Chicago is an appealing city that has long been run by rats wearing expensive suits. Now that corruption, mismanagement and union thuggery have reached unbearable proportions, the four-legged rodents are threatening a takeover. From National Public Radio:
Chicago’s
upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood is known for its fine bars and restaurants,
trendy clothiers and elegant row houses mixed with luxurious town houses and
yuppie apartment buildings. Like many densely populated urban neighborhoods,
Lincoln Park also has rats. A lot of rats.
Soon a
hospital will be torn down, bringing a new infestation. The savvy rodents avoid
traps and turn their noses up at poison, so residents of Lincoln Park and
adjoining neighborhoods are taking matters into their own hands. They are
calling Mouse-Busters, a/k/a their local animal shelter, where cats are being
rescued from death row, given their vaccinations and sent out into the working
world.
These
worthy cats generally get results from the first day on the job. More from NPR:
"The cats will kill off a great deal of the initial population of the rats,”
says Paul Nickerson, who manages the Cats at Work program for the Tree House
Humane Society. “But through spreading their pheromones, they will keep other
rats from filling their vacuum. Before the cats showed up, there were no
predator pheromones in the area. Now that cats are there, there’s predator
pheromones and the rats aren’t stupid. They smell the predator pheromones and
so they’ll stay out of the cats’ territory.”
Some of
these pesky rodents will be left on welcome mats as gifts to the cats’ staff.
The smarter ones will leave the neighborhood for more upscale dumpsters. The
smartest still will wind up at City Hall. Chicago never changes.
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