This American Life - 801: Must Be Rats on the Brain

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

The one animal we can’t seem to live without, even when we really, really want to. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscriptionPrologue: At the announcement of New York City’s inaugural rat czar, we meet Darneice Foster, who despises the rats outside her apartment. And host Ira Glass introduces two special co-hosts for today’s show. (11 minutes)Act One: Producer Elna Baker meets Todd Sklar, a man who can’t quit rats. (22 minutes)Act Two: Fifty years ago, New York City started to put garbage out in plastic bags. This has become the number one food source for rats. Producer Ike Sriskandarajah investigates the decision that led to the city’s rat baby boom. (10 minutes)Act Three: How did Alberta, Canada pull off a feat that has eluded the rest of human civilization? Ira visits the largest rat-less land in the world. (15 minutes)Act Four: We drop a hot mic into a hot mess of a rats’ nest. You’ll never believe what happens next. (3 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

I'm WBC Chicago. It's This American Life. Good morning. And it's a great morning for New Yorkers and a great morning to be in New York City. We had a press conference in a park in Harlem for New York's Mayor Adams in April, 2023. There are two undisputed truths about the Adams administration. Mayor Eric Adams loves his mother. Mayor Eric Adams hates rats. This event was to introduce New Yorkers to their brand new. rat czar. This is the position the mayor created, that his job listing called for candidates who were, quote, highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty, with a swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery. At the time of this press conference, New York's mayor was not popular. He had huge disapproval ratings on crime and homelessness, fewer than half of all New Yorkers like the way he was doing his job.

And we're revisiting this moment because mayor, Mr. Adams was about to be replaced on January 1st. And this is an episode of ours that he inspired that we all at our show really loved, where we tried some funny things. We had never tried before. It's a show about rats in New York and elsewhere. And as a kind of goodbye to Mayor Adams, we thought we would play this now, our last show of this year. Because when this embattled, disliked Mayor, Mayor Adams, would talk about rats,

It was with a kind of joy It was like he was a dad Whose teenage kids would roll their eyes At everything he said But then he knew he had this one topic That was like, I don't know Taking them out for ice cream or something Like he knew this was at least going to go over

He made rats a big issue I hear it all the time I'm on the trains I'm walking the streets People stop me and say You know We're with you man We hate those damn rats

And you know remember Julia Remember when I came out that rat device You know I had a rat device We caught 96 rats around Brooklyn Borough Hall. Ninety-six rats. And, you know, there were people that were yelling, you know, oh, you murder are, you murder, you know.

This is the kind of cutthroat swagger in a lot of the remarks this day. Picture the podium is a table with all kinds of gear for shooting, poisoning, and trapping rats. Soon, the new rats are Kathy Karate takes a stage. And if zingers could kill rodents, well, New York's in good hands. You'll be seeing a lot of me. and a lot less rats. I like that quote. There's a new sheriff in town.

And with your help, we'll send those rats packing. Fully keeping with the giddy mood of the day, the rat's parents are there, failing for reporters and telling the story of how, at 10, their daughter, mobilized her entire neighborhood to fight rats, and so, so proud they can't stop themselves from talking over each other in a gush of words.

I'll be honest with you, there was so many applicants, but then when she started to get down, I was like, I said from my wife, I go, I think they're going to hire her. She's right for the job. She's smart. She's super smart. She's great with people. She's going to do a great job. She can do a great job. The mayor has made it very clear his stance on rats. He hates rats. I hate rats. All New Yorkers hate rats. Wow, that is strong. It's not true. Nah. Not true. Everybody don't hate rats. So we are going to devote our program today to rats and their hold over our cities and our minds.

And for some equal time, we thought that was very important to co-host today's coverage. We thought we would reach out to the one group that did not get a turn at the mic at the mayor's press conference. Welcome to you guys. So let me push this. I might go a little closer to you there on the floor. Hello, please. We're far away. All right.

One two, one, two. All right. You want to introduce yourselves? I'm Reggie. I'm Rachel. We are rodents. Yeah, we're in the rodent class. We are rats

Can I see you guys What do you make of this Press conference And the mayor appointing a rat czar And announcing like Rats is his mission He's going to kill rats

You know look If I had made the same budget Cut to that guy I was pitching I'd also be trying to Throw little smoking mirrors in the air A little confusion So you're saying it's just a distraction

Of course is a distraction I mean look Who's gonna fight back Who's gonna fight back against that We're easy Yeah We're small But we're resilient.

Yeah, and we got the numbers. We got the numbers. Well, actually, the numbers are interesting. It's actually a real question. Nobody knows how many rats are in New York City. It's 8 million people. But since you guys are, like, nesting everywhere under the streets and sidewalks, and you're in ancient water pipes and utility pipes and sewers and subway tunnels,

like the best guess, like we could find from anybody is just millions of rats. That's all they can say. A million so far. We're growing every day. Well, actually, that's true. People are seeing a lot more rats. in New York. Health inspectors are seeing twice as many rats, as they saw just a few years ago. And that's what you see. If you're just female, the fugitive rats. Let's go.

Can I ask you guys, do you see anything in the other size arguments? Do you see anything in why people find you to be a pest and frightening? All right, every once and again, a kid gets bit. Okay. Well, actually, the last year that we have stats for, a hundred New Yorkers got bit by rats. Yeah, but how many... She said it's eight million. What is that? That's nothing. That's nothing. How many... New Yorkers a year get stabbed? You know?

How many New Yorkers a year get hit by cars? How many rats control rent prices in New York? Very few. Very few of us are, you know, keeping Manhattan unaffordable. And yet somehow, oh, rats are evil. Yeah, well, let me give you guys the human point of view on this, okay? In this new battle that's going on in New York between a growing rat population and a mayor calling for your blood, let me tell you about somebody who's on the front lines of

where the new wave of rats has shown up, my name is Darnese Foster, which was just a couple blocks from the park where the mayor's press conference was held, and she saw the commotion and stopped to watch, and talked to my co-worker Valerie Kipness, told her that she's lived on 138th Street since the 90s, and they never used to have a rat problem until the pandemic. Rats outside the building, rats in the basement, this is new. This is, I guess, nobody was, everybody was looking the other way or doing something else, and the rats took over. It's very frustrating. Like, Garber's Collection Day is the absolute worst. There's really no safe place because they're running from garbage to garbage to garbage even in the middle of the

street. It's not safe because they dart so that you can barely walk and you just have to hope, pray to God that they're not there. Like I shake my keys. I make as much noise. So Valerie and I headed to her block on Garbage Pickup Day and met up with Darnies before her kids left for school, which is a big operation in her house, each of her four kids, goes to a different school in a different part of the city.

She lives on a really pretty block in Harlem that's all townhouses and tree. It was a perfect spring morning. And as we stood there on the sidewalk, yes, even with the sun shining, they're in plain day. Oh, God. Oh, Jesus Christ. A rat. Yeah.

No, I just saw the rat. I don't know where it came from, but it crawled across the top of the green can. I don't know where it went. Because I kind of froze. I walk over to a big plastic trash bin and look inside. There's a rat chewing through a bag. That sound was the rat. Dernice says that it's not just a general kind of post-pandemic surge

that's led to all the rats on her particular blog. The neighborhood has been gentrifying, one house a couple doors down, so for $2.5 million, others aren't far behind. Bernice rents in one of the only apartment buildings on the blog. And she said her landlord is trying to drive everybody out of her building to raise the rents. Hot water and heat have gone out for weeks at a time. They don't fix anything.

They're harassing tenants. they have managed to harass and get half the building. So half of the tenants are gone. And rats are helping their cause because they just want to clear out my building anyway. In New York City, rats are just a pawn in the much bigger clash that is New York real estate. We did reach out at the landlord.

His name is Hamad Ali to ask him if he's trying to drive out to our niece and they are the last tenants in the building. I'm letting rats to fester as part of that. But he didn't return our calls, our texts, or our emails. I'm really stubborn. I do not want my landlord to win. Oh, my God, sorry. Sorry.

I'm so sorry. That was humongous. When rats scamper by, they seem to completely unnerved our knees. And she urges me and her sons to move away from a stairwell where she's seen rats. There are certain spots where she doesn't like to stand. But her kids are totally unruffled. Her son's Micah and Amir, who are 9 and 12, both perfectly happy to be late. school to talk rats. Each new rat

recede, they're like, yeah, sure. Whatever. This one looks like it died recently. The boy spot this one up the block, and show Valerie. Wait, how can you tell? Because, like, it's the body, their eyes are still open and, like, its body is, like, still kind of looks like it's fake playing dead.

And because ants haven't swarmed that place yet. Well, I'm going to take a quick picture. Do you feel like the rats have gotten into your head? Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. I am thinking about them a lot. I mean, it's just so strange because they're so small, and yet they can womb so large. They're huge.

These are not small rats. These are big, fat, jolly rats. They are eating good here. Like, I'm amazed at how agile they are. I told her niece how a scientist I talked to said that the big problem with rats these days is not that they spread disease. She said it's rare in North America for anybody to report catching a disease from a rat. And it's much more common for rats to catch our diseases from us, going through our stuff,

like New York rats got COVID from us. And the scientists told me that the bigger problem with rats is the very thing that Dinesis is experiencing, the stress, the feeling of everything being out of control when rats are there. It just freaks people out. Like there's just something about having them around that just gets to us psychologically. It means that you've done something terribly wrong in your life and you should correct it if you're encountering rats like this, it's like a problem sign. It's like stop, change, do something different. What a day on our program? Rats, when rats show up, it is all about the rats, beginning of anything else. If you have had a run-in with a rat, you pretty much remember it the rest of your life.

Today, we let ourselves get transfixed. Why do they get to us so much? Like I said earlier, my co-host for the hour today are Reggie and Rachel, New York City rats. You guys have anything you want to say about Darnisa's situation? You think she's wrong to be scared? No, no. You know, she's speaking the truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's scary. But you know what? I think the fact that we're being blamed for being a bunch of Beyonce's, you know, is outrageous. Right? When we step in the room, all eyes on us. Yeah. All eyes. You know, we're special.

Oof. Bars. Right, you know? Valid. Excuse us for shining. Sorry. Rats. You may think you know them.

You may think you have nothing to learn. We have stories today. I think we'll open your eyes. Stay with us. Everybody has a hot take on the economy. And whether you're curious about inflation, trade wars, or the markets, what you need is reporting you can trust. Hi, I'm Kai Rizdahl, the host of Marketplace. Our award-winning reporters talk to everybody from CEOs to farmers to help you understand how the economy takes shape in the real world.

You'll be smarter every time you listen. And these days, that's priceless. Listen to Marketplace on your favorite podcast app. This American Life, Myra Glass. For our show today on Rats, I am co-hosting with two New York City rats. And we're going to start today with this story that the two of you commissioned as co-hosts, right? Yep, because there's the lie and there's the rat truth. That's why we're here to tell our story.

Which is why we got this next story for you. Act one, 51st rats. So this might be hard for some of you close-minded folks to believe, But there are a lot of people out here who love rats. Love us to death. Who see us or who we really are. For more, we go to NPR's, Eleanor Baker. Actually, she's not with NPR.

Oh, my God. Copy that. For more on this, we go to our very own, Eleanor Baker. I, okay, so I want to start from the beginning. You and I, we met at a party, right? Yep. You came up to me, and you basically did this thing where you were like, Hey, you're a woman.

Can I get your opinion on something? And then you explained your predicament. Will you explain for us now what's your current big dilemma? Yes. I have several pet rats and I also am single and used to be a very active dating in the dating scene. And I want to either, I have to either get rid of my rats so that I could. can start dating again or, I guess, become a weird, lonely rat person for the rest of my life? I don't know if that's like, it seems like those are the two options.

And the fact that I'm weighing that decision is probably not a good sign. That should be a pretty easy choice. I would think that a couple of years ago it would have been an easy choice for me, but all of a sudden it's not. And at the party, you turned to me after explaining all of this and you said, is me being a rat guy a deal breaker? And you emphatically said yes. Yes, because it's not just that Todd has rats. That's his name, by the way, Todd. He has 12.

They roam free all day, and they've taken over his living room, where he's set up an American gladiator-style obstacle course with tiny ropes for the rats to swing from furniture. If this were a Disney movie, it'd be magical. But if Todd were your Tinder date, you'd report his profile. A little about Todd. He's 39, a writer, living in L.A. He's tall, attractive, says he wants to find a real relationship and settle down.

According to his friends, he's really broken up over this choice, constantly telling them he's going to get rid of the rats, but unable to pull the trigger. He's truly at a crossroads. Obviously, I have a strong bias for which road I think he should take. The kind of road that when you're walking, a rat doesn't, suddenly come scurrying out, brushing against your feet. And the only thing I didn't understand, why was this so hard for him? Okay, so just help me, walk me through it.

So how did it start with the rats? I think that the rats in a weird way, I think everybody has like at least one weird thing that they got into during the pandemic. For some people, it was like knitting or like, you know, a weird Japanese TV show. For me, it was, you know, having a bunch of pet rats. Wait, so, so I see. So basically you're saying this decision could only have happened during the pandemic. 100%.

Before the pandemic, I was not what you would call a rat person. I spent 10 years living in New York. I thought rats were pests, not pets. Like they are like slightly above or below bedbugs, I guess, on like the New York things you don't ever want in your apartment list. It was probably three weeks into the pandemic. into the first lockdown, I was going on a walk. And when I got home in the parking lot to my apartment, I saw this little tiny, cute little rat, and he was crawling.

And it wasn't like scampering away. He was crawling and his back legs weren't working. He was kind of like dragging his body with his front little arms. It almost looked like out of saving Private Ryan, just like a wounded soldier trying to carry himself to safety. And I felt so bad. It was like one of the saddest things I'd ever seen. combined with also being super, like, lonely in lockdown and, like, just going on, like, a super introspective walk.

And I was like, I'm going to save this rat. I'm going to bring this rat upstairs. I'm going to nurse it back to health. Todd put on a pair of gloves, picked up the rat, put it in a box, did the icky dance, then went upstairs. The first thing that happened is I called the Humane Society because I was like, I'll take care of this rat until they can take him in, thinking I would do that the next morning. And they were, like, immediately the girl on the phone was like, yeah, we don't do anything with rats. Like, I can call animal control to get rid of it if you want, but we don't, like, do anything for rats. Wait, the humane society is like, ew, no rat.

Yeah, at least the one in L.A., yeah, they are not very humane. The woman was humane enough to give him the number of a rat rescue. He calls and talks to a woman named Shannon, who says she'd love to take his rats, but she can't for 10 days because she's out of town. She's like, can you handle it till then and keep it alive. I was like, yeah, of course I can, like knowing nothing about rats or anything, but I was like, awesome, we got a project now. Let's do it.

Because of the pandemic, Todd had lost his job. He spent most days sitting at home with his wheels spinning. So Project Keep Rat Alive until Shannon gets home became his new focus. Todd was in luck, though. The rat he took home wasn't a street rat. It was a discarded pet rat. While they're the same species, the difference between street rats and pet rats

is similar to wolves versus dogs. Still, the first night did not go well. Todd was afraid of the rat, and it seemed afraid of him. It escaped the cardboard box that was in multiple times. But quickly, Todd went from being grossed out to engrossed. He'd Google, why does my rat do this? And lose himself for hours reading all sorts of rat behavioral studies. Also, every pet rat is different,

because they all have different personalities, much like people. And so, like, you'll go on, like, the rat, Reddit, or Raddit, as it's called. And, like, to, like, Google or to look up, like, it's called Reddit? It's called Raddit. They got a good one. They locked that down pretty good. It was a real crash course into learning about everything about rats. Like, you have to get it a buddy. Basically, like, they hate being alone. They get lonely and depressed. And so, like, immediately I was like, okay, I got to get another rat for, like, 10 days.

Or at this point, it was, like, eight. And so I went on Craigslist and started looking up, like, you know, like rats for sale. So I found a guy who was selling rats for like $3 a piece. And I went to that dude's house. And he's like, okay, here's the two rats I have, which one do you want? And there's two little cute rats and like a little fish tank thing. And I was like, I don't care. Like, you know, which one do you not want?

He's like, well, it doesn't matter to me. I'm just going to feed the other one to my snake. And I was like, well, now I don't want the other rat's blood on my hands. Like, I'll just buy them both. So at that point, I had three rats. And obviously, very quickly, I was becoming like, they were definitely my best friends and my only friends because, again, it was locked down. And so at the point that this lady Shannon got back from visiting her family was ready to take the original rat in to her rodent rescue, I no longer wanted to give him up. And in fact, she was not surprised that my rat culture had already multiplied three.

And she's like, that's how it happens. And then I was like, no way. She literally says, that's how it happens. Oh, yeah, she was laughing. She was like, yeah, that's literally every rat owner. Like, you start with one, and then all of a sudden, like, you have a ton. She tells him about another rodent rescue where you can get even more rats. Todd says, I think I'm okay with three, Shannon.

Thanks a lot. I hang up the phone, immediately go on Instagram, look at the South Bay Rotent Rescue, and later that day, I had two more rats. I was up to five. And I'm pretty sure, I want to say later that week, we got to eight. Like if you added up all the rats I've had between the ones that have died

and the ones that got fostered, I feel like I've probably had like 35 rats at this point, which is pretty insane. 35 rats? Actually, it was 37. There's Claude, Pearl, Arthur, Marceau, Bertie, Lucy, Henry, Bobby, Caesar, Leonard, Oliver, Harriet, Luke, Amanda, Julian, Roger,

Ricky, Boe, Penelope, Sweet Lou, Dave, Kelsey, Alonzo, Ebenezer, Eddie, Beth, Sven, Osmo, Jake, Delilah, Klaus, Aldous Dair, Eleanor, Gertie, Joshua, Heidi, and Peter. He didn't have them all at once. Rats only live a few years, so the most he's ever had at one time was 14. When I've told friends about Todd's rats, they've asked me, is he okay? Like, is he having a breakdown or anything?

And the answer is emphatically, no, he's fine. But he just lost his job. And he was having a hard time getting motivated to find another one in the pandemic job market. And besides, how could he? He was so busy falling in love with rats. I see rats as vermin, carriers of disease. Just thinking of them skeeps me out. But Todd says, I just don't know them.

Like a proud parent, he told me things about rats that converted him. And I got to say, I actually had no idea how intelligent these animals could be. That's part of what Hook Todd. He observed... Rats are, like, obsessed with what we know about what they know. Like, they never want us to know what they know. There's like the mind game level, it's like CIA level mind games of like they want to make us, keep us in the dark about whatever information they have or whatever they know how to do.

So, like, they're very secretive. They love hiding stuff and stashing stuff. And they never want to be caught doing anything naughty, right? In the beginning, Todd would give his rats treats, which they'd take and stash in hiding spots all over his apartment. Every night, he'd have to clean 20 to 25 little stashes. Todd started to get suspicious. He was giving them treats, but not this many treats. So he set up a GoPro facing the treat drawer to find out what was happening.

Sure enough, the rats had figured out how to open the treat drawer by standing underneath it and pushing it open as a team. They'd steal treats, then close it shut. Todd immediately moved the treats up to the middle drawer. The next day, he came into the kitchen. The middle drawer was open, and all the treats were gone. He reviewed the GoPro footage to try to figure out what happened. Come to find out that three of them had figured out that if they wedged them, so the oven is next to this cabinet, if they wedge themselves against the oven,

their little tiny fingers, they were able to kind of like, just wedged in between the drawer and get it out just enough that then they could stick their face in, use their face to wedge it out more, and then all of a sudden they were able to climb into this middle drawer and start stealing food again. But then they figured out that they can't close the second drawer because there's no way to push it closed. They'd been closing the bottom drawer. Oh, and if it's not closed, then that means they're caught. Now you're totally caught. So then, I don't know what little rat meeting they had, but they somehow came up with the idea that instead of getting caught with the second drawer,

open and that they'd been stealing food, they would take all of the food and treats from the second drawer and put it back into the first drawer, the bottom drawer. So then hopefully when I would find it, I would think that they were like helping me put it back in the correct drawer. Todd opens the bottom drawer, and the treats are all there. Another thing I learned talking to Todd about rats is that they can jump incredibly high, like bunnies. Todd learned this when he set up his GoPro to figure out how his rats were getting into these high cubbies.

The footage showed they were crawling onto the kitchen table and launching themselves four feet in the air. Todd knows their secret, but they don't know he knows. A few days later, he wakes up. And I walked into the living room and I saw Claude and he was running over to go do this. And then he kind of stopped and froze. He had been busted doing something naughty. And he walked up to the edge of the table. table and I looked at him and he kind of turned and looked at me and then he turned and looked at

the cubbies and he turned and looked at me again and then he jumped like straight up just like a couple of like the saddest little jump and just belly flopped onto the ground he essentially tried to trick me into thinking that he could not make this jump that like very easily could be done and I have seen them do now on camera many many times I'm just like did that just happen like did this rat just try to trick me into thinking he couldn't do something I know he can do I talked to a rodent behavior specialist about all of this. He says Todd's got it mostly right. He wouldn't go so far as to say the rats were trying to trick Todd,

but he said that rats know what will or won't get them treats from their owner, and they'll behave accordingly. What Todd is reading as intent is actually the nuance with which the rats can read the cues he's giving. I was surprised when the rodent guy told me how perceptive they are. If you're stressed, a rat can smell that. They also study your posture, they read your facial expressions. They can detect things about us that we can't even see in each other. And they're social animals.

If you like them and aren't trying to kill them, they want to play all day. They enjoy it, which Todd noticed. It was nonstop entertainment. They are always up to something. And also, like, they're so loving. Like, they're just, like, they're one of the most, like, loving creatures you could ever have as a pet. Like, they just, like, are obsessed with you. It's like...

Wait, okay, this is the side of rats I do not know about. Like, no one talks about rats they're so loving. So can you just, like, I need you to... I need you to convince me that that's true. That's fair. That's totally understandable. But as far as, like, their loving nature is, like, do they just, like, constantly want to come cuddle

and kiss you and give you little licks. And like, this is, so I fully admit that, like, I am, like, pretty far off the deep end into, like, pet rat ownership. But there's still, like, another level that I haven't, like, sunk to yet, which is, like, a lot of people let their rats, like, clean their teeth and stuff, which is, like, disgusting to me. But rats love to groom you because that is, like, hugging and kissing. I think that I got a lot of bookreaders right now. They just always want to get in my nose and try to, like, clean my boogers, which is, like,

do, stop. That is, like, disgusting. Wait, you have a line. Oh, yeah, I do. I do. Yeah, I will not let them clean my teeth or boogers or the ear thing is like, I don't want them crawling inside my ear, but it is really cute when they try to because like you hear their little squeaks and sniffs, and that's pretty cute. But then once they start trying to get into your ear to clean it, it's like, dude, stop. Like, that's disgusting. The idea of Todd being groomed by rats brings me back to his predicament. When does the thought, okay, I need to get rid of these rats if I want to have love and a relationship, when does that occur to you? Yeah.

So for me, I feel like as the pandemic started kind of like actually winding down a bit, I think like post like the last variant, it felt like, you know, things were opening up again. People were, you know, I was going to parties again for the first time in a while and like meeting people at parties. and like I think I was at a friend's party and the moment kind of occurred I met a girl at this party and we really hit it off and we were flirting and then we exchanged numbers

and then she we kind of kept talking and then she inquired about potentially getting a drink so we got a drink after this party and then as things were winding down in the bar was closing you know I think like anybody you fall into old habits and you're like okay do you want to go back to my place and she's like yeah and like

it was like a like a Kaiser-Sose moment where all of a sudden in my house, I was like, oh, my God, wait a minute. I have, at that point, 12 rats in my apartment. Like, it had not even occurred to me like, I can't bring this person home to an apartment full of rats. I was like, the first thing that rushed through my mind is, like, how do I explain this to her to preface this before we go to my apartment? And, like, very quickly, I was like, there is no way to explain having 12 rats in your apartment. They were in his car on the way home. Todd turns to the woman and says, actually, I'm really sorry.

I lied and said, I'm actually really, really tired, and I have an early morning tomorrow. And so, like, this girl probably thought, like, I was, like, you know, like, not that into her having second thoughts when in reality is because I didn't want to expose her to a rat-filled apartment. He takes her back to her car, and they never see each other again. I remember laying in bed that night being like, well, this is probably the end of, like, rat ownership. Like, if we're going to be, like, meeting people again, life is kind of starting to get back to normal. This is not something that you can explain to somebody. Todd's tried to get rid of the rats, posted them online, but then every time he ends up backing out at the last minute, so much so that he's been banned from multiple online L.A. rat groups. Three and a half weeks ago, I had a woman who was coming to adopt them who, like, I feel really bad.

She drove all the way from Simi Valley and, like, a half hour before, and I was like, I'm so sorry, I can't do this. Like, I got to keep them. I'm really, really sorry. I offered to, like, Venmo her for her gas, but she was like, no, don't worry about it, whatever. But, yeah, it's really hard to get rid of them. I've tried quite a bit. It's tough. Oh, man. I don't think you're going to be able to do it.

I know, but I have to. There's got to be away. Why do you have to? This is definitely not a sustainable way of living life. Todd told me he was planning on getting rid of all of his rats within a month. Okay. Hi, Todd. Hi. So, all right, so it's been four months since we last talked.

Has it really been four months? It's been four months. Well, minus like a few days. I'm dying to know. Have you given away the rats? I have not. I have, I feel like, made some progress in that I I have committed to not getting any more rats or any new rats, which I think is a big step, a first step. I'm down to three now, unfortunately. You're down to three rats?

Down to three rats, yeah. Since Ta got most of them around the same time, many of them died around the same time. It's been hard. He's actively restraining himself when he has the urge to get more rats. That takes discipline. What was the closest you came? like a week ago man there was a really cute rat video there was a there was a rat like a week ago

that was came from the same like breed as one of my favorite rats my first rat clod that died that was just like oh he's the cutest and best little rat and there was like a really cute video that one of the rodent rescues posted and it was like yeah he's up for adoption i was like man four isn't that different than three maybe i'll just get like one more and then like see where that goes, but he was a young rat. I was like, if I get a fourth one that's young, then I'm going to have to get him a buddy when the other three die, and then now we're dead two, and then, like, you know where this goes from there.

Like, it's just like, it spirals out of control pretty quickly. So why is he finally letting go of his rats? What changed? After our first call, he started opening up to women on dating apps about his rat ownership. To his surprise, at least half were totally cool with it. He even brought four dates home to meet the rats. It went great. This huge obstacle he'd invented, rats or love, it wasn't actually a problem.

Which made him look at why he was so embarrassed about being a rat guy in the first place. I think I was more embarrassed and ashamed of being in general who I was and where I was at that point. Obviously, like the pandemic, like, it's just like everything that my identity was wrapped around had been paused. Like, I love those rats. Do not get me wrong. And they are super fun. but I think also, you know, you could argue that I was using rat ownership as a way of avoiding addressing other problems in life. Because that's like the double whammy is like, okay, I'm not pouring all this time into this weird hobby. That means I do have to pour it into, you know, getting my career back on track, addressing my personal life, addressing my love life, and actually like taking those things serious.

I don't have this like great excuse anymore to avoid them. Todd's taking steps to move towards a life without rats. He's taken down all the paintings and pictures the rats chewed the edges of and is replacing them with new art. The rats destroyed all his plants. He's buying new ones. And he's been going out on lots of dates. He feels hopeful about his new life.

Though he did say, when he's out buying new plants, maybe he'll see a new rat and get that too. Alma Baker, she's a producer on this show, and a real one to us rats. Coming up. No country for old rats. We visit a vast place that has somehow gotten rid of rats. That's in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio.

When our program continues. This American Life from our glass. Today's program must be rats on the brain. by co-host today, New York Street Rats, Reggie and Rachel. Hello. Hey, hey, we're here. Oh, you guys, welcome back to the second half. We've arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2, the Big Bag Theory.

So, like we were talking about at the beginning of the show, early on in the administration of the current Mayor of New York, Mayor Adams, he and his Ratszar declared a war on rats. But one thing about that entire project that's kind of absurd is that one reason that, one reason that's, that there are so many rats in New York City is just completely obvious. It's just out in the open, not complicated at all. That's right. It's racism. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

No, it's plastic bags. Yeah, excuse me. Yeah, the plastic bags. Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. New Yorkers put out their garbage in plastic bags. And if you've ever visited the city for more than a day,

you've seen these. They're on the sidewalk at night. Just huge stacks of them just stretching down the block. It's about 8 million pounds of food waste every day. That's one pound for every man, woman, child, and non-binary person in the five boroughs. And it is also a lot of rat food. It's like a buffet on every block. And you're saying, oh, no, don't eat the buffet food.

And is it very hard tearing into a plastic garbage bug? No. Is it hard to walk? All right, right. Point taken. Okay, so why, why? where the biggest city in the country decided to do something so absurd

and counterproductive. One of our producers, Ike Streis Kandaraja, looked into that. It wasn't always this way. New Yorkers used to take out their trash in Oscar the Grouch-style metal cans with tightly fitting lids. The cans were ubiquitous,

mostly worked, but nobody liked them. Here's how you used to have to take out the trash. You'd put your raw refuse in a metal can, A sanitation worker would drag it to the back of the truck, banging it loudly to empty it out, where New Yorkers, many without hoses, were left to clean out their smelly metal cans. It wasn't great. Then, in the late 60s, the future arrived. America put a man on the moon and...

Here's the answer, folks. New Glad trash bags. They're odor-proof, scatter-proof. So strong, they're leak-proof. The end of trashy trash. That's neat. Plastic trash bags were mass-produced for the first time. New York City Mayor John Lindsay saw an opportunity for an easy political win. He called a press conference on May 8, 1969.

Reporters gathered in the blue room at City Hall. A garbage bag hung on the wall. And Mayor Lindsay announced plans for a new experimental program that would allow New Yorkers in half a dozen neighborhoods, to drop trash bags directly on the curb overnight. The mayor said he wanted to see if paper and plastic garbage bags could reduce noise, odor, litter, speed up garbage collection and improve conditions for sanitation workers.

The sanitation union was all in, but not everyone was so glad. Bobby Corrigan remembers where he was. These days, he's a world-renowned rodentologist. But back then, he was taking an intro to pest management class at SUNY Farmingdale. His professor asked the class to consider the mayor's recent announcement. I remember him giving us a lesson about that event. And he said, I want you to write a homework lesson. What do you think this is going to do for the rat population of the city

to put trash in plastic bags? What will us do? Even the students in Pest Control 101 could tell what would happen. The writing was on the wall that if we do this, we're going to be literally, as if it was a zoological garden, we're going to try to grow these animals for some reason. Bobby thinks back on this moment often. In the Terminator version of this movie, which would be called X Terminator, the human survivors of New Rat City would send Bobby back to dive in front of the post. and knocked the bag out of Mayor Lindsay's hand. If I was there sitting in the audience or any pest professional, we all would have went,

whoa, whoa, stop. We have questions back here in the back row. Stop, stop. My message would have, I would have stood up and say this is going to be a colossal mistake in public health and a colossal mistake in quality of life. And it needs to be stopped and rethink this whole thing with different approaches. How pivotal was this moment in the history of, of the New York City rat population?

I think it was everything. I think it put this animal into hyperdrive. He calls this the Big Bang Theory, or the Big Bag theory, because he's funny. Right before the bags in 1969, another respected rotentologist named Joe Brooks did a survey and found that rats were only an 11% of New York. Now, Bobby says, rats are in 80 to 90% of the city.

So, did anyone in charge see this coming? If a bunch of undergrads in an entry-level pest class could tell, couldn't the people running the city? Fortunately, one of the men who brought plastic bags to New York is still alive. Jerry Kretschmer is now 88. Back then, he was acting sanitation commissioner. Jerry might be one of the last people left who can tell us definitively. Did they have any idea that plastic bags

would lead to a rat apocalypse? In 1971, let's just say, if somebody would show me a plastic bag, I would think that's easy to fill, that's easy to pick up, and it's very easy to collect. Those are the things that I would have thought about it, I wouldn't have thought that rats could eat them

because that wasn't what I was concerned with. My concern is collecting the garbage. Is that trade-off worth it? I don't know if it's worth it. My story is, we've got to get the garbage collected. Rats were not on Jerry's radar at all. He was busy removing millions of pounds of garbage from the city every day,

which, by the way, is kind of a miracle. And bags, they made that massive job faster, 20% faster. Where the city saw efficiency, big bag saw dollar signs. Bag makers primed the public by donating 600,000 sacks, and even got to help pick the guy who evaluated the pilot project. At the initial press conference, that guy claimed that bags would reduce the smell so much that they wouldn't attract rats, which, as any New Yorker

who has walked past a pile of black bags baking under the hot sun can tell you, it's just a total lie. In January, 1971, the city council unanimously voted to approve the use of plastic bags in all five boroughs of New York. Cans were out, bags were in,

and the party began. Oh, to be a New York City rat in the 1970s. Fast forward to 2023. I don't think you're going to find an administration that is more serious about containers and placing our garbage in containers like we are. That, of course, is Mayor Eric Adams. And the big thing he and his new rats are doing to take back the city from rats is to get trash bags back in trash cans.

But Adams is putting millions of dollars into a new pilot that undoes Mayor Lindsay's pilot. It puts trash into sleek, modern bins. It's ambitious, bold, but here's why it might not work. The new containers need to be picked up more often, daily, or even twice a day. This would require hiring more sanitation workers and buying new special side-loading trucks could cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade.

And then there's the parking spots. To make the plan work, the city would need to place the containers in 150,000 parking spots, up to 25% of spots in some neighborhoods. So, are New Yorkers willing to give up their parking in order to beat back rats? I don't want to give a parking spot. It's hard enough to find a parking spot. You can't get a spot as it is around here just when you can come home at night.

Forget about it. I'd rather get rid of the rat problem. That's much more important. I mean, this is a walking city, so, you know, it's easy. Give up the spots. Give up the spots. $150,000. Where they go to park?

you're asking like a very two very intense things in New York finding a spot to park but not wanting problems with a rat that is a hundred and fifty thousand you got to make sacrifices but that means people got to spend more money going to like parking garages oh that's I'm gonna have to say no I don't care at all Same. Like, it doesn't affect me. Yeah. I don't think I care whatsoever. Parking spots aren't affecting me. It was mixed, pretty much split.

Humans are a house divided. Rats, they're united. They know what they need to do. That's why they're winning. Like Trees Kondaraja, he's a producer on our show. It's been two years since we first broadcast this episode. Mayor Adams has his job until December 31st. Last fall, he mandated that most New Yorkers, 70% of them, now have to put their trash out in thick plastic bins with secure latching rack-proof lids. So, a year's past, did it work? Are people complying with the rule?

We reached out to New York's Department of Sanitation to find out and learned. They have no idea. They don't know how many people are using the kids. containers now. And they don't know how much trash was in containers before Mayor Adams mandated it. They're also not measuring whether the number of rats is going down in the city. The best measure they've got is complaints to 3-1-1 over the phone. Rat sightings. They are down, roughly 20% since the mayor's war on rats began. Though, in certain neighborhoods, they are up, way up. It is not clear if Adam's successor, So Ron Mamdani, will be appointing his own rats are.

Act Tree Alberta. More like El Maita. A lot of rats. All right, so Daly, everywhere there are people, there are rats. They thrive, living off our agriculture and our garbage. They've followed us wherever we've settled. We've followed you.

Come on, nav. Hey, hey, he's the main character. So you're saying it's more of a partnership. Absolutely. Come on. Well, I'm just saying that as people spread around the globe, like rats, most of the rats that are across New York and across America, they started in China and Mongolia, right? That's right, Mongolia, and then got to Europe. And then, you know, we got on a boat and just headed out to everywhere.

You know, everywhere the Europeans went the rats went. That's actually the truth. And if you want to find places where there aren't rats, you basically have to go to places where there are no people, like Antarctica, there are islands here and there. But there is one big exception to all this. The largest place of human habitation where there are no rats, Alberta, Canada. Alberta, Canada is a province of Canada, roughly the size of California and Oregon combined. It's bigger than France. And it's done something that humans elsewhere have failed out completely.

They have no rats. How is that possible? How did they do it? it. We are a couple miles west of the Saskatchewan border. It's kind of like the front line, I guess, and there's no doubt that's where the rats show up. I'm riding through the Alberta countryside with Rat Inspector Jory Hoffman. It's green and mostly flat open space that to an American like me looks very Midwestern, farm after farm, and the towns near the border are tiny. George's 29, a straight-talking guy who volunteers at the fire department,

and small-town events, and a t-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap. His feelings about this line of work are uncomplicated. I liked my job. I liked outdoors. So spray weeds, go look for rats. Something new every day. I'm an everyday farmer, so I enjoy it.

Rat hunting is just five weeks in the spring and fall for him. When he's not doing that, he's working the farm his family's had for five generations, near here. He knows most of the farmers here along the border. Also in the truck is Karen Whitterson, who runs Alberta's Rat Control Program. She explains that Alberta's campaign against rats began decades ago. If you picture for a second, okay, rats arrive on the east coast of North America and then slowly spread west across the continent. And in Canada, what that means is they infiltrate Quebec Province, and then they move west to Ontario Province, the Manitoba Province. Karen says they reached Saskatchewan Province, surprisingly not that long ago, around 1920.

And it took them 30 years to move across the province to get to the Alberta-Suscatchewan border. And essentially, we saw the rats coming, and so we're able to mobilize and be ready for when they arrived. That day came in 1950. People in Alberta looked across the border at Saskatchewan and saw the rats were infiltrating farms and eating crops. Alberta is a big agricultural province, and Albertans were like, nope, we don't want the rats. And therefore, they were declared a pest so that every Albertan was. was responsible for controlling them. And they actively went out and educated people as well

because people didn't know what rats look like. They had rats taxidermied and put in all the local agricultural field offices just so that they could see what a rat actually looked like. The asset decided to set up a rat control zone, kind of a DMZ for rats, where they'd catch the vermin trying to infiltrate the pristine province to ravage their crops. The zone runs along the border with Saskatchewan, north to south, over 300 miles, 18 miles wide.

That's where we are right now in this truck. Twice a year, Karen, has 13 people that go out to inspect every farm and every spot where rats might nest. Joey is in his spring inspection today. He turns the truck into a driveway of a farm. We see four big steel grain bins. There's some farm equipment in the yard. Okay, we're pulling into where? Just a very suspect area.

I've had an infestation at this yard before. So there was hundreds here inside this burning pit. We climb out of the truck to see if the rats have returned. The burning pit is 8 feet or 10 feet deep and the length of a good-sized swimming pool with a tangle of stuff sticking up that the farm wants to set up blaze and get rid of. There's dead trees, barbed wire fencing, cow bones.

Yeah, so what we're doing here, we're just going to walk around this burning pit and we're looking on the edges for for holes, rat runs. Like you can tell, they use the same track over and over, so you can tell where they've been. Now, Jerry, you're climbing down. What are you pointing out? There's a hole there.

Yeah. Could be old. That hose around three inches around. Yep. Yeah. Could be a rat, could be new. A gopher or a weasel or anything. We spot dozens of other holes, big and small, but no signs of life.

The rat feces are food by the holes. Jory concludes there are probably no rats here, and we go into other farms. We're usually in and out in just a few minutes. Look around some bales of barley or oats, open doors to steel grain bins. The fact that we find zero rats, that's typical. Jory has 500 locations he inspects, and the number of actual infestations he discovers, like a real nest with dozens or hundreds of rats. once every two years.

Wow. So it's a bad infestation once every two years. And then how many other times would you find a rat, let's say, in a year? Like last year I found one, one solo. And probably none the year before that. Yep. Maybe none the year before that. There must be a part of you where you kind of wish, like,

you hope you find something, so you have something you do. Yeah. So you have to remind yourself sometimes why you're doing it, Because it can get fairly dry, like you're just, I've been in all these yards so many times in my life. It's the same thing every time. This is a dirty secret of the world's most effective rat control program. They have done such a good job that at this point, it's kind of boring. Jory and Karen both used that word.

It's like, Jory is Batman, and every night he goes out looking for criminals and never, ever finds them. Though I should say, it took them a long time to get to this point. back in the first years of the program in the 1950s, Karen says the teams would discover 600 infestations a year in the rat control zone along the border. By the 1960s, they still needed 250 pest control officers to fan out and kill rats. Today, like I said, it's just 13 people.

Instead of 600 infestations a year, it'll be just two to five. Take it in a second. Just two to five infestations and over 300 miles of border. One thing that helps them keep the number of, I thought this was interesting, is the death of the family farm. In Canada, just like in the U.S., so many small farmers have gone out of business over the last half century,

that the remaining farms are really far apart. So if rats stow away in feed or supplies and then land on a farm, it's hard for them to migrate to a neighbor. Consolidation of farms hasn't just been bad for small farmers. It's been bad for rats. Then when you find some, it's exciting when you find some. You get a sense of just how monotonous Joey's job usually is when he talks about the last big infestation. he cleaned out. It was especially memorable because instead of using poison, which is the normal way to handle it, the landowner is the one who discovered the rats. They told Jury, why don't you

come out and bring a shotgun? They had me out and they supplied all the bullets, all the shotgun shells. I brought my shotgun out and my other three friends and we'd shoot, stand in a horseshoe. It's kind of like you're shooting clay pigeons or skit if you know what that is. yeah and they just go running out of the holes and you get time to shoot them and then reload it was a ton of fun four good friends and four shotguns and it's just yeah that was that was a great day because it was my first infestation too that yeah yeah I had just started being mentored by my predecessor so it was pretty exciting that I actually got to go out and see rats on my first day that was about three years ago When Karen talks about what was so great about this, she says the sentence you cannot imagine a New Yorker uttering in the same tone of voice.

I actually got to see live rats. I told Jory I was worried that people would hear his glee over shooting rats and think he's a monster. He said it was actually a quicker death than poison. Probably goes painful. Of course, if you truly want to keep Alberta rat free, you can't just patrol the border. Stray rats can hitch a ride in a truck or a car and land in Calgary or Edmonton. or one of the other big cities or towns in the middle of the province. When that happens, and it does happen,

Albertans are supposed to notify Karen's office. There used to be a phone number you could call if you spot a rat, dead or alive, anywhere in the province. But Karen has streamlined the process by creating an email address so people could just shoot a photo of the suspect critter and send it to her. Back in the truck, she pulled out her phone and opened an email folder overfilled with hundreds of rodent pigs. I got a couple on Friday, a couple on Thursday.

So this photo here, this is pretty typical. I have, I know right away when I look at it, it is a musk rat. A muskrat is not a rat. It's bigger, puffier. But Karen says she faces a funny problem from Albertans reporting rats. Albertans don't know. If you've lived in Alberta your whole life, you've never seen a rat. So identifying it is pretty hard.

In 2023, of the 449 reports, that Karen got, only 23 were rats. The official stats actually list the others as non-rats. Sometimes, of course, people do bring in rats intentionally to the province as pets. But in Alberta, that is breaking the law. And now and then, Albertans will drop a dime of rat pet owners, even on people they know. To me, like, sometimes it can be a bad breakup. And this has happened.

And, yeah, so people have been... rat it out to me. In this case, it was an ex-boyfriend who ratted out his ex. She was not happy about this. Karen did what she does in these cases. She gives you a week to find your rat at home in another province. If you don't succeed, they euthanize your pet. Whenever anybody tries to estimate how much money Alberta saves by having no rats,

the numbers are in the tens of millions. That's crops that weren't eaten, an infrastructure that wasn't degraded. And the cost each year to keep rats out of Alberta? Shockingly low. Roughly $380,000, which is less than the price of one New York City garbage truck. The low cost, and Alberta's success of keeping out rats, is partly thanks to some lucky geography, Karen says. Namely, they only have to patrol one border.

Rats don't come in from the west because there are mountains, and rats apparently don't cross mountains. They don't come up from the U.S. because Karen says it's too far between food sources. And then it'll come down from the north because it's too cold for rats up there. Okay, so the humans of Alberta have banded together in a civic-minded mission that no other members of our species have been as successful at. I was very interested to find out, is that a big deal to Albertans? Do they feel a sense of achievement?

Do they feel a sense of pride about that? My producer, Ella, and I, approached Albertans on a drizzly day outside a compound full of animals that they do allow into the province. We were at the zoo. No, there's no rat exhibit. We checked. And we asked everybody to name the things

that make Alberta special and different. wondering how many of them would mention their epic ratlessness. Here's what they said. The national parks. Cost to live in. The scenic roots are much. much more closer than you think.

Diversity lately. Gas prices. This is a land of oil and gas, I guess. Notice what nobody's mentioning. The wildlife. There's all the lakes and all the royal forest to the north. The mountains. Mountains.

Ooh, the Rocky Mountains for sure. We talked to a few dozen people. Not one mentioned rats. So the reason why I'm asking is because do you know about the rat situation in Alberta? Nope. There is no rat situation. Say more.

I don't know. They've kept them out. They've had policies to keep them out ever since I can remember. So there are no rats. I take it from this conversation. That isn't like a point of pride or something. No rats?

Yeah. No. No. Not really. Honestly, I literally hadn't thought about it until you brought it up just now. Lots of people said, they knew there were no rats.

They're glad about it. But it is not a point of pride. This is the thing. If something is not around, You don't think about it. As one teenager put it. That's like thinking why there's no giraffs walking around here. Like, it's just kind of normal to us.

Also, it turns out life in Alberta is not so different from life in the rat-filled rest of human civilization because Alberta has its own share of pests. In fact, as we stood there outside the zoo, an animal ran by us on the grass. And the family we were talking to was like, Oh, yeah. Gophers. They're everywhere. You see them a lot. We probably have as many groundhogs and prairie dogs as New York has rats.

Out in the rat control zone on the border, Karen and Jury confirmed that of all the pests they have in the province, mice, muskrats, wild feral pigs. The worst one is gophers. Anyway, that's what everybody calls them, gophers. But as Karen points out, they're actually Richardson ground squirrels. You could call it the menace out here. There's a war against gophers, for sure. There's an extreme war against gophers. So in your farm, do you have to put out poisons for the gophers?

Yeah, or else you have to be like my dad and shoot a few hundred a day. Or else they'll do, like, we still don't have them under control. There's just thousands you could sit in one spot all day and shoot gophers without moving. And then there's just holes and it makes your field rough. and bouncy and messy and they'll eat your grain. They're terrible. I hate them. I bet my dad has shot probably 2,000 gophers already this season.

Like, any time he's not too busy working, that's what he goes and does. So wait, so but then you're out here. keeping the rats out, but you have this other pest that's just as bad almost. Well, yeah, this one, this one we can eradicate, and that one is too far gone. There's nothing we can do about it, really. Well, and they're native. Yeah, yeah. Whereas a Norway or roof rat is not, it's an invasive species.

I know, but just because they're Canadian, doesn't mean they're not terrible for you. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Standing there in the rat control zone, Karen did try to make the case that rats are way worse than gophers. Gophers don't move into a house or grain bin and leave their pee and poo. They don't chew their floors and do the same kinds of destruction. But in the end, what it comes down to is gophers are Canadian. So what are you going to do?

Like rats in New York, you can kill a few thousand here or there, but they're not going away. Even in a province it's done the impossible, Some things are truly impossible. So what do you guys think? You can't enter Alberta, Canada. Oh, no. Oh, so sad.

Oh, no. Hey, Rachel, oh, no, we don't get to go to Canada. Oh, don't get to eat a bunch of sloppy poutine and fart all night. Hey, you want to catch a game by the Edmonton Oilers? Okay, now it's time for Act 4. Hey, put that down. You can't eat that. Okay, so this is another story that you guys organized for us. Just explain what you did.

Yeah, what we did was, Rachel, you want to... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we went under the Lancy Street. Great Street. We got some microphones. We set it up in a real rat's nest. So this is going to be a real treat for you. You don't get to hear this very much.

You know, we're very private inside the rat's nest. For those of you who like film, this is called Verite. This is real rats talking real issues. Talk about that real rat, real rat, real rat, yes. Real rat rat, real rat, real rat rat. No, no, I have actually heard this recording on just an important fact for our human listeners to know before we play this. I should tell you rat litters, they discuss rat litters, or about a dozen pups. And this is also important to know male rats sometimes eat baby rats.

And when they've studied this with lab rats, they've found that the males are less likely to eat their own babies. Isn't that right, you guys? Exactly. Hey, it depends on how much you like the kid. Look, and it's a cold world, but, you know, we have a lot of babies for a reason, all right? You're going to lose a few. You're going to keep a bunch, you know? You're going to eat a few.

Okay, so another thing, and this is kind of out there, scientists have theorized that female rats might choose to mate with lots of males to protect their own pups from being eaten. So as best we can tell, no studies have tested that yet. Okay, anything else you guys think we need to say to set this up? No, just roll the tape, all right? Quick warning, the story acknowledges that existence of sex between mammals. Okay, so this is a conversation between mammals. rats.

Jerry. Yeah. I have amazing news. Okay. I'm pregnant. No way. Yeah. And you're sure it's mine?

Absolutely. 100% sharp. Absolutely. Because you do it, you know, as we all know. Yes, no, I did have sex with every other male rat here, but absolutely. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

So you're not going to eat them. Yeah. Because they're yours. Yeah, probably not. I probably won't eat them yet. Okay. Especially if there's, you know, an abundance of food scraps and garbage. If I'm full, I definitely won't eat them.

Okay. And even if I'm not full, I probably won't eat them. Because they're yours, baby. Yeah. This is the happiest news. I would say that there's a slim chance I would eat more than a couple of these babies. But I'm so psyched. I don't want to be a monster here, but Gina had...

Some babies if you're feeling a little peckish. That's interesting. Probably. I don't... Gina's baby... Gina's babies probably wouldn't hit the spot, you know? Really? Gina's so tempestuous.

She can get so emotional. Oh, okay. So you know that about Gina really well then. I'm just saying I probably wouldn't want to eat Gina's babies. Well, okay. Are they only Gina's babies? babies? Are they... I don't know. Are they all little Jesus mice?

Unless Gina is having an immaculate conception baby. It's definitely hers and someone else's. No, I assume they were Ralph's. Yeah, I assume so, too. Well, then why aren't you eating them? I don't know. Something instinctively... Ooh. Ooh.

Listen. These aren't even yours. There, I said it. These aren't even yours. That's why I want to eat them so bad. I mean, you have to give me credit. I promise not to eat more than one-six of those babies when we both kind of instinctively knew they weren't mine.

Oh, you keep your promises. Hey, I'm sorry it didn't work out. You're a great partner. But I guess things bounced the wrong way. I guess I am pregnant a Gina. I didn't mean to do it. I can see your nose twitching just when you say her name. I know.

I should have known her beady little eyes when she told me she was pregnant. Well, once a rat, always a rat. Shout out to our friends, Jerry and Louise. Manuel Joachy produced that story. We're living in the sewer, in the baby's crib, down in the alley, back on where you live. You rest, we are the rest. For our program was produced today by Diane Wu and Ike Street's Kanda Raja. show was produced by Valerie Kipnis.

Hello, Mustafa, produced our story from Alberta. The people who put together our show today include Fia Bennett, Mike Comite, Aviva to Cornfield, Bethel Hoppe, Cassie Halle, Seth Lynn, Tobin Lowstone, Nelson, Catherine Raimondo, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rummary, Alyssa Schip, Alice Spiegel, Christopher Swatala, and Matt Tierney. Our managing editor is Sarah Abduraman. Our senior editor is David Kestimbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry.

Help on today's rerun from Suzanne Gabber. Today show was our broadcast in 2023. Since then, Darnese, who you heard at the beginning of the show, Cesar Landlord did send a guy who cleaned up the trash and took care of the rats. Todd, the single guy who was trying to get rid of his rats, finally did succeed in doing that. Still my girlfriend. And he says he absolutely would get another rat if the opportunity presented itself. Special thanks today to...

Rat disease expert, Katie Byers, from the Vancouver Rat Project. Robin Nagel. Ben Miller. Kim McCawson. Morifish Gerald at the Archives at Yale University Library. James Edwards. Kate Smott. Billy Lamb.

And Curtis Sherrod. And now, in real life, you guys are Bashir Salahuddin and Chandra Russell. You guys, let's hear your real voices. Hello. Hello. Hey, everybody. So, and people can see you on the TV show, Southside on Max. Bashir, you're also in the film, What Freedom?

And, Chandra, you're in the film Paper Bag Plan. That's right? Oh, mm-hmm. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having us. Seriously, man. This is awesome. Yes.

The red improv in our last story was Chris Getherd and Tammy Sager. He's the host of the podcast, Beautiful Anonymous. Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia. You know, he bought a new briefcase this week. Brother, they didn't want cowhide, didn't want snake skin. Very specific with the salesperson.

They went back and forth. Talk about that real rat, real rat, real rat, real rat. Yes, little rat, rat, real rat, rat. I'm not heard of glass. Back next week with more stories of this. American life.