Rats : Observations On The History And Habitat Of The City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants Part 1

Rats : observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted inhabitants.

by Robert Sullivan.

Acknowledgments.

You always have to think beyond the structure. Think about what is going on underneath and all around, because that is where the rats are located. The more you look into it, the more you will most likely find.

-John Murphy, an exterminator, in Pest Control Technology magazine magazine I think his fancy for referring everything to the meridian of Concord did not grow out of any ignorance or depreciation of other longitudes or lat.i.tudes, but was rather a playful expression of his conviction of the indifferency of all places, and that the best place for each is where he stands. He expressed it once in this wise: "I think nothing is to be hoped from you, if this bit of mould under your feet is not sweeter to you to eat than any other in this world, or in any world."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, in a remembrance of Henry David Th.o.r.eau *' *'

It avails not, time nor place-distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a Generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd . . .

-Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

Chapter 1.

NATURE.

WHEN I WROTE the following account of my experiences with rats, I lived in an apartment building on a block filled with other apartment buildings, amidst the approximately eight million people in New York City, and I paid rent to a landlord that I never actually met-though I did meet the superintendent, who was a very nice guy. At this moment, I am living out of the city, away from the ma.s.ses, in a bucolic little village with about the same number of inhabitants as my former city block. I wouldn't normally delve into my own personal matters, except that when I mention my rat experiences to people, they sometimes think I took extraordinary measures to investigate them, and I didn't. All I did was stand in an alley-a filth-slicked little alley that is about as old as the city and secret the way alleys are secret and yet just a block or two from Wall Street, from Broadway, and from what used to be the World Trade Center. All I did was take a spot next to the trash and wait and watch, rain or no rain, night after night, and always at night, the time when, generally speaking, humans go to sleep and rats come alive. other apartment buildings, amidst the approximately eight million people in New York City, and I paid rent to a landlord that I never actually met-though I did meet the superintendent, who was a very nice guy. At this moment, I am living out of the city, away from the ma.s.ses, in a bucolic little village with about the same number of inhabitants as my former city block. I wouldn't normally delve into my own personal matters, except that when I mention my rat experiences to people, they sometimes think I took extraordinary measures to investigate them, and I didn't. All I did was stand in an alley-a filth-slicked little alley that is about as old as the city and secret the way alleys are secret and yet just a block or two from Wall Street, from Broadway, and from what used to be the World Trade Center. All I did was take a spot next to the trash and wait and watch, rain or no rain, night after night, and always at night, the time when, generally speaking, humans go to sleep and rats come alive.

Why rats? Why rats in an alley? Why anything at all in a place that is, let's face it, so disgusting? One answer is proximity. Rats live in the world precisely where man lives, which is, needless to say, where I live. Rats have conquered every continent that humans have conquered, mostly with the humans' aid, and the not-so-epic-seeming story of rats is close to one version of the epic story of man: when they arrive as immigrants to a newfound land, rats push out the creatures that have preceded them, multiply to such an extent as to stretch resources to the limit, consume their way toward famine-a point at which they decline, until, once again, they are forced to fight, wander, or die. Rats live in man's parallel universe, surviving on the effluvia of human society; they eat our garbage. I think of rats as our mirror species, reversed but similar, thriving or suffering in the very cities where we do the same. If the presence of a grizzly bear is the indicator of the wildness of an area, the range of unsettled habitat, then a rat is an indicator of the presence of man. And yet, despite their situation, rats are ignored or destroyed but rarely studied, disparaged but never described.

I see that I am like one person out alone in the woods when it comes to searching out the sublime as it applies to the rat in the city. Among my guidebooks to nature, there is no mention of the wild rat, and if there is, the humans that write the books call them invaders, despised, abhorred, disgusting-a creature that does not merit its own coffee-table book. Here is the author of a beautiful collection of photographs and prose joyously celebrating the mammals of North America as he writes about rats: "There comes a time when even the most energetic of animal lovers must part ways with the animal kingdom." He goes on: "No matter how much you like animals there is nothing nothing good to say about these creatures . . ." It is the very ostracism of the rat, its exclusion from the pantheon of natural wonders, that makes it appealing to me, because it begs the question: who are we to decide what is natural and what is not? good to say about these creatures . . ." It is the very ostracism of the rat, its exclusion from the pantheon of natural wonders, that makes it appealing to me, because it begs the question: who are we to decide what is natural and what is not?

What makes me most interested in rats is what I think of as our common habitat-or the propensity that I share with rats toward areas where no cruise ships go, areas that have been deemed unenjoyable, aesthetically bankrupt, gross or vile. I am speaking of swamps and dumps and dumps that were and still are swamps and dark city bas.e.m.e.nts that are close to the great hidden waters of the earth, waters that often smell or stink. I am speaking, of course, of alleys-or even any place or neighborhood that might have what is commonly referred to as a "rat problem," a problem that often has less to do with the rat and more to do with man. Rats will always be the problem. Rats command a perverse celebrity status-nature's mobsters, flora and fauna's serial killers-because of their situation, because of their species-destroying habits, and because of their disease-carrying ability-especially their ability to carry the plague, which, during the Black Death of the Middle Ages, killed a third of the human population of Europe, something people remember, even though at the time people didn't know that rats had anything to do with all the panic, fear, and death.

In fact, in New York City, the bulk of rats live in quiet desperation, hiding beneath the table of man, under stress, skittering in fear, under siege by larger rats. Which brings me to my experiment: I went to the rat-filled alley to see the life of a rat in the city, to describe its habits and its habitat, to know a little about the place where it makes its home and its relationship to the very nearby people. To know the rat is to know its habitat, and to know the habitat of the rat is to know the city. I pa.s.sed four seasons in the alley, though it was not a typical year by any definition. As it happened, shortly after I went downtown, the World Trade Center was destroyed. That fall, New York itself became an organism, an ent.i.ty attacked and off-balance, a system of millions of people, many of whom were scared and panicked-a city that itself was trying to adapt, to stay alive. Eventually, New York regained its balance, and I went about my attempt to see the city from the point of view of its least revered inhabitants. And in the end-after seeing the refuse streams, the rat-infested dwellings, after learning about the old rat fights and learning all that I could learn from rat exterminators and after briefly traveling off from my alley to hear about rats all over America-I believe this is what I saw.

FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, however, my interest in rats had remained relatively idle, until the day I stumbled on a painting of rats by one of the patron saints of American naturalists, John James Audubon. Audubon famously doc.u.mented the birds of North America in their natural habitat-drawn from nature was his trademark-and he next did the same for mammals, even the rat, or in this case several rats in a barn, stealing a chicken's egg. As I investigated the painting, I learned that Audubon had researched rats for months, and that in 1839 in New York City, where he lived during the last years of his life, he hunted rats along the waterfront. (He wrote the mayor and received permission "to shoot Rats at the Battery early in the morning, so as not to expose the inhabitants in the vicinity to danger . . .") In other words, Audubon was not just a Representative Man out of the American past whose legacy inspired American conservationists and environmentalists, not just some Emersonian model, but also a guy who spent time in New York City walking around downtown looking for rats. was his trademark-and he next did the same for mammals, even the rat, or in this case several rats in a barn, stealing a chicken's egg. As I investigated the painting, I learned that Audubon had researched rats for months, and that in 1839 in New York City, where he lived during the last years of his life, he hunted rats along the waterfront. (He wrote the mayor and received permission "to shoot Rats at the Battery early in the morning, so as not to expose the inhabitants in the vicinity to danger . . .") In other words, Audubon was not just a Representative Man out of the American past whose legacy inspired American conservationists and environmentalists, not just some Emersonian model, but also a guy who spent time in New York City walking around downtown looking for rats.

I read more about Audubon. I read that he was born in what is now the Dominican Republic. I read that he turned to painting late in life after failing as a businessman, and that after traveling all over the continent to finish The Birds of North America The Birds of North America he moved to New York, living first downtown, then up on what is today 157th Street, in a neighborhood that is coincidentally now settled by people from the Dominican Republic-coincidence is the stuff of ratting! I read that he fished in the Hudson Paver. I read that his eyesight eventually went, that shortly thereafter he began singing a French children's song over and over and eventually died. His home was left to rot away and was finally paved over. The more I read of Audubon, the more I felt a desire to study the rat in its urban habitat, to he moved to New York, living first downtown, then up on what is today 157th Street, in a neighborhood that is coincidentally now settled by people from the Dominican Republic-coincidence is the stuff of ratting! I read that he fished in the Hudson Paver. I read that his eyesight eventually went, that shortly thereafter he began singing a French children's song over and over and eventually died. His home was left to rot away and was finally paved over. The more I read of Audubon, the more I felt a desire to study the rat in its urban habitat, to draw the rat in nature. draw the rat in nature.

One day, I got on the subway and took a trip uptown. I went to Trinity Cemetery on 155th Street and saw the tall, animal-covered Celtic cross on Audubon's grave, and then, with old maps, I tried to figure out where his house would have been. Finally, I found the lot, unmarked; it had apparently once been on a gentle hill sloping toward the river, but now it was a hole, a three-story-deep pit, surrounded by two tall apartment buildings, and an elevated highway. When I looked away from the hole, the view was breathtakingly panoramic and Hudson River-filled. And when I got my binoculars out and looked down into the site, I could see the dozens of tennis-ball-size burrows that are more commonly referred to as rat holes.

Chapter 2.

THE CITY RAT.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT you, you, I think I hear the reader protesting. What about rats? And so, as I arise from my selfishness to describe the wild rat of New York City, the object of this nature experiment, I begin by noting that when it comes to rats, men and women labor under a lot of misinformation-errors inspired, it seems to me, by their own fears, by their own mental rat profiles rather than any earth-based facts. So, with this in mind, I offer a brief introductory sketch of the particular species of rat that runs wild in New York- I think I hear the reader protesting. What about rats? And so, as I arise from my selfishness to describe the wild rat of New York City, the object of this nature experiment, I begin by noting that when it comes to rats, men and women labor under a lot of misinformation-errors inspired, it seems to me, by their own fears, by their own mental rat profiles rather than any earth-based facts. So, with this in mind, I offer a brief introductory sketch of the particular species of rat that runs wild in New York-Rattus norvegicus, aka the Norway or brown rat. I offer a portrait that is hysteria-free, that merely describes the rat as a rat. aka the Norway or brown rat. I offer a portrait that is hysteria-free, that merely describes the rat as a rat.

A rat is a rodent, the most common mammal in the world. Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus is one of the approximately four hundred different kinds of rodents, and it is known by many names, each of which describes a trait or a perceived trait or sometimes a habitat: the earth rat, the roving rat, the barn rat, the field rat, the migratory rat, the house rat, the sewer rat, the water rat, the wharf rat, the alley rat, the gray rat, the brown rat, and the common rat. The average brown rat is large and stocky; it grows to be approximately sixteen inches long from its nose to its tail-the size of a large adult human male's foot-and weighs about a pound, though brown rats have been measured by scientists and exterminators at twenty inches and up to two pounds. The brown rat is sometimes confused with the black rat, or is one of the approximately four hundred different kinds of rodents, and it is known by many names, each of which describes a trait or a perceived trait or sometimes a habitat: the earth rat, the roving rat, the barn rat, the field rat, the migratory rat, the house rat, the sewer rat, the water rat, the wharf rat, the alley rat, the gray rat, the brown rat, and the common rat. The average brown rat is large and stocky; it grows to be approximately sixteen inches long from its nose to its tail-the size of a large adult human male's foot-and weighs about a pound, though brown rats have been measured by scientists and exterminators at twenty inches and up to two pounds. The brown rat is sometimes confused with the black rat, or Rattus rattus, Rattus rattus, which is smaller and once inhabited New York City and all of the cities of America but, since which is smaller and once inhabited New York City and all of the cities of America but, since Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus pushed it out, is now relegated to a minor role. (The two species still survive alongside each other in some Southern coastal cities and on the West Coast, in places like Los Angeles, for example, where the black rat lives in attics and palm trees.) The black rat is always a very dark gray, almost black, and the brown rat is gray or brown, with a belly that can be light gray, yellow, or even a pure-seeming white. One spring, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, I saw a red-haired brown rat that had been run over by a car. Both pet rats and laboratory rats are pushed it out, is now relegated to a minor role. (The two species still survive alongside each other in some Southern coastal cities and on the West Coast, in places like Los Angeles, for example, where the black rat lives in attics and palm trees.) The black rat is always a very dark gray, almost black, and the brown rat is gray or brown, with a belly that can be light gray, yellow, or even a pure-seeming white. One spring, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, I saw a red-haired brown rat that had been run over by a car. Both pet rats and laboratory rats are Rattus norvegicus, Rattus norvegicus, but they are not wild and therefore, I would emphasize, not the subject of this book. Sometimes pet rats are called fancy rats. But if anyone has picked up this book to learn about fancy rats, then they should put this book down right away; none of the rats mentioned herein are at all fancy. but they are not wild and therefore, I would emphasize, not the subject of this book. Sometimes pet rats are called fancy rats. But if anyone has picked up this book to learn about fancy rats, then they should put this book down right away; none of the rats mentioned herein are at all fancy.*

Rats are nocturnal, and out in the night the brown rat's eyes are small and black and shiny; when a flashlight shines into them in the dark, the eyes of a rat light up like the eyes of a deer. Though it forages in darkness, the brown rat has poor eyesight. It makes up for this with, first of all, an excellent sense of smell. Rats often bite young children and infants on the face because of the smell of food residues on the children. (Many of the approximately 50,000 people bitten by rats every year are children.) They have an excellent sense of taste, detecting the most minute amounts of poison, down to one part per million. A brown rat has strong feet, the two front paws each equipped with four clawlike nails, the rear paws even longer and stronger. It can run and climb with squirrel-like agility. It is an excellent swimmer, surviving in rivers and bays, in sewer streams and toilet bowls.

The brown rat's teeth are yellow, the front two incisors being especially long and sharp, like buckteeth. When the brown rat bites, its front two teeth spread apart. When it gnaws, a flap of skin plugs the s.p.a.ce behind its incisors. Hence, when the rat gnaws on indigestible materials-concrete or steel, for example-the shavings don't go down the rat's throat and kill it. Its incisors grow at a rate of five inches per year. Rats always gnaw, and no one is certain why-there are few modern rat studies. It is sometimes erroneously stated that the rat gnaws solely to limit the length of its incisors, which would otherwise grow out of its head, but this is not the case: the incisors wear down naturally. In terms of hardness, the brown rat's teeth are stronger than aluminum, copper, lead, and iron. They are comparable to steel. With the alligator-like structure of their jaws, rats can exert a biting pressure of up to seven thousand pounds per square inch. Rats, like mice, seem to be attracted to wires-to utility wires, computer wires, wires in vehicles, in addition to gas and water pipes. One rat expert theorizes that wires may be attractive to rats because of their resemblance to vines and the stalks of plants; cables are the vines of the city. By one estimate, 26 percent of all electric-cable breaks and 18 percent of all phone-cable disruptions are caused by rats. According to one study, as many as 25 percent of all fires of unknown origin are rat-caused. Rats chew electrical cables. Sitting in a nest of tattered rags and newspapers, in the floorboards of an old tenement, a rat gnaws the head of a match-the lightning in the city forest.

When it is not gnawing or feeding on trash, the brown rat digs. Anywhere there is dirt in a city, brown rats are likely to be digging-in parks, in flowerbeds, in little dirt-poor backyards. They dig holes to enter buildings and to make nests. Rat nests can be in the floorboards of apartments, in the waste-stuffed corners of subway stations, in sewers, or beneath old furniture in bas.e.m.e.nts. "Cluttered and unkempt alleyways in cities provide ideal rat habitat, especially those alleyways a.s.sociated with food-serving establishments," writes Robert Corrigan in Rodent Control, Rodent Control, a pest control manual. "Alley rats can forage safely within the shadows created by the alleyway, as well as quickly retreat to the safety of cover in these narrow channels." Often, rats burrow under concrete sidewalk slabs. Entrance to a typical under-the-sidewalk rat's nest is gained through a two-inch-wide hole-their skeletons collapse and they can squeeze into a hole as small as three quarters of an inch wide, the average width of their skull. This tunnel then travels about a foot down to where it widens into a nest or den. The den is lined with soft debris, often shredded plastic garbage or shopping bags, but sometimes even gra.s.ses or plants; some rat nests have been found stuffed with the gnawed shavings of the wood-based, spring-loaded snap traps that are used in attempts to kill them. The back of the den then narrows into a long tunnel that opens up on another hole back on the street. This second hole is called a bolt hole; it is an emergency exit. A bolt hole is typically covered lightly with dirt or trash-camouflage. Sometimes there are networks of burrows, which can stretch beneath a few concrete squares on a sidewalk, or a number of backyards, or even an entire city block-when a pest control manual. "Alley rats can forage safely within the shadows created by the alleyway, as well as quickly retreat to the safety of cover in these narrow channels." Often, rats burrow under concrete sidewalk slabs. Entrance to a typical under-the-sidewalk rat's nest is gained through a two-inch-wide hole-their skeletons collapse and they can squeeze into a hole as small as three quarters of an inch wide, the average width of their skull. This tunnel then travels about a foot down to where it widens into a nest or den. The den is lined with soft debris, often shredded plastic garbage or shopping bags, but sometimes even gra.s.ses or plants; some rat nests have been found stuffed with the gnawed shavings of the wood-based, spring-loaded snap traps that are used in attempts to kill them. The back of the den then narrows into a long tunnel that opens up on another hole back on the street. This second hole is called a bolt hole; it is an emergency exit. A bolt hole is typically covered lightly with dirt or trash-camouflage. Sometimes there are networks of burrows, which can stretch beneath a few concrete squares on a sidewalk, or a number of backyards, or even an entire city block-when Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus first came to Selkirk, England, in 1776, there were so many burrows that people feared the town might sink. Rats can also nest in bas.e.m.e.nts, sewers, manholes, abandoned pipes of any kind, floorboards, or any hole or depression. "Often," Robert Corrigan writes, " 'city rats' will live unbeknownst to people right beneath their feet." first came to Selkirk, England, in 1776, there were so many burrows that people feared the town might sink. Rats can also nest in bas.e.m.e.nts, sewers, manholes, abandoned pipes of any kind, floorboards, or any hole or depression. "Often," Robert Corrigan writes, " 'city rats' will live unbeknownst to people right beneath their feet."

Rats also inhabit subways, as most people in New York City and any city with a subway system are well aware. Every once in a while, there are reports of rats boarding trains, but for the most part rats stay on the tracks-subway workers I have talked to refer to rats as "track rabbits." People tend to think that the subways are filled with rats, but in fact rats are not everywhere in the system; they live in the subways according to the supply of discarded human food and sewer leaks. Sometimes, rats use the subway purely for nesting purposes; they find ways through the walls of the subway stations leading from the tracks to the restaurants and stores on the street-the vibrations of subway trains tend to create rat-size cracks and holes. Many subway rats tend to live near stations that are themselves near fast-food restaurants. At the various subway stations near Herald Square, for example, people come down from the streets and throw the food that they have not eaten onto the tracks, along with newspapers and soda bottles and, I have noticed, thousands of no longer-charged AA batteries, waiting to leak acid. The rats eat freely from the waste and sit at the side of the little streams of creamy brown sewery water that flows between the rails. They sip the water the way rats do, either with their front paws or by scooping it up with their incisors.

DEATH COMES IN MANY FORMS for a brown rat living in the wilds of the city. A rat can be run over by a car or a bus or a cab. It can be beaten with a plunger as it climbs up through a sewer pipe and surfaces into an apartment's toilet bowl. Cats, while mice eaters, are not likely to attack adult rats; a rat will easily repel an attack by a cat, though cats will kill young rats. In the city's less populated areas, or in the little patches of parkland and green, rats sometimes die quasi-wilderness deaths. In Brooklyn's Prospect Park, I once watched a large red-tailed hawk swoop down on a brown rat, an adult male that had been living in a burrow in a wooded area adjacent to an overstuffed garbage can. The hawk then flew into the upper branches of a maple tree, dangling the large, still-wriggling rat from its talons. People have confided rat shootings to me on numerous occasions; in fact, more people than I had ever imagined shoot rats in the city-using pellet guns or air rifles or even more potent rifles in alleys and in infested bas.e.m.e.nts. And of course, rats also die when they are caught in snap traps, which is the trap sometimes referred to as a break-back trap, a rat-size version of the cla.s.sic mousetrap. It is especially difficult to trap a rat with a snap trap. Generally speaking, rodents are wary of new things in their habitat, preferring routine to change; biologists refer to this trait as neophobia. Rats can be even more neophobic than mice. Thus, exterminators are likely to leave unset snap traps out for a few days before setting them, often baited, allowing the rats to become comfortable with traps. Some exterminators regularly treat snap traps with bacon grease.

Most frequently rats die from ingesting poison. I don't know of a precise statistic, but I know that at any given moment there is poison all over the streets and homes of New York, not to mention the rest of America. Sometimes, poison is injected directly into the rat burrow; the rat dies of heart failure or, with the most severe poisons, of damage to its central nervous system-they are found dead on their bellies, arms and legs extended. More often, poison is added to grains and the grain is put into shoe-box-size containers called bait stations. Bait stations are the things that people in cities see constantly in back alleys and in parks and do not recognize or, chances are, even think about. Bait stations are designed to keep bait away from pets and children, but they are also designed as litde rat-friendly zones. With their small holes and zigzaggy interiors, bait stations are to a rat what a smoothly run fast-food restaurant is to a human. When rats eat the poisoned grain in the bait station, they return to their nests to die-in walls, in floors, underneath streets and restaurant stoves, in sewers. The most widely used poisons are anticoagulants, which cause the rat to bleed to death internally. It takes several meals for the rat to die. As it returns, it sometimes seems more and more woozy. Exterminators refer to this phenomenon as "dead rodent walking."

Ingesting poison, fighting for food, being attacked by a larger rat or beaten with a toilet plunger: these are everyday rat dangers that make the life expectancy of the rat in the city approximately one year. And yet rats persist; they thrive in New York City and in cities throughout the world. Rats do not inhabit cities exclusively, of course; like man, rats can live anywhere. Brown rats in wilderness areas are sometimes called feral rats; they survive on plants and insects and even swim to catch fish.* However, brown rats are generally larger and more numerous in cities. As a result, it is in cities that they are especially successful at spreading the diseases that are like poisons to humans. They carry diseases that we know of and they may carry diseases that we do not know of-in just the past century, rats have been responsible for the death of more than ten million people. Rats carry bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi; they carry mites, fleas, lice, and ticks; rats spread trichinosis, tularemia, leptospirosis. They carry microbes up from the underground streams of sewage; public health specialists sometimes refer to rats as "germ elevators." Though targeted over and over by man, rats generally wreak havoc on food supplies, destroying or contaminating crops and stored foods everywhere. Some estimates suggest that as much as one third of the world's food supply is destroyed by rats. However, brown rats are generally larger and more numerous in cities. As a result, it is in cities that they are especially successful at spreading the diseases that are like poisons to humans. They carry diseases that we know of and they may carry diseases that we do not know of-in just the past century, rats have been responsible for the death of more than ten million people. Rats carry bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi; they carry mites, fleas, lice, and ticks; rats spread trichinosis, tularemia, leptospirosis. They carry microbes up from the underground streams of sewage; public health specialists sometimes refer to rats as "germ elevators." Though targeted over and over by man, rats generally wreak havoc on food supplies, destroying or contaminating crops and stored foods everywhere. Some estimates suggest that as much as one third of the world's food supply is destroyed by rats.

Rats succeed while under constant siege because they have an astounding rate of reproduction. If they are not eating, then rats are usually having s.e.x. Most likely, if you are in New York while you are reading this sentence or even in any other major city in America, then you are in proximity to two or more rats having s.e.x. Male and female rats may have s.e.x twenty times a day, and a male rat will have s.e.x with as many female rats as possible-according to one report, a dominant male rat may mate with up to twenty female rats in just six hours. (Male rats exiled from their nest by more aggressive male rats will also live in all-male rat colonies and have s.e.x with the other male rats.) The gestation period for a pregnant female rat is twenty-one days, the average litter between eight to ten pups. And a female rat can become pregnant immediately after giving birth. If there is a healthy amount of garbage for the rats to eat, then a female rat will produce up to twelve litters of twenty rats each a year. One rat's nest can turn into a rat colony of fifty rats in six months. One pair of rats has the potential of 15,000 descendants in a year. This is a lot of rats, and while the regenerative capabilities of the rat might seem incomparable to those of any other species, in Rats, Lice, and History, Rats, Lice, and History, the cla.s.sic work on the effect of disease on human history, Hans Zinsser suggests that the fertility rate of the human can rival the fertility rate of the rat. the cla.s.sic work on the effect of disease on human history, Hans Zinsser suggests that the fertility rate of the human can rival the fertility rate of the rat.

ONE OF THE THINGS I find most fascinating about rats is that they have a sense of where they are and of where they have been. This is explained by the fact that rats love to be touching things. Biologists refer to rats as thigmophilic, which means touch loving. touch loving. Consequently, rats prefer to touch things as they travel. Their runways are often parallel to walls, tracks, and curbs; in infested bas.e.m.e.nts, grease slicks parallel ceiling beams and the run of sewer pipes. Rats are thought to feel especially safe at corners, when they are simultaneously touching a wall and free to escape. As they travel again and again for food, as they escape oncoming trucks or, upon the return home of a drunk human apartment dweller, flee into the relative safety of garbage cans, rats develop a muscle memory, a kinesthetic sense that allows them to remember the turns, the route, the course of movement. As young rats follow older rats, the trails are repeated, pa.s.sed on. Exterminators like to say that if the walls of an alley or a rat-infested block were somehow taken down without disturbing the rats, the rats would awaken the next evening, venture forth, and travel precisely the same routes as the night before, as if the walls were still there. They would remember the walls. Deep in their rat tendons, rats know history. Consequently, rats prefer to touch things as they travel. Their runways are often parallel to walls, tracks, and curbs; in infested bas.e.m.e.nts, grease slicks parallel ceiling beams and the run of sewer pipes. Rats are thought to feel especially safe at corners, when they are simultaneously touching a wall and free to escape. As they travel again and again for food, as they escape oncoming trucks or, upon the return home of a drunk human apartment dweller, flee into the relative safety of garbage cans, rats develop a muscle memory, a kinesthetic sense that allows them to remember the turns, the route, the course of movement. As young rats follow older rats, the trails are repeated, pa.s.sed on. Exterminators like to say that if the walls of an alley or a rat-infested block were somehow taken down without disturbing the rats, the rats would awaken the next evening, venture forth, and travel precisely the same routes as the night before, as if the walls were still there. They would remember the walls. Deep in their rat tendons, rats know history.

A rat phenomenon that is based only partly on fact is the Rat King, a kind of rat often mentioned in stories about rats. The Rat King is usually described as the rat that leads other rats when rats ama.s.s and herd. Policemen on late night patrols sometimes report seeing a Rat King lead a group of rats across a street. Drunks frequently report Rat King sightings. It is is true that from time to time rats run in huge packs. I have seen them do so. Likewise, it is true that within a rat colony a dominant male rat emerges. However, it is not the case that one rat leads the others. Something that has inspired the notion of a mythical Rat King is the actual phenomenon of rats whose tails have become knotted together with other rats' tails in their nest. The resulting entanglement is called a Rat King. There have been Rat Kings ranging in size from three rats to thirty-two rats. Sometimes the rats die, sometimes they are fed by the other rats and stay alive for a time in the nest. In myths and stories about marauding rats and secret rat leagues, the Rat King sometimes sits in the center of tied-up rats' tails, the lesser rats his throne. But again, these are rat stories. An actual Rat King is really nothing more than a rat that takes advantage of his natural strengths and of other rats' natural weaknesses. A Rat King is just a big rat. true that from time to time rats run in huge packs. I have seen them do so. Likewise, it is true that within a rat colony a dominant male rat emerges. However, it is not the case that one rat leads the others. Something that has inspired the notion of a mythical Rat King is the actual phenomenon of rats whose tails have become knotted together with other rats' tails in their nest. The resulting entanglement is called a Rat King. There have been Rat Kings ranging in size from three rats to thirty-two rats. Sometimes the rats die, sometimes they are fed by the other rats and stay alive for a time in the nest. In myths and stories about marauding rats and secret rat leagues, the Rat King sometimes sits in the center of tied-up rats' tails, the lesser rats his throne. But again, these are rat stories. An actual Rat King is really nothing more than a rat that takes advantage of his natural strengths and of other rats' natural weaknesses. A Rat King is just a big rat.

THE RAT IS A NEWCOMER to America, an immigrant, a settler, its ancient roots reaching to Southeast Asia. The black rat migrated south, while the brown rat migrated north, to China, along the Yangtze River, and then into Siberia near the present-day Lake Baikal. The black rat came to Europe ahead of the brown rat, with the Crusades. The brown rat did not appear in Europe until the beginning of the eighteenth century. There are accounts of brown rats crossing the Volga River in hordes in 1727, and more reports of brown rats proceeding across Russia to the Baltic Sea. Brown rats were reported in east Prussia, France, and Italy in 1750; they were reported in Norway in 1768 and in Sweden in 1790. Brown rats are thought to have been brought by ship from Russia to Copenhagen in 1716 and to Norway from Russia in 1768. Spain did not have brown rats until 1800. They arrived in England in 1728, and in 1769, in Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain, Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain, John Berkenhout named the brown rat John Berkenhout named the brown rat Rattus norvegicus. Rattus norvegicus. He most likely misnamed the rat. He believed that the rats had come to England via Norwegian lumber ships, when in fact they had probably come from Denmark, since at the time Norway rats had not yet settled in Norway. He most likely misnamed the rat. He believed that the rats had come to England via Norwegian lumber ships, when in fact they had probably come from Denmark, since at the time Norway rats had not yet settled in Norway.

By 1926, Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus was in every state in America. It pushed out black rats everywhere, though a small colony of black rats held on in New England for many years. The last state to be settled by was in every state in America. It pushed out black rats everywhere, though a small colony of black rats held on in New England for many years. The last state to be settled by Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus was Montana. Several early rat settlements in Montana failed or were wiped out with poisons and traps, but the brown rat finally colonized Lewistown in 1920, and in 1938, the dump in Missoula was the site of an escaped colony of laboratory rats, domesticated was Montana. Several early rat settlements in Montana failed or were wiped out with poisons and traps, but the brown rat finally colonized Lewistown in 1920, and in 1938, the dump in Missoula was the site of an escaped colony of laboratory rats, domesticated Rattus norvegicus. Rattus norvegicus. It was not easy for the brown rat to settle Montana. "In general it appears that rats find extension in their range difficult in Montana and that in all likelihood this difficulty is due to the spa.r.s.eness of the population," a biologist in Bozeman wrote. Brown rats also eventually spread to all the provinces of Canada, with the exception of Alberta, where in 1950 they were reported on the southeast border but were then repelled by an intensive government rat control program, one of the most impressive rat-control programs in the world. Alberta still considers itself, in the words of the province's agricultural department, "an essentially rat-free province." It was not easy for the brown rat to settle Montana. "In general it appears that rats find extension in their range difficult in Montana and that in all likelihood this difficulty is due to the spa.r.s.eness of the population," a biologist in Bozeman wrote. Brown rats also eventually spread to all the provinces of Canada, with the exception of Alberta, where in 1950 they were reported on the southeast border but were then repelled by an intensive government rat control program, one of the most impressive rat-control programs in the world. Alberta still considers itself, in the words of the province's agricultural department, "an essentially rat-free province."

Little is written about the early settlement of Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus in America. Most reports state that the very first in America. Most reports state that the very first Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus arrived in America in the first year of the Revolution, then moved out into the country, a manifest infestation. One of their first landings was most likely New York City. arrived in America in the first year of the Revolution, then moved out into the country, a manifest infestation. One of their first landings was most likely New York City.

* Fancy rats are related to the wild Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus very possibly because of Jack Black, the rat catcher to Queen Victoria. Jack Black caught rats for the queen, but he also kept rats that interested him for himself He sold some of these rats to women; in the Victorian era, keeping rats as pets was a fad-Beatrix Potter is thought to have bought her pet rat from Jack Black himself Jack Black also bred a strain of albino very possibly because of Jack Black, the rat catcher to Queen Victoria. Jack Black caught rats for the queen, but he also kept rats that interested him for himself He sold some of these rats to women; in the Victorian era, keeping rats as pets was a fad-Beatrix Potter is thought to have bought her pet rat from Jack Black himself Jack Black also bred a strain of albino Rattus norvegicus Rattus norvegicus that he subsequently sold to Victorian-era scientists in France. Laboratory rats are today available for purchase on-line; a scientist can order the rat as per his or her experimental rat-genetics needs. The progenitor of the modern laboratory rat is the Wistar rat, a rat bred in the Wistar laboratories in Philadelphia. I have read that the Wistar rat was begun with an albino rat that the Wistar Inst.i.tute originally got from France. I like to think that all the great scientific achievements that have been made in the modern scientific era as a result of work with laboratory rats are ultimately the result of the work of Jack Black, rat catcher. that he subsequently sold to Victorian-era scientists in France. Laboratory rats are today available for purchase on-line; a scientist can order the rat as per his or her experimental rat-genetics needs. The progenitor of the modern laboratory rat is the Wistar rat, a rat bred in the Wistar laboratories in Philadelphia. I have read that the Wistar rat was begun with an albino rat that the Wistar Inst.i.tute originally got from France. I like to think that all the great scientific achievements that have been made in the modern scientific era as a result of work with laboratory rats are ultimately the result of the work of Jack Black, rat catcher.

* One of the most impressive examples of a rat incursion in a noncity area was the invasion of brown rats on Campbell Island, a remote patch of land south of New Zealand near Antarctica. They were thought to have been imported to the island by whaling ships in the nineteenth century. The rats destroyed the local population of birds, including a rare flightless teal and a wading duck. In 2002, the New Zealand government destroyed all of the rats by bringing 120 tons of rat poison to the island in boats and helicopters. Approximately 200,000 rats are thought to have died. The rat eradication, frequently referred to as the largest-ever rat hunt, encountered some problems, however. A tanker carrying 18 tons of rat poison to the island sank in a whale breeding ground. The rat poison has subsequently showed up in the local mussel population. Reports suggested that all of the rats were killed. The government hopes to reintroduce the teal and the duck.

Chapter 3.

WHERE I WENT TO SEE RATS.

AND WHO SENT ME THERE.

IN GOING TO my alley, I was going where someone had gone before, of course, and I'm not just thinking of the millions of people who walk by it every year or the inebriated souls who stumble into it accidentally or the people who step into it because they think it is an actual street, which it isn't. I'm thinking of David E. Davis, the founding father of modern rat studies. It is said that Alexander the Great kept a copy of the Iliad Iliadin a precious casket as he went into battle, and in the same way I kept the work of Dave Davis beside me as I sat in the alley and excitedly took notes: the little diagrams that show rats running in dilapidated tenement neighborhoods, from fetid outhouse to poorly maintained garbage area; the field observations that look like maps with idle doodlings. It was Davis who first doc.u.mented the habits of the rat, who first charted their moves, who applied to a rat in an alley in a city the same kind of close nature reporting used, for instance, on the threatened marbled murrelet in its habitat in the Northwest coastal forest.

Davis began studying rats during World War II. The U.S. government was concerned that the Germans might use rats to spread disease through Europe, and then, after the war, with Europe's infrastructure in ruins, the government was concerned about rats ruining food supplies and spreading disease on their own. The Rodent Ecology Project was founded in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University, and Davis worked there with the other founding fathers of rat studies: Robert Emlen, who, prior to working with Dave Davis, also worked with Aldo Leopold, an ecologist in Wisconsin who argued for a "land ethic," suggesting that humans ought to think about the relationship with the land on which they live; John Calhoun, who studied rat social behavior and in 1963 reported that rats left to overpopulate in a cramped room set about killing, s.e.xually a.s.saulting, and cannibalizing each other; Curt Pdchter, who started trapping rats with Davis, then went on to discover similarities between rats' and humans' diets and began experimenting on rats in laboratories, which led to all kinds of man-related studies on laboratory rats, like the one I read about in a newspaper recently that showed how rats will kill themselves overexercising; and finally, William Jackson, who advised governments around the world on rat control and rat poisons and then on what to do about rats that became immune to rat poisons. The scientists in the Rodent Ecology Project were working at the dawn of ecology, studying the relationship of an organism to its environment and to its fellow organisms and doing so with an organism that, frankly, no one wanted to have any kind of relationship with. They were World War II-era scientists who looked like World War H-era scientists-in photographs they wear short-sleeve, b.u.t.ton-down shirts, khakis, pens in pockets. They went into neighborhoods that didn't see a lot of scientists-beat-up, run-down, near-the-waterfront neighborhoods, neighborhoods filled with people living in old tenement buildings, with people who due to poverty lived alongside rats. It was a new frontier for wildlife biologists. As P. Quentin Tomich, a biologist who worked with Davis as a graduate student and subsequently went off to study plague in rodents in Hawaii, told me, "No one had thought of the urban slums as a habitat."

Davis trapped rats, marked them, released them, trapped them again, and his papers opened a floodgate of myth-busting and groundbreaking rat information. "Although the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) (Rattus norvegicus) is an ubiquitous pest throughout the world," Davis wrote, "few studies of its home range and movements have been conducted." Davis showed that rats, commonly thought to be wanderers, in fact live in small areas, in colonies; that rats generally stay within sixty-five feet of their nest; that rats, when released far from their nest, will nonetheless wander for miles (up to four miles in one study); that male rats tend to go farther away from their nest than female rats; that one way rats may protect themselves is by becoming completely familiar with their home territory, their city alley or block ("Thus an individual that knows every hole, bush, or shelter probably will escape enemies better than an individual unacquainted with the area," Davis wrote); that rats are likely to cross alleys but not roads; that rats use regular runways or paths to feed, taking the same paths night after night, rarely diverging, rarely straying ("For example, a rat may live under the steps, run along the fence to the alley, and there feed on garbage," he said); that rats in the city are often bigger than rats in the country; and that the social rankings of the rat colony are of great significance, especially in times of duress-the strong rats thrive, while the weaker rats begin to die. In "Characteristics of the Global Rat Populations," an article published in the is an ubiquitous pest throughout the world," Davis wrote, "few studies of its home range and movements have been conducted." Davis showed that rats, commonly thought to be wanderers, in fact live in small areas, in colonies; that rats generally stay within sixty-five feet of their nest; that rats, when released far from their nest, will nonetheless wander for miles (up to four miles in one study); that male rats tend to go farther away from their nest than female rats; that one way rats may protect themselves is by becoming completely familiar with their home territory, their city alley or block ("Thus an individual that knows every hole, bush, or shelter probably will escape enemies better than an individual unacquainted with the area," Davis wrote); that rats are likely to cross alleys but not roads; that rats use regular runways or paths to feed, taking the same paths night after night, rarely diverging, rarely straying ("For example, a rat may live under the steps, run along the fence to the alley, and there feed on garbage," he said); that rats in the city are often bigger than rats in the country; and that the social rankings of the rat colony are of great significance, especially in times of duress-the strong rats thrive, while the weaker rats begin to die. In "Characteristics of the Global Rat Populations," an article published in the American Journal of Health American Journal of Health in 1951, Davis wrote, "As the population increases relative to its food supply, the higher ranking members still get adequate food, but the low members begin to starve. Low-ranking females have poor reproductive success and progeny from low-ranking females have little chance to grow normally." in 1951, Davis wrote, "As the population increases relative to its food supply, the higher ranking members still get adequate food, but the low members begin to starve. Low-ranking females have poor reproductive success and progeny from low-ranking females have little chance to grow normally."

Throughout the 1950s, Davis was America's rodent control guru. He traveled America's rat populations. He consulted with cities on their rats, preaching his most important discovery throughout the country-that poisoning rats was not in itself an effective way of controlling them. In fact, when rats are killed off, the pregnancy rates of the surviving rats double and the survivors rapidly gain weight. The rats that survive become stronger. "Actually, the removal merely made room for more rats," Davis wrote. The only way to get rid of rats was to get rid of the rat food, or garbage, but no one wanted to hear this: as it was the dawn of the age of ecology so also it was the dawn of the age of the chemical, of poisons and pesticides, and people seemed to want a s.e.xier, chemical-based fix. Eventually, Davis became frustrated. He moved to Pennsylvania, where he studied animals other than rats. For a while, he studied woodchucks and once sent a colony of them on a boat to Australia in a darkened box to see how the trip to the other side of the world would affect their internal clock: on the ship, they stayed on Pennsylvania time, but when the box was opened in Australia, they switched immediately to Australian time. He arranged a grid over a field to study birds. His three daughters remember him waking up at 5 A.M., sitting in his bathrobe, looking into the backyard sky, speaking into a tape recorder and saying things like "Three starling flying away from the city."

Davis taught in North Carolina and then California, and in his retirement, he wrote a paper that applied his many years of animal ecology and population studies to human history; it was published by his daughters in 1995, a year after his death. In the paper, he posited that the great cathedrals of Europe were a result of an excess food supply for the human population at the time. To read this paper is to see that thinking about rats, as low-down as it seems, can easily lead to thoughts about larger topics, such as life and death and the nature of man. "The population trebled in three centuries," Davis wrote. "As the population reached the capacity level of food and other resources, its growth stopped, and construction of cathedrals ended. The period terminated in wars, litigation, and disease. The hypothesis arose from the study of principles of population as derived from experiments on animals such as mice. Obviously, the test has not been experimental. A test that has many elements of an experiment is now possible in the oil-producing nations. These countries have suddenly found a source of energy. They will develop new types of art, literature, and science and will build vast structures not yet conceived. Then, as the population reaches the limit of resources (a complex stage involving the entire world), the period of history will end in stagnation, conflict, and misery. Humans have the knowledge to prevent a repet.i.tion of the later history of the Middle Ages."

A forgotten accomplishment of Dave Davis is his debunking of what is still today the most often quoted statistic about rats-the one rat per person rule. This statistic is ritually used in news stories about rats and has been for almost a hundred years. It is not true. It is a b.a.s.t.a.r.dization of a statistic derived from a study of rats written in England in 1909 by W. R. Boelter, ent.i.tled The Rat Problem. The Rat Problem. At the time, Boelter toured the English countryside and asked the following question: "Is it reasonable to a.s.sume that there is one rat per acre?" People responded by saying things such as "certainly" or "absurdly low." Boelter did not ask people in cities the same question because he thought it was ridiculous to ask people in the city if they had a rat. "As regards villages, towns, and cities, I consider it unnecessary to ask a question, the answers to which must be obvious to anyone who thinks of the number of pantries, houses, shops, stores, and sewers to be found on one acre," Boelter wrote. In the end, he made an educated guess: one rat per acre in England. And because there were forty million cultivated acres in England at the time, he concluded that there were forty million rats. At the time, Boelter toured the English countryside and asked the following question: "Is it reasonable to a.s.sume that there is one rat per acre?" People responded by saying things such as "certainly" or "absurdly low." Boelter did not ask people in cities the same question because he thought it was ridiculous to ask people in the city if they had a rat. "As regards villages, towns, and cities, I consider it unnecessary to ask a question, the answers to which must be obvious to anyone who thinks of the number of pantries, houses, shops, stores, and sewers to be found on one acre," Boelter wrote. In the end, he made an educated guess: one rat per acre in England. And because there were forty million cultivated acres in England at the time, he concluded that there were forty million rats. Coincidentally, Coincidentally, forty million people lived in England in 1909. Boelter was able to convert the one-rat-per-acre statistic to one rat per human. People loved that statistic, maybe because they abhorred it. They did not bother to recalculate for their own particular rat and human populations-an extremely labor-intensive process that at the time only Davis seemed to be interested in executing. Subsequently, one-rat-per-human has become the sacred rat statistic. The United Nations has used it. Pest control companies use it; health departments use it. Even today, it is commonly said that in New York there are eight million rats, one for every New Yorker. forty million people lived in England in 1909. Boelter was able to convert the one-rat-per-acre statistic to one rat per human. People loved that statistic, maybe because they abhorred it. They did not bother to recalculate for their own particular rat and human populations-an extremely labor-intensive process that at the time only Davis seemed to be interested in executing. Subsequently, one-rat-per-human has become the sacred rat statistic. The United Nations has used it. Pest control companies use it; health departments use it. Even today, it is commonly said that in New York there are eight million rats, one for every New Yorker.

In 1949, Dave Davis a.n.a.lyzed New York's rat population and called the one-rat-per-human statistic "absurd." He had just completed a precise calculation of the rat population of Baltimore-by trapping, counting burrows, and measuring such things as rat runways and rat droppings. In New York, he began his work on six blocks in East Harlem. He brought in an experienced trapper to trap rats in East Harlem apartments for a week. Davis determined there were an average of three rats per apartment in infested Harlem buildings, mostly living in the kitchen and bathroom but traveling through many floors. He further determined that more people thought they had rats than actually had them-about 10 percent more. But when he added up his calculations, New York's rat population was nowhere near eight million. Even the New York waterfront, which was mythically a.s.sociated with rats, was less infested than a.s.sumed. "Certainly, there are no more than a few thousand in the entire dock areas of New York City," Davis wrote. In all, Davis put the rat population of New York at one rat for every thirty-six people, or 250,000 rats-a rat population the size of the human population of Akron, Ohio. When the health department read Davis's report, they canceled a citywide rat extermination plan. But the number-of-humans-equals-number-of-rats formula would not die. It is something people want to believe. A few years later, even the New York City health department was telling people that there were eight million rats in New York.

WHEN I FINALLY WENT OUT on my own to find a colony of wild New York City rats, I ended up talking to a lot of exterminators. Exterminators, or pest control technicians as they often prefer to be known, are the philosopher kings of the rat-infested world, the trap-and poison-toting mystics. I have gleaned many insights from them. Practically speaking, I have learned about the significance of spotting rats during the day. "When you see rats in the daytime, boy, the population is so large that the night feeding won't support them," one exterminator told me. "Only the dominant rats are getting enough to eat, and the weaker rats, they've gotta take a chance and go out during the day. They don't really want to be out during the day." Likewise, I learned about the strength of rats vis-a-vis cats. Here is this anecdote from an exterminator working in New York, in the borough of Queens: "A woman said to me, 'Oh, we're going to get a cat!'" he recalled. "I said, 'Miss, please don't put that cat in the cellar.' Then I came back two weeks later and I'm picking up the hair and the bones of the cat. They think it's like in the cartoons. But in the cartoons it's Tom and Jerry the mouse, mouse, not Tom and Jerry the not Tom and Jerry the rat!" rat!"

More than anything, I have learned from exterminators that history is crucial in effective rat a.n.a.lysis. In fact, history is everything when it comes to looking at rats-though it is not the history that you generally read; it is the unwritten history. Rats wind up in the disused vaults, in long underground tunnels that aren't necessarily going anywhere; they wind up in places that are neglected and overlooked, places with a story that has been forgotten for one reason or another. And to find a rat, a lot of times you have to look at what a place was. One exterminator I know tells the story of a job on the Lower East Side in an old building where rats kept appearing, nesting, multiplying, no matter how many were killed. The exterminator searched and searched. At last, he found an old tunnel covered by floorboards, a pa.s.sageway that headed toward the East River. The tunnel was full of rats. Later, he discovered that the building had housed a speakeasy during Prohibition. After figuring out a place, after getting to know it intimately, killing rats is the easy part. "The textbook scenario, if you want to get rid of rats, is you put stress on their environment, you stop the food, and then they eat each other," another exterminator told me.

In beginning my own search for a rat colony, I turned to one exterminator frequently, George Ladd. George is tall with short, bristly hair; he is in his mid-fifties and fit and he routinely wears a blazer and tie while out on his pest control jobs, looking less like someone who hunts vermin for a living and more like a college coach dressed up for a big game. He works out of an office on the Lower East Side that from the outside looks like it's going to be a real mess but ends up being immaculate. And like many exterminators, he not only knows a lot about rats, but also about how humans relate to them. "You get a call and you just know right away from the intensity of the person calling whether or not they've got rats," he says. George has a lot of respect for rats. "They're just rude. They're like a bear because they're smart. They're extremely extremely smart animals." smart animals."

Ladd rides from job to job on a motorcycle, and he calls his company Bonzai de Bug. The j.a.panese reference has to do with George Ladd's great-grandfather George Trumball Ladd. George Trumball Ladd was a philosopher and a founder of the modern science of psychology; along with his friend William James, he organized the American Psychological a.s.sociation. George's grandfather was also an influential figure in j.a.pan; he was a friend and adviser to the emperor, promoting friendly relations between j.a.pan and America, until he died in 1921. Half of his ashes are buried in j.a.pan, half in New Haven, Connecticut, where he taught at Yale. In j.a.pan, George Ladd is a minor celebrity.

Once, when I dropped in on George, he showed me a videotape of a program about him that had run on j.a.panese TV. He put the tape in and started it up, but then stopped it to take a call from a landlord dealing with a tenant who had not realized that an exterminator was coming by and either didn't hear the buzzer or chose not to get out of bed and answer the door and, thus, was startled to see an exterminator-one of George's a.s.sistants-in her room. When George hung up, he started the tape again. The program began with ominous music and images of New York City's skyline, then New York City's trash. Next was a shot of George riding into town on his motorcycle and buckling on a belt full of rat-fighting equipment. The show was in j.a.panese but George spoke in English.

"How fun is this?" George said, smiling and pointing to himself as we watched.

The j.a.panese program showed George talking to various people plagued by rats, and it showed him working in a building late one evening. As I watched, George recalled the particular rat problem that the TV show was doc.u.menting; it involved an apartment building in a fashionable area, the kind of neighborhood where people instruct the exterminators to work in secret, so that no one will know they have rats. "They had a rat in a fancy-a.s.s building on the Upper West Side, and we couldn't even think think about traps or bait or anything," George said. "We had to get 'em, period. So I went to the store and I bought Hershey's bars, nuts-they love nuts-anchovies, beer. They drink beer and they like it, but they drink a lot and then they can't throw up. And then shrimp. Then I rubbed the shrimp around the edges. Then I took it and I put it in the center. It had a nice strong smell." about traps or bait or anything," George said. "We had to get 'em, period. So I went to the store and I bought Hershey's bars, nuts-they love nuts-anchovies, beer. They drink beer and they like it, but they drink a lot and then they can't throw up. And then shrimp. Then I rubbed the shrimp around the edges. Then I took it and I