Going To The Rats
The rat legions of the Animal Uprising™ have apparently picked their home base for the upcoming year of the rat themed celebrations the animal overlords have planned for next year. They are busy setting up shop in Cicero, Illinois. And doing a fine job of it, by all accounts.
Rats — they've been the scourge of Cicero for years. Cyanide gas couldn't get rid of them, so now the town is trying a lethal mix of birdseed and oatmeal laced with blood thinner. The animals gnaw, scamper and reek, and, some legends have it, attack people in broad daylight.
"I'm a little scared of them myself," joked Larry Dominick, Cicero's burly town president.
Dominick, like town presidents before him, made a campaign promise to control the rodents. Even with stepped-up eradication efforts since Dominick was elected in May 2005 — the wily scavengers appear to have gained almost a mystical hold on the blue-collar town.
And despite recent reports that rats aren't the evil little monsters they sometimes appear to be — scientists have shown they have the ability to giggle — Cicero leaders aren't laughing: they want the rodents dead. The crackdown is so serious that town leaders recently voted to increase spending on rat control by 340 percent this year, to the tune of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, an almost unheard-of amount for a town of Cicero's size.
That $704,000 pays for an increase in the number of full-time members of the rodent-control department — called the Rat Patrol — from 9 to 11. It also includes a $150,000 contract with a private pest-control company.
Cicero's spending far outstrips the rodent-control budgets of neighboring Berwyn and Oak Park, whose rat allotments combined for 2007 are about $25,000.
To be sure, Cicero has more residents to clean up after — 83,539 people according to the 2005 census — or approximately 30,000 more than either Berwyn or Oak Park.
But take Chicago, whose population is 32 times bigger than Cicero's. Chicago will spend $8,966,445 this year to eradicate rats, or roughly $3.32 per person. Cicero will spend $8.43 per person.
The one problem with this should be obvious. The rats have actually registered to vote - this is the Chicago area , after all - and Larry Dominick will soon find himself out of a job.
We're going to offer some free advice to Cicero here that is actually quite serious. Put peanut butter in the bait. Rats (and mice) love peanut butter. (Brand not important, needn't be "choosy".) We got that tidbit of advice from a professional exterminator who came out to take care of a rat sighting that induced levitation in the kitchen. Quite literally. That was in a very, very old house we once lived in, reputedly the oldest in the town, built around 1785. And with some, how shall we put this delicately, freaking slobs for neighbors. The rat came over to visit from there (the exterminator found the tunnel). Anyway, we have baited mousetraps with peanut butter ever since and have excellent results - usually it gets the offending rodent the very first night.
By Sam L., Sunday, 15 April , 2007 @ 9:42 pm
They need to call the Cagney Rat Elimination Service. Jimmy feeds those dirty rats with .38 caliber pills–and they roll over dead right away.
By Gaius, Sunday, 15 April , 2007 @ 9:49 pm
Top of the world, ma!
http://imdb.com/title/tt0042041/quotes
By BubbaB, Monday, 16 April , 2007 @ 4:52 pm
I thought the name of the city sounds familiar. Apparently, they have had problems with rats for quite a while:
(From Wikipedia)
Cicero has long had a reputation of government scandal. Most recently, Town President Betty Loren-Maltese was sent to federal prison for misappropriating funds. She was well-liked by retired, long-term Cicero residents, but was continually challenged by younger Hispanic opponents before her indictment.