10 and the city would be bankrupt in a week . I'd start way lower. Maybe by the pound? I just threw up a little thinking about that...

I agree with you. There are many more than we think...
I remember returning cans and bottles in the 80s to the store for 5 cents each. People filled up carts... I guess it could work.
I worry about disease spreading--people catching them with their hands, rocks etc.

WHO would catch a rat with their hands for $10? So disgusting.

I wouldn’t bother catching 1 for $10.

But I’ll spend all night in an alley a few nights a month catching 100 for $1,000

I could see people running trap lines (like fur trappers) and maybe using hand snares, clubs, baited hooks. There’s all manner of catching rats that don’t require hand-catching live ones.

Just kill ‘em however, put some gloves on, bag them up, turn them in and get paid.


Determined people might make several hundred dollars for what amounts to a couple hours work.


But this is how you solve problems- by making it economically attractive to do something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city should pay a cash bounty on dead rats.

Enterprising folks would pocket some serious $$$, and the rat population would be reduced. Not eliminated, but definitely reduced.

Right now there’s no incentive for anyone to do anything about getting rid of them. So incentivize it. Use economics to fight the problem. Assign a value to rats, and pay the people who turn them in.

This is a good idea. OP here - back in the rats in the sandbox days, we called city rat control twice. They came.in space suits, poked around for nests and left without doing anything. This was years ago... What are other cities doing? Any new methods? Sterilization??? I like the idea of leading them across the highway - very Pied Piper of Hamelin, but not super fair to our neighbors.

Pay $10 for each dead rat turned in to any designated collection site in the city. Homeless people would be catching and killing rats all day long.

$10 and the city would be bankrupt in a week . I'd start way lower. Maybe by the pound? I just threw up a little thinking about that...

I agree with you. There are many more than we think...
I remember returning cans and bottles in the 80s to the store for 5 cents each. People filled up carts... I guess it could work.
I worry about disease spreading--people catching them with their hands, rocks etc.

WHO would catch a rat with their hands for $10? So disgusting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The city should pay a cash bounty on dead rats.

Enterprising folks would pocket some serious $$$, and the rat population would be reduced. Not eliminated, but definitely reduced.

Right now there’s no incentive for anyone to do anything about getting rid of them. So incentivize it. Use economics to fight the problem. Assign a value to rats, and pay the people who turn them in.

This is a good idea. OP here - back in the rats in the sandbox days, we called city rat control twice. They came.in space suits, poked around for nests and left without doing anything. This was years ago... What are other cities doing? Any new methods? Sterilization??? I like the idea of leading them across the highway - very Pied Piper of Hamelin, but not super fair to our neighbors.

Pay $10 for each dead rat turned in to any designated collection site in the city. Homeless people would be catching and killing rats all day long.

$10 and the city would be bankrupt in a week . I'd start way lower. Maybe by the pound? I just threw up a little thinking about that...

I agree with you. There are many more than we think...
I remember returning cans and bottles in the 80s to the store for 5 cents each. People filled up carts... I guess it could work.
I worry about disease spreading--people catching them with their hands, rocks etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG, I'm going to have nightmares tonight. Add this to reason 1,483,719 why we no longer go to DC. How disgusting.

I hope you have no future plans for visiting NYC. I've seen things...

NY is a filthy pit. But haven't they been employing some new rat technology?

Anonymous wrote:OMG, I'm going to have nightmares tonight. Add this to reason 1,483,719 why we no longer go to DC. How disgusting.

I hope you have no future plans for visiting NYC. I've seen things...

LOL ratgate. Even Maryland told DC no way!

https://dcist.com/story/12/01/20/cooch-refuses-to-back-down-on-dc-ra/