Really, it's very simple. Do relocate the rats. Every politician who voted for this legislation obviously approves of the idea, so relocate the rats to their houses. What could be simpler?

I wish I could take all the money used for this law and give it to those fighting Bile Bears in Asia.

Now that's some horrifying shit.

I think we have just found the stupid law of the year.

I read that story about the sisters in Palisades. Made. My. Skin. Crawl.

I live in the boondocks where varmits can be a real problem. I bought an electric rat trap that electrocutes the rats. Works great with no mess to clean up. The little bastards go so fast they don't even crap. Kills mice, too.

You're missing the real issue here.

This is a naked attempt to protect members of Congress.

Now, it's no longer valid to "exterminate" them even if you do "I done thought he was a rat".

Now, legally, you've got to just drop him/her off - unharmed - within easy pickup distance of DC.

As someone who has raised and enjoyed the company of several pet rats and knows how smart and cute and affectionate they can be, I can honestly say:

What the fuck!? Are these people crazy? Did they see Flushed Away and Ratatouille (however it's spelled) too many times?

Whoever came up with this crap has apparently never known the thrill of finding rodent droppings in the pantry, or felt the satisfaction the sound of a snap trap in the night can give, when you've had all you can take of the destructive, smelly little bastards.

Have bug zappers been outlawed yet? Sheesh.

HOly crap. Do these idiots not realize fleas from rats and mice spread the plague-even here in the US? Someone in Arizona got it from mouse poo a few years back while renovating. And I really like animals, but I kill rodents. The trick is doing it so they don't die in your wall and stink to high heaven for months.

Decades ago when I worked at a grocery store they placed those glue traps all around the storage areas. They are incredibly cruel, as sometimes the animal will eat \ pull away its own skin to escape. I'm not against killing them, as it needs to be done, and this law is ridiculous.

We did have lots of fun with practical jokes using those glue traps though, particularly placing them somewhere that someone would walk right onto them.

Do the captured rats get counseling prior to relocation?

Do the rats get to take their household goods with them? Could this be a naked attempt by the moving companies to generate some government- backed business?

Or am I missing something?

I got to second A_random_guys idea. relocate the rats to those who wanted this law. Including PETA headquarters.

I wonder how the law deals with cats killing mice. Do the cats have to identify the type of mouse and let it go if it is not one of the exempt variety? I've had some really smart cats, but not THAT smart.

The good thing about [a certain brand's] mouse poison (think blue pellets) is that it dehydrates the mice, who end up going back outside to look for water, where they end up dying.
No muss, no fuss.

There will always be soft-headed people who cannot understand that killing is a part of life.

And, of course, they will never understand that their own existence dooms hundreds of thousands of wild creatures due to displacement, as well as direct action.

I was so pissed that my husband trapped 16 skunks from our neighborhood and then released them into the countryside. People live out there too, just farther apart. I thought he should have put the trap into a pond and drowned them.

You're talking about a city that re-elected a crackhead for mayor. These people are not noted for governmental acumen.

I'm proud to live in a country where there is such an abundance of resources that people consider their taxes to be a pittance, and police departments need no additional officers. The extra officers can do rat relocation.

We can expend the excess resources to treat rats as dear and tender creatures, hang the expense. I expect volunteer organizations to spring up, hampered by licensing laws to protect the new department.

There will also be lawsuits about the proper treatment of these relocated creatures, and prosecutions of those idiots who continue to kill God's creatures.

The only exemption may be to humanely terminate rat lives in preparation for consumption.

...the rodents must be relocated from where they are captured; and some of these animals may need to be transferred to a "wildlife rehabilitator" as part of their relocation process. [...] That brings us to Virginia. Now, if you don't relocate them about 25 miles away, according to experts, rodents will find their way back. Well, an easy way to solve that problem is to cross a river, and what's on the other side of the river? Virginia."

Isn't that the Washington Way? Relocate your problem so someone else has to deal with it.

==============================

Decades ago when I worked at a grocery store they placed those glue traps all around the storage areas. They are incredibly cruel, as sometimes the animal will eat \ pull away its own skin to escape.

I hate those glue traps. My exterminator put one down when we had a mouse problem. It caught two mice. They were still alive when I found them. One had almost torn his leg off trying to escape. I had to use a mallet to kill them.

I will never use them again.

==============================

We did have lots of fun with practical jokes using those glue traps though, particularly placing them somewhere that someone would walk right onto them.

I stepped on one at work one day. I had to trash the shoes I was wearing. Them things is strong.

==============================

Do the captured rats get counseling prior to relocation?

Do the rats get to take their household goods with them?

Is that like reeducation prior to being sent to the gulag?

Will there be little rat camps outside the city with barbed wire fences and armed guards?

Will one of them publish a memoir, "Farewell to Ratzanar?"

Will our grandchildren have to pay reparations?

I've had good luck with those white plastic half-moon-shaped traps. You bait them with a bit of peanut butter, cock the lever, and set them out. The lever shows when they've caught something, and then you just toss the whole thing. You don't even have to look at what it caught.

i think we should get d.c.'s rodent problem together with florida's python problem.

I had one rat about a year and a half ago, which I'm pretty sure came from this really gnarly and thick bush in my front yard.

My dog thought it was cool.. something to go after. But she never could get it. I put all kinds of traps down.. old school spring loaded, glue traps, a couple of the electric ones. None of them ever caught the damn thing. I even had a few days where I found rat prints in the glue traps... WTF? If I just touched one iwth something it was super hard to get loose but that damn thing could apparently run right over them. I had traps against the walls where I knew it's paths were too.. didn't seem to matter.

Eventually, while I was working from home one day, I nearly caught it myself as it had stayed in my home office for some reason. Between me and the dog, we scared it out the front door and I'm pretty sure a neighborhood cat got it because I never saw it again.

That damn thing had been taking bits of my dog's food out of her bowl (I have a dog that rarely eats it all right away and tends to save some for later). I found huge stashes of food in weird places: On top of my dishwasher. Under the TV stand in the living room. I even had to cut out the bottom of 2 sections of my one cabinets in the kitchen as it has stashes in there. I had cleaned out those stashes just before the day we finally chased it out, so I think it had finally had enough and realized it was time to go.

I also completely ripped out that bush (though getting the last of the trunk is near impossible and it keeps coming back, so I have to keep it down) so that there's no place for critters to live in there.

Oh yeah, and I don't know how long it had been there, but the thing that originally tipped me off? I have a Homer Simpson bottle opener that has homer quotes when used. It was in my silverware drawer and the thing had managed to make it keep going off one night, and I heard it from the living room.