Rats may feel love in air Santa Monica to live amongst rats.
By SACKASOMETHING Daily Planet Slave
Rats have migrated to Santa Monica. The Los Angeles County Department of Health yesterday issued a warning to all residents: stay indoors and seal all openings to the outside.
Due to recent rains, the large rodents — who predominately live in the mountains — have retreated to the coastal area.
All of downtown was overrun with more than 10,000 rats and mice on Wednesday night.
“I was sleeping on a bench and it was pitch black and I all could hear was this loud scurrying,” said Seth Seatwarmer. “I flicked my lighter on and I couldn’t believe what I saw — they were crawling all over me and my stuff as they were marching down Ocean Avenue.”
Fumigators trucked in 18-wheelers full of rat poison that was to be sprayed at dawn, hoping that would wipe out the spreading population. The National Guard is setting up a 20-foot-tall perimeter at the city’s boundaries to prevent more rats from entering. The exterior side will be covered in oversized custom-made rat traps — a move that was credited to City Councilman Bobby Coniver.
If that doesn’t work, he said he’s got connections to Peter Piper, who lives somewhere in Europe.
“I’ll fly him out at my own expense if I have to,” Coniver said. “I didn’t move to “One of the most important things I have learned since I entered local politics is that the fundamental underpinning of this city is to live by the language in its city charter: ‘Santa Monica is a happy place for happy people.’ People aren’t happy with rats.”
Despite that Santa Monica is shut down and infested with rats, everything appears to be fine.
“I don’t have any information on that but I can tell you that everything is peachy in this city by the sea,” said City Hall’s public information officer Trudy Ramblinon.
There is a certain amount of urgency to the problem, as city officials are concerned that if the rats stay here too long, they might begin mating with the massive squirrel population that lives on the Palisades Bluffs.
“Can you imagine what would happen?” asked City Councilman Devon McQueen. “I have been trying to get rid of those damn squirrels for years, even with a local law which was battled out at the Supreme Court for millions of dollars of taxpayer money, and now this.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 1, 2005. Read the original PDF.