The White House’s biggest rats surely have stories to tell.
Too bad they’re being killed off.
Outside the executive mansion, traps have been set up to poison not the leakers who seem so willing to spill Donald Trump’s secrets, but the literal animals that have taken over Washington.
Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs noticed the black boxes, set up amid an absurd rodent surge throughout the capital city, and tweeted photos Thursday:
RAT TRAPS.
Multiple black box rat stations set up at White House. pic.twitter.com/1Wckyvgtiw [1]— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 11, 2019 [2]
Rat talk really ramped up in December, when Fox News’ John Roberts tweeted about a “big brown rat” scurrying near his foot on the White House’s North Lawn.
It soon became clear that the rodents were ubiquitous in the D.C. swamp, with rat complaints to city government hitting an all-time high in 2017. The city allocated an additional $906,000 to tackle the problem starting in January, but the White House, it seems, went for the taxpayer-friendly option.
Twitter had some thoughts:
They can just tell Eric not to visit
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) April 11, 2019 [3]
Trump's building in NYC was rat infested too. https://t.co/Mp3vTThSKa [4]
— Tim Hogan (@TimInHonolulu) April 11, 2019 [5]
Let's hope they have extra-large ones. https://t.co/o8AopLv8Tg [6]
— Jess Phoenix ???? (@jessphoenix2018) April 11, 2019 [7]
the rats are inside the house https://t.co/v9rbw1HIra [8]
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) April 11, 2019 [9]
you're gonna need a bigger trap. https://t.co/RDgmSMJWQb [10]
— Jake Maccoby (@jdmaccoby) April 11, 2019 [11]
Not big enough to catch the King Rat https://t.co/tUuYDrO2Yy [12]
— Red™️ (@Redpainter1) April 11, 2019 [13]
They're keeping Stephen Miller inside as a precautionary measure https://t.co/nEFSltcsNW [14]
— Apparent Steve (@Steverocks35) April 11, 2019 [15]
Those are too small for the rats we want to catch. https://t.co/SQyCOozjkL [16]
— drolkrad (@drolkrad_ehT) April 11, 2019 [17]
Yeah, you're gonna need a much larger box than that. https://t.co/9jFtVzlC9t [18]
— Kait Unger (@Kait_Unger) April 11, 2019 [19]