Living With Thousands Of Rats

#1 Dogs Inn Animal Shelter

The owner of The Dogs Inn animal shelter was forced to call in exterminators when she noticed a small problem with rats at her home and adjoining business.

#2 She Fed One Rat

She is an avid animal rights activist and goes out of her way to make room at her small shop for any stray or injured animal she can. Housing several dogs, cats, birds and even a goat, at her Fort Lauderdale, FL business, she made a big mistake by feeding a rat she saw rummaging through the cats food bowl. That was five months ago.

#3 A Very Big Problem

When the exterminators arrived at the home and shop they brought a team of four men to assist as she had explained to them that there were several large rats she could not get rid of. Upon inspection, the problem was much worse than she had led them to believe. The men could not believe what they were seeing, hearing and smelling.

#4 The Odor Was Nauseating

"I guess they smell but I don thave any sense of smell myself," the woman tells the exterminators when they nearly gag on the foul odor and sight of nearly thousands of rats in the pantry. So she couldn't smell them but surely she must have seen them.

#5 Rats Everywhere

They were everywhere. Some tried to scurry away through large holes they have chewed in the flooring and walls, but others just sat still as though they belonged there. One exterminator comments that "They don't even care that we're here. This is an infestation that you must have noticed before this week."

#6 Feces And Waste Made The Exterminators Sick

Behind a makeshift cupboard and wall, they discovered a nest of hundreds of the filthy rodents. There was feces and waste all through the entire building and they even noted that there were newborns being nursed in the corner of the room. "This is the worst thing I have ever seen in my 32 years on the job," one exterminator said as he began coughing and holding back his own vomit because of the stench and putrid condition of the establishment.

#7 They Began The Extermination

All of the shelter animals were carried away by the Humane Society as they began to try and clean up the infestation. They laid over 850 traps and poison pellets in just 2 rooms of the shelter alone, and another 900 in the owners home and patio area. They waited 36 hours.

#8 Maggots And Feces Filled The Kitchen

When the crew returned they inspected the cupboards in the kitchen first and found nothing but piles and piles of waste, feces, maggots, and flies. The business owner was touching everything with her bare hands and wore no face covering even after the exterminators told her she had to by law and for her own health. They hoped they had begun to rid the premises of the disease carrying vermin.

#9 SURPRISE

They went outside of the business and noticed thousands of tiny glowing eyes peering at them from the top of her own home. The roof and the tree limbs were crawling with even more rats than they had noticed just two days before, and they were on the move. Some scurried down through holes in the roof and others walked calmly to find food.

"The cats don't even bother with them because they are so big," the woman told the exterminators as two stray cats wandered through the area.

#10 Looking For Food

Going back inside the shelter they discovered the rats had not moved out or died off at all. They were foraging for food in the drawers, in the dogs pen, and even inside of a microwave, where they noted two rats were eating one of their own.

"Now do you believe I have a rat problem?" The shelter owner asked the crew.

#11 Demolished

Deciding that there was no way to overcome the problem, the team called in the city of Fort Lauderdale to assist them. After three weeks of wasting money on extermination, the city instead flew over the property with a chemical to tamper the rats in place before they had the fire department do a controlled burn. The shelter and the home were burned to the ground and the remaining structure was demolished and carted off to a dump site.