Pied Piper of Pacific Palisades

August 2, 2008 11:24 PM

Fear of rats is one of the most common specific phobias. Perhaps this is related to their historical role as carriers of disease including the spread of the Black Death. Nonetheless, many people believe that rats can make excellent pets. Unless, of course, you're feeding hundreds of them in the heart of Pacific Palisades.
posted by Slothrup (71 comments total)

A sun-bleached shirt hanging in the window of the local chamber of commerce sums up residents’ self-satisfaction. It reads: “If you’re rich, you live in Beverly Hills; if you’re famous, you live in Malibu; and if you’re lucky, you live in Pacific Palisades.” (From the last, bizarre link.)

I started reading the article with an attitude of horror and sympathy, but upon reaching that passage I suddenly find my sympathies significantly reduced.
posted by Caduceus at 11:47 PM on August 2, 2008

People alive during the spread of the Black Death did not understand that rats were carriers of the disease (actually it was the fleas parasitising the rats, but I digress). Nobody had understanding of the way diseases worked during those periods*, so a fear of rats as carriers of disease is unlikely to originate with those plagues. It probably arose later when the ubiquitous presence of rats became socially unacceptable, or due to their basically chaotic, hairy, scampering, bitey disposition. Hell, phobias are by nature not rational, so looking for a source for a phobia in real life event is invalid.


*although, if you read Pepys, it's clear that people were aware that close contact with plague victims was a factor in catching the disease, but beyond that, nobody understood bacteriologic disease models, they thought it was something to do with humors or bad air.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 12:01 AM on August 3, 2008

Coincidentally, T. Coraghessan Boyle: “Thirteen Hundred Rats.”
posted by 0rison at 12:07 AM on August 3, 2008

Finished reading the article, and I've got to say, holy shit. My sympathies returned readily upon seeing the YT vids.

Nice use of tags, by the way.
posted by Caduceus at 12:14 AM on August 3, 2008

Holy moly. I can predict tonight's insane nightmare already.
posted by crinklebat at 12:16 AM on August 3, 2008

I used to work in downtown Pacific Palisades...and this story has blown my mind.

I had a pet rat or two when i was a teenager, but thousands? HOLY FUCK!

That said, I really enjoyed my time in PP...that job was the job i joined metafilter at.
Even though i was at a bank that was robbed by a guy with a bomb, and i had PTSD for several months...Life there was considerably more exciting.

Some may remember a deleted AskMe about the bomb thingy...
posted by schyler523 at 12:17 AM on August 3, 2008

Rats have never really bothered me, but then I had a pet snake growing up so I've always just kind of seen them as snake food more than anything else.

I have to admit that rats in NYC contribute heavily to one of my favorite pass-times whilst waiting for the next train to come - watching tourists completely flip their shit.

I bet it was pretty hard to pick up chicks if you had the Black Death...
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:27 AM on August 3, 2008

Cat.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 12:35 AM on August 3, 2008

That was jaw-dropping. There must be quite a lot of dead rat about, too. So crazy.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:38 AM on August 3, 2008

I like the "ratshitinsane" tag.

I gather from the article that the sisters are still living in the house?
posted by jokeefe at 12:51 AM on August 3, 2008

I have an equally common fear of old, fucking crazy women.
posted by Roman Graves at 1:00 AM on August 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

This led me to watch all the youtube videos on rats. Here's one.
posted by nvly at 1:04 AM on August 3, 2008

oddly, they used the Denhams’ agent, Elizabeth Stein
Oh, yeah. Now let's talk about realtor vermin.
posted by CCBC at 1:30 AM on August 3, 2008

Lest anyone forget, the little mousey brothers can be creepy as all hell too.

1 rat is okay. 100000 rats.. not so much.
posted by Lord_Pall at 1:37 AM on August 3, 2008

jonson linked Lord_Pall's [CRAZY-MAKING NIGHTMARISH] video last year.
posted by cgc373 at 1:46 AM on August 3, 2008

as heard on npr's marketplace friday as well.
posted by krautland at 1:46 AM on August 3, 2008

The Denhams don't have an excess of rats, they have a shortage of Jack Russell Terriers. Those things are furry little vermin-seeking missiles.
posted by Ritchie at 1:58 AM on August 3, 2008

Actually, come to think of it, Denham should consider investing in a couple dozen pythons to solve this problem. Its not like the county officials are going to do much about it, based on precedence, if he starts breeding snakes and they start spilling over into the neighbor's yard. He'll have to get that one past his wife of course, but it seems it would work quite well - he wouldn't even have to pay for feed for the snakes.

And can you imagine the sheer horror when the old ladies come out one morning to find their furry friends being suffocated by 5 foot long reptiles of death? Denham should get that on YouTube.
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:00 AM on August 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

I really wish the insane cat lady that lived nextdoor to me as a child was the rat house's neighbour. Now THAT would have been funny.
posted by Dark Messiah at 2:04 AM on August 3, 2008

Are rats really that dangerous? I know they are carrier of diseases, but don't bunnies, birds, cats, and dogs carry diseases as well? The old women were able to live with thousands of rats in living their house for decades, and they survived into old age. So rats aren't necessarily that bad. Are they?

I have to admit though, finding three large rats feasting on crumbs in your child's cradle would not at all be a pleasant experience. Not at all.
posted by wigglin at 2:06 AM on August 3, 2008

1984
posted by vac2003 at 2:13 AM on August 3, 2008

carriers of disease including the spread of the Black Death

The Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), or brown rat, the one you're all scared of, did not spread the Black Death. In fact, it stopped the plague by displacing the Black Rat (Rattus rattus), which was the one involved in that.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:06 AM on August 3, 2008

"..brown rat, the one you're all scared of.."

[citation needed]
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 3:22 AM on August 3, 2008

Crispin Glover, you have a call on the white courtesy phone ...
posted by bwg at 3:56 AM on August 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Are rats really that dangerous?

Oh yes... oh yes indeed... of course you really had to be there, in an 70s/80s British school playground, passing around a certain well-thumbed paperback
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:15 AM on August 3, 2008

I am sure I read an article recently positing that rats were not as linked to the pkague as originally thought...can't rember where i saw it though
posted by mary8nne at 5:17 AM on August 3, 2008

Yikes talk about ROUS... creeeeepy!
posted by gomichild at 5:32 AM on August 3, 2008

Bubonic plague or no bubonic plague, having thousands of rats living next door and overflowing on to your property and into your child's stroller is a plague in itself. Having thousands of rats next door that are fed dog food by insane ancient twin ladies (if only one at a time comes out, are there really still two?) and are protected by a thick layer of red tape and bumbling government workers is a plague plus a nightmare.

I bet it was pretty hard to pick up chicks if you had the Black Death...

Not if they also had it. Show us your bubos!
posted by pracowity at 5:34 AM on August 3, 2008 [5 favorites]

I like big bubos.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:59 AM on August 3, 2008

Also hantavirus.
posted by ryanrs at 6:41 AM on August 3, 2008

OK, it's more of Stephen King short... complete with religious maniacs: 'One day, when Scott asked whether the sisters were afraid of being attacked by rats, Marjorie replied, “No, I have the blood of Jesus on my house every night.”'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:44 AM on August 3, 2008

Toxoplasmosis is carried by rats, and is suspected to alter behavoir in strange ways. I'll bet 1000 dead rats that the sisters are crawling with it.

Ewwwww.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 7:02 AM on August 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's also a problem with bats in the Palisades. I suspect there may be some sort of cave under stately Wayne manor, but I haven't been able to get help from the owner, his butler, or the police commissioner.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:24 AM on August 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

You get the feeling the sisters know the wearabouts of a buried body or skeleton or two?

I'm not really squicked by this but it sure is a problem the way a couple thousand pets of any sort that feel free to wander the neighbourhood would be a problem. Whether those pets are rats, dogs, cats, snakes or birds.

At least the neighbours have a chance with the rats; I'd imagine it would be a lot harder to get any action if the sisters were raising free range budgies and it would be just as annoying.
posted by Mitheral at 7:27 AM on August 3, 2008

"..brown rat, the one you're all scared of.."

[citation needed]

crinklebat. He seems to be all scared of them.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:33 AM on August 3, 2008

From the article: "The roof rat, or black rat, is the more agile cousin of the Norway rat, and its deftness is clearly on display in Denham’s YouTube video."

Earlier in the article it mentions that "in 2006, the [health] department caught a rodent carrying the bubonic plague [in the county]. In large red letters, the county Web site warns parents to keep children away from dead rats."

So, worries about the plague weren't completely unfounded.
posted by D.C. at 7:40 AM on August 3, 2008

I have an elderly neighbor who brings home sacks of dog food to feed feral cats.
posted by mecran01 at 7:46 AM on August 3, 2008

I'm not scared of rats but eeeeeeeewwww. The biggest one I ever saw was larger than many cats I've had, and, creepily enough, was flushed out by some eighth graders when our school was being renovated. They killed it with a two by four and threw it into the lunch room.

I haven't been able to get help from the owner, his butler, or the police commissioner.

Yeah, I've been trying to get the Child Welfare people to take a look at that Wayne guy for years.
Who likes short shorts (On prepubescent boys)?
He likes short shorts (On prepubescent boys).
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:52 AM on August 3, 2008

You get the feeling the sisters know the wearabouts of a buried body or skeleton or two?

Nah. Rats eat bone too. Why expend the effort to bury them when you've got a swarming garbage disposal.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:02 AM on August 3, 2008

Quickly summing up the mood of her crowd, Angela Clark switched gears, telling fascinating stories about the hordes of ravenous rats living under the luxury condominiums of Chandler's Wharf, across the way. Pointing to the lobster traps piled high nearby, as Clark described these rats feasting on dried seafood remains, the tour definitely wound up on a child-appropriate note: lunchtime. From Working Waterfront.

But some people like rats hereabouts.

I myself am in favor of the feral feline operation, as they keep the rat population down. Not a huge rat lover, sorry. A pet cat can be immunized, try immunizing thousands of rats and getting Lyme disease ticks off them, ewww. I'd be wigged out at neighbors like the two sisters.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 8:04 AM on August 3, 2008

Are rats really that dangerous?

In two words, fuck yes. California actually had a plague outbreak in the early 20th century. The following data comes from Mike Davis's excellent book, The Ecology of Fear (1998).

THE BLACK DEATH IN CALIFORNIA, 1900-1925YearsLocationCasesDeathsVector1900-04San Francisco121113Rats1903-09Contra Costa County42Squirrels1907
San Francisco16078Rats1909Oakland168Squirrels1909Los Angeles10Squirrels1910-14East Bay134 Squirrels 1915-24East Bay33Squirrels 1919Oakland1413Squirrels1920-24Central CA42Squirrels1924-25Los Angeles3934Squirrels/Rats
Even though squirrels seem to be the main vectors now, Davis writes, concerning the LA outbreaks, "[T]he plague appeared to have been transmitted from central California, possibly years before, through infected ground squirrel populations, then passed on to rats around Los Angeles's numerous hog farms where populations of both rodents intermingled."

Davis reports a pneumonic plague death in Kern County as recently as 1995, and even in San Diego I recall seeing alarmist "SQUIRRELS CAN TRANSMIT PLAGUE" signs at state parks during my childhood. So, the threat of plague still exists (and according to Davis might even be increased, due to squirrels' close proximity to humans and more wide-spread tenement housing than existed in the smaller Los Angeles of 1924). So even though it's unlikely that the Palisades rats carry the plague, it is by no means an unfounded concern given the insane number of well-habituated rats involved.
posted by the_bone at 8:16 AM on August 3, 2008

Crap, that was supposed to be a table. It looked fine in live preview, honest, but I guess the HTML didn't take when I posted. The upshot: there were 10 epidemics of plague in CA from 1900-25. Most of them occurred in the Bay Area (the worst claimed 160 lives), but there was one in LA that killed 39 people between 1925 and 1925.
posted by the_bone at 8:22 AM on August 3, 2008

I saw this story on BoingBoing yesterday. What really weirded me were so many of the comments from the free-marketers blaming the Denhams for not doing enough due-dilligence before buying. As if anyone would ever suspect thousands of rats living next door.

The fact that the realtor and the seller knew about the rats and didn't disclose the problem smells like a big old lawsuit waiting to happen.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:55 AM on August 3, 2008

[insert clever name here] writes "Nah. Rats eat bone too. Why expend the effort to bury them when you've got a swarming garbage disposal."

I meant someone else's problem corpse. IE: they must have some kind of serious pull that is not readily apparent to be left alone by the authorities when they have a couple thousand rats hanging around the place.
posted by Mitheral at 9:06 AM on August 3, 2008

They must have some kind of serious pull that is not readily apparent to be left alone by the authorities when they have a couple thousand rats hanging around the place

Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by bureaucratic incompetence.
posted by Slothrup at 9:28 AM on August 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

I think I know a good location for a rat terrier rescue...happy, happy little dogs.
posted by dilettante at 9:41 AM on August 3, 2008

Between the deceptive real estate agent, the insane rat women, the apathetic health department, and the owner not doing due diligence on a $1.6 million investment, my bullshit meter is broken and I'm having to spend my Sunday going to town to get a new one.
posted by crapmatic at 10:03 AM on August 3, 2008

Rats, rats, lay down flat! Yes yes yes yes, lay down flat!
posted by msalt at 10:19 AM on August 3, 2008

The fact that the realtor and the seller knew about the rats and didn't disclose the problem smells like a big old lawsuit waiting to happen.

Not waiting to happen. It already did.
posted by Caduceus at 11:32 AM on August 3, 2008

If you should move to Toronto in the early 1980s, do not take a room in a house on Portland St., just south of Queen between Bathurst and Spadina, even if you have just found a job loading boxes of plastic hangers onto trucks in a building right around the corner. The Polish woman who owns the place will invite you across the street to the house she lives in with her wheelchair bound husband or father or uncle or something and will give you lemonade while telling you that you're a nice young boy she'll be happy to rent to, but I hope that this time you'll be attentive enough to realize that she's a little whacked. The house will have three rooms upstairs, with a fridge and a stove set in the hallway across from the bathroom. But if you do not heed this warning and choose to take a room, you won't be there an afternoon before you hear the noises out in the unlit hallway, before you look out and see the dark hunched forms that appear to you the size of cats trekking from stove to bathroom. In the month that you remain there, you will not dare rest in the hallway long enough to use the stove or fridge and whenever you rise in the morning and make your way to the washroom for your bath (there is no shower) you will do so wearing your winter boots and with a tennis racket in your hand. As you lay in the clawfoot tub you'll watch the spot under the sink and behind the toilet where the wall has been rotted and chewed away, where you're certain the beasts come from, and when you rise from the tub you'll be certain to check under and behind the tub, always grabbing your tennis racket for protection first, to make certain no disease carrying rodent is hunkered underneath in wait for the flesh of your bare ankle to come within lurching distance. If you should try to get a response from the landlady, if you threaten to call the health department, she will violently jam her hands against her ears, start shaking her head, and jabber in Polish between sentences accusing you of causing trouble. No more lemonade for you. A couple days later you will witness her in a fight with her neighbours, you'll see her in the laneway bending over to punctuate her arguments with the presentation of her fat mid-age ass and you'll decide you don't have the strength to take her on yourself. You'll consider going across the street to see if the man in the wheelchair could be of any help. When you attempt to enlist your roommates in acting against the landlady the eighty year old man with the two canes and the Mr. Magoo glasses will not hear a word you say, and the guy who just returned from the hospital after falling off a roof will laugh and tell you there was a popcorn factory behind the house and after it closed down the rats moved in. All the housemates seem to have grown accustomed to the vermin. So a month later, you'll move. And if you should then move up Bathurst towards Honest Ed's, please be aware that you haven't escaped the rats, because the cute girl who lives above you, the one who works at Sick Kids taking care of the animals they're plumping for experimentation, will have two that she rescued from the 5th floor cages that she now keeps as pets, and when she comes down to your room to talk she'll let them loose to crawl all around your room, over your table and into your underwear and sock drawer. She will enjoy watching how it icks you out.
posted by TimTypeZed at 12:11 PM on August 3, 2008 [6 favorites]

Metafilter: No more lemonade for you.

Also, scare piece from Russian television about mutant subway rats which features perfectly ordinary (though large) rat and much amusing "omg rats" stuff. I think. I'm sick and feverish, but for some reason this made me laugh. Especially the stuffed head on the wall where they interview a rat expert. Yeah.
posted by jokeefe at 12:28 PM on August 3, 2008

The Denhams don't have an excess of rats, they have a shortage of Jack Russell Terriers. Those things are furry little vermin-seeking missiles.

Dauchsunds also enjoy a good vermin hunt. But even the most intrepid dog would be daunted by this task, I think.

*heebie jeebies accomplished, thanks*
posted by killy willy at 1:25 PM on August 3, 2008

But, but... rats can surf. Aren't they cute?
posted by porpoise at 2:45 PM on August 3, 2008

Michael Jackson loved his rat.
posted by vronsky at 3:08 PM on August 3, 2008

This is THE thread on rats. I loved it!
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:19 PM on August 3, 2008

On the Samuel Pepys Blog for the last couple of weeks, Sam has been chronicling the rising number of deaths from the plague. They're up to 1700 or so now (by the end of July, 1665).
posted by Araucaria at 3:24 PM on August 3, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oddly enough, I just saw Ratatouille on DVD last night ...
posted by Araucaria at 3:25 PM on August 3, 2008

Cat.

So, has anyone else here been unfortunate enough to see that scene in Men Behind The Sun? Because that made me equal parts furious and upset for like a month. But, anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that 1 cat vs. 1000 rats does not = Solution.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:51 PM on August 3, 2008

I wouldn't let any single cat near that hellhole. Maybe an army of cats, but one cat? It would be destroyed. The rats would eat it.
posted by Anonymous at 5:15 PM on August 3, 2008

What this neighborhood desperately needs is a crazy cat lady. Only one will survive.
posted by Foam Pants at 5:18 PM on August 3, 2008

I have two rats. They're great.
posted by blucevalo at 6:02 PM on August 3, 2008

I've had several rats over the years. They can be delightful and enormously affectionate. But even domestic ones can breed out of control, if one isn't careful to separate sexes or spay/neuter. You don't even need to have very many; it only takes one loose male to impregnate a cage full of girls, and females go into heat every three days or so. Typical litter size is 8-12 babies, sometimes more. Babies are old enough to reproduce just a couple weeks after weaning. Careless people could very easily become overrun with them.

I loved mine but I would certainly never have felt safe having them running around loose, chewing wires and potentially burning the house down, let alone the indiscriminate peeing and pooping.

Hell, that's why I don't have children.
posted by Lou Stuells at 6:07 PM on August 3, 2008

Crispin Glover loved his rat too.
posted by mmoncur at 7:09 PM on August 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

The biggest rat I saw was in India. It was sitting in a tree, and it was so big that I mistook its tail for a vine. The circumference of the tail was about the size of a quarter! Biiiiiiiiig rat. I couldn't even scream. I was completely paralyzed. My boyfriend just took my elbow and led me quietly away from the trees. Then a little later I cried.
posted by typewriter at 7:35 PM on August 3, 2008

Oh, I forgot to mention, I came upon the rat because its tail hit me in the face.
posted by typewriter at 7:36 PM on August 3, 2008

Rats bite you (or Jesus, your kids) in your sleep. Don't know how many rats-nibble-baby stories I've seen in the news (cannot bear to surf for them, you all know how to use the Google) but there's plenty of them. They're predators, and when they can, they'll eat you, pretty much. They eat grain, they spoil food, they attack chickens and bite livestock. What's not to hate? You don't have to have a phobia, or know about disease transmission, to not want those things to happen.

In cages, tamed, in small numbers, hey fine. Large armies swarming your neighborhood, not fine. And I wasn't a tourist, but I did not enjoy the sight of nighttime herds of rats scampering across the sidewalks outside NYC restaurants either, when I lived there.
posted by emjaybee at 8:37 PM on August 3, 2008

...nighttime herds of rats...

Fun fact: a group of rats is called a "mischief"!
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:31 PM on August 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

The biggest rat I saw was in India. It was sitting in a tree, and it was so big that I mistook its tail for a vine. The circumference of the tail was about the size of a quarter! Biiiiiiiiig rat.

That sounds like an ROUS. Gross.
posted by inigo2 at 9:48 AM on August 4, 2008

"Oddly enough, I just saw Ratatouille on DVD last night ..."

I loved Ratatouille -- it was one of my favorite movies of last year -- but I have to admit that the scene when all the rats are cooking in the kitchen, then they're caught and all scamper away, made my flesh crawl.
posted by chuq at 12:51 PM on August 5, 2008

Lou Stuells is right about how easy it is to go from Cute Rat Pet to Horrible Rodent Infestation. Some relatives of mine, careless individuals at the best of times, had a couple of cages with pet-store rats. The rats were given minimum attention in a room essentially to themselves and, being the escape artist that they are, eventually colonized the room. This was ten years ago or so, and I doubt seriously that the situation is under control yet.

Also, pet rats go feral and vicious quickly and after a few generations you have all the problems associated with wild rats with the added bonus of the larger stature that "fancy" rats have been bred for.
posted by lekvar at 1:31 PM on August 5, 2008

Most medieval historians now believe that what we commonly refer to as "The Black Death" was NOT in fact an outbreak of Bubonic plague.

The firsthand reports of the symptoms of the infected don't match up with modern accounts of Bubonic plague symptoms. There was no evidence of a dying-off of rats from the period 1348-1450 (roughly considered the height of the "Black Death" as commonly known), which would be expected from an outbreak of Bubonic plague. Bubonic plague kills rats too, after all!

The late David Herlihy has what is now considered the standard account.

Very interesting stuff; there is a lot of speculation among medical and infectious disease historians that "The Black Death" may have been an outbreak of something like Ebola, or a disease that we have never again encountered since the 14th century.
posted by jckll at 8:46 AM on August 6, 2008