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Pestilence: Washington Has A Serious Rat Problem, Complaints Up 64%
[Hot Air] Before you drain the swamp, you might need to get rid of some of the rats in the nation’s capitol. Wednesday the Washington Post reported that the number of complaints about rats is up sharply in Washington, DC and rat control experts for the city are recommending a new way of dealing with them:With complaints to the city’s 311 phone line concerning rats at a four-year high, city officials are turning to dry ice ‐ the frozen form of carbon dioxide ‐ to suffocate rodents. But dry ice will not replace the poison that the District’s rodent control division currently uses, said its program manager Gerard Brown. "It’s just going to be another tool in our toolbox," said Brown, who has been killing rats in Washington for 30 years. His explanation for how dry ice works is concise, and a little dramatic: "The CO2 that emanates from the dry ice suffocates the rats, and their homes become their graves," he said... The District’s rat problem is not new, but it has worsened in recent years. The surging rat population is driven by a combination of factors, including Washington’s booming human population, which means more trash, and recent mild winters, which means fewer rats die from frigid temperatures ‐ although city officials are hoping the current cold snap will help reduce the population. There have been 3,286 rat complaints to the city this fiscal year, up 64 percent from fiscal year 2015, according to data from the health department. Rats congregate in our largest cities where they can scour the alleys and subway platforms for a free lunch (and dinner). Orkin pest control puts out a list of the U.S. cities with the worst rat problems every year and in the most recent list, Washington actually came in 5th place behind Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. One New Yorker seemed skeptical that any city could have more rats than New York. From the NY Daily News: Posted by: Besoeker 2018-01-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=505198 |