
DC’s war on rats goes digital - fern12
https://wamu.org/story/17/12/18/d-c-s-war-rats-goes-digital/
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phaza
I know these are used with great success in Norway:
[https://youtu.be/rfT9orf5Qrg](https://youtu.be/rfT9orf5Qrg)

Sensors detect the rat and kills it immediately. Then it’s flushed out with
other sewage. It also keeps count of how many rats are killed, which gives the
city some numbers to use in their estimations.

~~~
taneq
Holy shit, it's the spike trap from every video game ever. :S

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qwerty456127
So, is calling 311 the only way to report on such an important yet simple (not
really requiring verbal explanation nor personal data about the witness)
subject? I would never call a telephone unless the rats or whatever were
actually threatening a life and I were sure I can't manage on my own. C'mon,
it's 2018, people are using apps (anonymously if possible) and texting each
other, if somebody actually calls me I expect them to be either dying or
trying to sell me something I don't need! Why not just make an app that lets
you take a picture and send it with a timestamp and the location data (and
nothing else) embedded straight to the server?

~~~
eli
They really try pretty hard to make it easy already. "311" is available as a
web app, native mobile app, and automated SMS service. I bet you could tweet
photos to @dohdc as well.

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dsfyu404ed
The city is hiring exterminators. They are using technology to make the people
dispatching those exterminators more efficient or effective.

If the city were serious about getting rid of rats they'd provide incentives
for or otherwise subsidize behavior that helps solve the problem (which is
very different from penalizing behavior that doesn't, I know those two often
get confused around here). I'm not seeing any evidence of such based on this
article which leads me to believe this is probably not an effective use of
available resources. Efficient exterminators and other silver bullets don't
usually do a good job solving big problems in the long term.

~~~
dmm
Beware the Cobra Effect! Incentives are hard, hard things to get right.

"The term cobra effect originated in an anecdote set at the time of British
rule of colonial India. The British government was concerned about the number
of venomous cobra snakes in Delhi. The government therefore offered bounty for
every dead cobra. Initially this was a successful strategy as large numbers of
snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, enterprising people
began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of
this, the reward program was scrapped, causing the cobra breeders to set the
now-worthless snakes free. As a result, the wild cobra population further
increased. The apparent solution for the problem made the situation even
worse."

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

~~~
bcks
This very thing happened with rats in French-occupied Hanoi in 1902: all you
had to do to claim a bounty was turn in a rat’s tail. Rats without tails can
still have babies and soon people were breeding rats for profit instead of
killing them.

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-
massacre-190...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-
massacre-1902)

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BugsJustFindMe
> _got a new galvanized steel can, even though the trash crew won’t empty it_

I don't understand this bit. Why wouldn't they empty it? It seems like metal
bins would be a fine solution to rats chewing through them.

~~~
ams6110
The sanitation workers would actually have to lift and dump the can, which
they are not allowed to do. The plastic bins can be dumped into the truck by a
mechanism. This was adopted by cities to reduce workers compensation claims
from injuries caused by lifting.

~~~
idbehold
Can they not make metal bins that work with the same mechanism?

~~~
pmorici
You get what the city gives you. Metal would probably be more expensive in any
case.

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acd
I think a simpler solution is that people and restaurants throw their trash in
closed trash bins. Rats eat food which are thrown on the ground or otherwise
easily accessible.

I believe that some people in big cities has lost a sense of community. Thus
some throw food on the ground that the rats eat.

To get rid of rats cities need to be cleaner.

~~~
TheSoftwareGuy
It says in the article is that most people’s trash cans have been chewed
through by the rats

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tuxguy
elsewhere on the planet , some rats being trained to be productive members of
human society :)

[https://scitechafrica.com/2016/04/16/super-rats-are-
eliminat...](https://scitechafrica.com/2016/04/16/super-rats-are-eliminating-
landmines-from-mozambique-and-detecting-tuberculosis-in-tanzania/)

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fillskills
Cant believe those rats chew throw the trash bins. And don’t ever want to see
that happen to mine

~~~
perl4ever
Even mice - I discovered in a car that belonged to a family member who was
diabetic, and hadn't driven for months, that mice had gotten into the glove
box, where there were a bunch of insulin injection tips, plastic with needles,
they had munched them to little bits, absolutely went to town on them. I have
no idea why they would do that, but I guess rodents chew compulsively.

~~~
lovich
They do. Ive lived with some pet rats and you need to provide toys for them to
chew and they get demolished fairly quickly. Their teeth do not stop growing
and need to be constantly work down. That's true for all rodents as far as I
am aware

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pmorici
Why not stop using poison and just let some cats lose. My city ally has a
healthy cat population most of which have been TNR'ed. The only rat I've ever
seen was the severed heard of one that some kittens were devouring on the
pavement.

~~~
mschuster91
> Why not stop using poison and just let some cats lose

Fast forward 5 years, you got yourself a healthy plague of feral cats - plus
complaints from regular cat owners that the ferals pick fights with their
cats. In addition introducing mass numbers of cats causes a rapid uptick in
bird deaths (cats can eat islands virtually birdfree) and they're a
considerable risk for accidents with vehicles or small kids.

~~~
taneq
The cat population can be simply and easily controlled with the introduction
of some eagles...

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cafard
There are rats in my neighborhood of DC, but I haven't seen cans chewed into.
The so-called "Supercans" were supposed to have been harder for rats to get
into.

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Zak
It seems to me that "continually kill large numbers of X" is an inherently
broken solution to "I don't want X to live here".

If you have large numbers of X, it's because you're creating a very favorable
habitat for it. If you don't address that issue and just keep killing them,
you'll have both large numbers of X and large numbers of X corpses.

There are also arguably ethical issues with killing huge numbers of
intelligent, social animals simply because we don't like their presence.

~~~
maoistinquisitr
A traditional and effective measure against urban rat populations is stray
cats. But for whatever reason people in the west won't allow that anymore.

~~~
rootbear
I've seen rats in DC that would eat a cat for breakfast. Those suckers are
huge!

~~~
nn3
So you need coyotes instead?

They can likely deal with any size rat.

~~~
tim333
Or rat terriers, controlling rats since 1545
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier)

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Jam-B
If rats are chewing through plastic garbage bins, make the bins toxic.

~~~
electricslpnsld
You don't even have to go that far, just lace them with rat birth control
drugs like NYC does with the subways.

~~~
ateesdalejr
That's actually not a bad idea. Only problem is that one rat's going to get
birth control drugs and get his fill of trash. All of the other rats don't
need to chew through the can after the first one's made the hole for them.

~~~
user5994461
Make a bin filled with birth control then.

~~~
ateesdalejr
Require everyone to fill their trashcans with rat birth control pills?

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QAPereo
Why do we always declare war on things we know we can’t possibly beat?
Drugs... rats... terror... might as well declare war on entropy and human
nature. Rats will be here long after we’re gone, and until then we’ll never be
far from them; such is life.

~~~
Gibbon1
I hate the war metaphor too. You'll never get rid of rats entirely.
Controlling rat populations in cities is really about food sources. The number
of rats is limited by the amount of continuous non seasonal food sources
available. In this case it seems like the city needs better garbage cans.

Proper maintenance to keep rats out of housing helps with the nuisance aspect.
Because rats are destructive.

One wonders, if you got rid of rats, what would take their place? No idea,
might be worse. I think the current brown rats aren't actually a disease
vector[1]. I've read speculation that the decline of the plague was due to
brown rats displacing black rats in cities. Maybe brown rats are doing us a
favor.

[1] Rat lung worm in Hawaii though is a zoonotic nuisance. Also a friend got
rat lice once.

~~~
ams6110
> One wonders, if you got rid of rats, what would take their place? No idea,
> might be worse.

Many cities don't have a significant rat problem and they don't seem to have
anything worse as a consequence.

~~~
Gibbon1
Friend of mine had a large hedge that ran the length of his property in a nice
suburban neighborhood. Thing was a rat highway. Meaning if you think there
aren't any rats in your neighborhood, you're mistaken. Probably as many rats
as people. The urban forest provides.

