801: Must Be Rats on the Brain

Ira Glass

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life.

Ira Glass

We're at a press conference in a park in Harlem for New York's Mayor Adams in April.

Ira Glass

This event was to introduce New Yorkers to their brand new rat czar. This is a position the mayor created, and 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."

New York's mayor is not popular. He's got huge disapproval ratings on crime and homelessness. Fewer than half of all New Yorkers like the way he's doing his job. So when the mayor talks rats, it's with the joy of a dad whose kids don't want any of the dinner he's cooked them, who, finally, at dessert, gets to hand them massive hot fudge sundaes. He's made it a big issue.

Ira Glass

This is the kind of cutthroat swagger in a lot of the remarks this day. Next to the podium is a table with all kinds of gear for shooting, poisoning, and trapping rats. Soon, the new rat czar, Kathy Corradi, takes the stage. And if zingers could kill rodents, well, New York's in good hands.

Ira Glass

Fully keeping with the giddy mood of the day, the rat czar's parents are there, kvelling 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.

Reggie

Wow. That is strong. [LAUGHS]

Rachel

And not true!

Reggie

Nah.

Rachel

Not true!

Reggie

Everybody don't hate rats.

Ira Glass

OK, 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 this 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, you guys. So let me push this mic a little closer to you there on the floor.

Reggie

Too far away, hey. Alrighty. 1, 2, 1, 2.

Ira Glass

All right, you want to introduce yourselves?

Reggie

Yeah, I'm Reggie.

Rachel

I'm Rachel.

Reggie

We are rodents. Yeah, we're the rodent class. We are rats.

Ira Glass

Can I ask you guys, like, what do you make of this press conference and the mayor appointing a rat czar and announcing rats as his mission? He's going to kill rats.

Reggie

Look, if I had made the same budget cuts that that guy was pitching, I'd also be trying to throw a little smoke and mirrors in the air.

Rachel

A little confusion.

Reggie

A little confusion, a little bit of--

Rachel

A little confusion.

Ira Glass

So you're saying it's just a distraction?

Reggie

Of course it's a distraction.

Rachel

Absolutely.

Reggie

I mean, look, who's going to--

Rachel

Who's going to fight back?

Reggie

Who's going to fight back against that?

Rachel

We're easy. We're small.

Reggie

But we're resilient.

Rachel

Yeah, we got the numbers. We got the numbers.

Ira Glass

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, the best guess we could find from anybody who's just millions of rats. That's all they can say.

Reggie

Hey, millions so far. [LAUGHS]

Rachel

We're growing every day.

Ira Glass

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.

Reggie

And that's what you see. The future's female. The future's rat.

Rachel

The future's rat.

Reggie

Let's go!

[LAUGHTER]

Ira Glass

Can I ask you guys, do you see anything in the other side's arguments? Do you see anything in why people find you to be a pest and frightening?

Rachel

All right, every once and again, a kid gets bit. OK.

Ira Glass

Well, actually, the last year that we have stats for, 100 New Yorkers got bit by rats.

Reggie

Yeah, but how many--

Rachel

And you said it's 8 million. What is that? That's nothing.

Reggie

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 keeping Manhattan unaffordable. And yet, somehow, oh, rats are evil.

Ira Glass

Yeah, well, let me give you guys the human point of view on this, OK? 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. Her name is Darneice Foster. She lives just a couple of 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 coworker, Valerie Kipnis. Told her that she's lived on 138th Street since the '90s. And they never used to have a rat problem until the pandemic.

Ira Glass

So Valerie and I headed to her block on garbage pickup day and met up with Darneice 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 trees. It was a perfect spring morning. And as we stood there on the sidewalk, yes, even with the sun shining, there in plain day--

[CLATTER]

Ira Glass

--a rat.

Ira Glass

I walk over to a big plastic trash bin and look inside.

[EXCLAIMING]

There was a rat chewing through a bag.

[RUSTLING]

That sound was the rat. Darneice says that it's not just a general kind of post-pandemic surge that's led to all the rats on her particular block. The neighborhood has been gentrifying. One house a couple of doors down sold for $2 and 1/2 million. Others aren't far behind. Darneice rents in one of the only apartment buildings on the block. And she says 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.

Ira Glass

In New York City, rats are just a pawn in the much bigger clash that is New York real estate. We did reach out to the landlord-- his name is Hamad Ali-- to ask him if he's trying to drive out Darneice and the other last tenants in the building and letting rats to fester as part of that. But he didn't return our calls or texts or our emails.

Ira Glass

When rats scamper by, they seem to completely unnerve Darneice. 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 sons, Micah and Amir, they're 9 and 12, both perfectly happy to be late for school to talk rats. Each new rat we see, they're like, yeah, sure. Whatever.

Ira Glass

The boys spot this one up the block and show Valerie.

Ira Glass

I told Darneice 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 scientist told me that the bigger problem with rats is the very thing that Darneice is experiencing-- the stress, feeling of everything being out of control when rats are there.

Ira Glass

Well, today, on our program, rats. When rats show up, it is all about the rats. You can't think 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-hosts for the hour today are Reggie and Rachel, New York City rats. You guys have anything you want to say about Darneice's situation? You think she's wrong to be scared?

Reggie

No, no, she's speaking the truth.

Rachel

Yeah, yeah, yes, it's scary. But you know what? I think the fact that we're being blamed for being a bunch of Beyonces is outrageous, right? When we step in the room, all eyes on us.

Ira Glass

Yeah.

Rachel

All eyes. We're special.

Reggie

Woo! Buzz.

Rachel

Right? You know?

Reggie

Valid. Excuse us for shining. Sorry.

Ira Glass

Rats, you may think you know them. You may think you have nothing to learn. We have stories today I think will open your eyes. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

OK, so we're going to start today's show with the story that you guys commissioned as our co-hosts today.

Reggie

Mm-hmm.

Rachel

Yep, because there's the lie, and there's the rat truth. That's why we're here, to tell our story.

Reggie

Which is why we got this next story for you.

Rachel

Act 1, Fifty First 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.

Reggie

Love us to death.

Rachel

Who see us for who we really are.

Reggie

For more, we go to NPR's Elna Baker.

Ira Glass

Actually, she's not with NPR.

Reggie

Oh, my god. Copy that. For more on this, we go to our very own Elna Baker.

Elna Baker

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 LA. 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?

Elna Baker

Todd put on a pair of gloves, picked up the rat, put it in a box, did the ickey dance, then went upstairs.

Elna Baker

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.

Elna Baker

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 it 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.

Elna Baker

She tells him about another rodent rescue where he can get even more rats. Todd says--

Actually, it was 37. There's Claude, Pearl, Arthur, Marceaux, Birdi, Lucy, Henry, Bobby, Caesar, Leonard, Oliver, Harriet, Luke, Amanda, Julian, Roger, Ricky, Bo, Penelope, Sweet Lou, Dave, Kelsey, Alonzo, Ebenezer, Eddie, Beth, Sven, Ozmo, Jake, Delilah, Klaus, Alasdair, 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 OK? Like, is he having a breakdown or anything? And the answer is, emphatically, no, he's fine. But he'd 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 skeeves 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 hooked Todd. He observed--

Elna Baker

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 door. 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.

Elna Baker

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.

Elna Baker

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.

Elna Baker

The idea of Todd being groomed by rats brings me back to his predicament.

Elna Baker

They were in his car on the way home. Todd turns to the woman and says--

Elna Baker

He takes her back to her car, and they never see each other again.

Elna Baker

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 LA rat groups.

Elna Baker

Todd told me he was planning on getting rid of all of his rats within a month.

Elna Baker

Since Todd 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.

Elna Baker

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.

Elna Baker

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.

Rachel

Elna Baker, she's a producer on this show and a real one to us rats. Coming up.

Ira Glass

No country for old rats. We visit a vast place that has somehow gotten rid of rats.

Rachel

That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio.

Reggie

When our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, "Must Be Rats on the Brain." My co-hosts today, New York street rats Reggie and Rachel.

Rachel

Hello.

Reggie

Hey, hey. How's it going?

Rachel

We're here.

Ira Glass

Oh, you guys. Welcome back to the second half. We have arrived at Act Two of our program. Act Two, "The Big Bag Theory."

So the Mayor of New York and his new rat czar have declared this renewed war on rats that we talked about at the beginning of the show, this war that's supposedly going to be way more effective and lethal. But one thing about the entire project that's seems kind of absurd is that one big reason that there are so many rats is just really obvious. It's just completely out in the open, not complicated at all.

Reggie

That's right. Yeah, right, it's racism. Oh, no, I'm sorry. No, it's plastic bags. Yeah, excuse me.

Rachel

The bags.

Reggie

Excuse me.

Ira Glass

Yeah, the plastic bags. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the plastic. 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.

Reggie

It's like a buffet on every block. And you're saying, oh, no, don't eat the buffet food.

Ira Glass

And is it very hard tearing into a plastic garbage bag?

[LAUGHTER]

Rachel

No.

Reggie

Is it hard to walk?

Ira Glass

All right, all right, point taken. OK, so why, why, why would the biggest city in the country decide to do something so absurd and counterproductive? One of our producers, Ike Sriskandarajah, looked into that.

Ike Sriskandarajah

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--

Ike Sriskandarajah

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.

Ike Sriskandarajah

Even the students in Pest Control 101 could tell what would happen.

Ike Sriskandarajah

Bobby thinks back on this moment often. In The Terminator version of this movie, which would be called Exterminator, the human survivors of New Rat City would send Bobby back to dive in front of the podium and knock the bag out of Mayor Lindsay's hand.

Ike Sriskandarajah

He calls this "the Big Bang Theory," or "the Big Bag Theory," because he's funny. Right before the bags in 1969, another respected rodentologist named Joe Brooks did a survey and found that rats were only in 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 Kretchmer 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 ratpocalypse?

Ike Sriskandarajah

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. Bagmakers 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 the 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.

Now it's 2023.

Ike Sriskandarajah

That, of course, is Mayor Eric Adams. And the big thing he and his new rat czar 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 sideloading 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?

Ike Sriskandarajah

It was mixed, pretty much split. Humans are a house divided. Rats, they're united. They know what they need to do. And that's why they're winning.

Ira Glass

Ike Sriskandarajah, he's a producer on our show.

Reggie

Act 3, Alberta? More like "Al-mur-dah" a lot of rats!

Ira Glass

All right, so nearly everywhere there are people, there are rats. They thrive living off our agriculture and our garbage. They've followed us wherever we've settled.

Rachel

We followed you? Some nerve!

Reggie

[LAUGHS] Hey, hey, he's the main character.

Ira Glass

[LAUGHS] So you're saying it's more of a partnership.

Rachel

Absolutely.

Reggie

Come on.

Ira Glass

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?

Reggie

That's right, Mongolia and then got to Europe.

Rachel

And then we got on the boats and just headed out to everywhere. Everywhere Europeans went, the rats went.

Ira Glass

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 at completely-- they have no rats. How is that possible? How did they do it?

Ira Glass

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. Jory's 29, straight-talking guy who volunteers at the fire department and small town events in a T-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap. His feelings about this line of work are uncomplicated.

Ira Glass

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 Wickerson, who runs Alberta's rat control program. She explains that Alberta's campaign against rats began decades ago.

If you picture for a second, OK, 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, then Manitoba province. Karen says they reached the Saskatchewan province surprisingly not that long ago, around 1920.

Ira Glass

That day came in 1950. People in Alberta would cross the border to Saskatchewan and saw that rats were infiltrating farms and eating crops. Alberta is a big agricultural province, and Albertans were like, nope, we don't want the rats.

Ira Glass

They also 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. Jory's on 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.

Ira Glass

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 the farmer wants to set ablaze and get rid of. There's dead trees, barbed wire fencing, cow bones.

Ira Glass

We spot dozens of other holes, big and small, but no signs of life. No rat feces or food by the holes. Jory concludes there are probably no rats here, and we go on to 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--

Ira Glass

This is the 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 that in a second-- just two to five infestations in over 300 miles of border.

One thing that helps them keep the numbers low-- I thought this was interesting-- was the death of the family farm. In Canada, just like in the US, so many small farmers have gone out of business over the last half century. 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.

Ira Glass

You get a sense of just how monotonous Jory's job usually is when he talks about the last big infestation he cleaned out. It's especially memorable because instead of using poison, which is the normal way they handle it, the landowner is the one who discovered the rats. They told Jory, why don't you come out and bring a shotgun?

Ira Glass

That was about three years ago. When Karen talks about what was so great about this, she says a sentence you cannot imagine a New Yorker uttering in the same tone of voice.

Ira Glass

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 less 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 on 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 streamlined the process by creating an email address, so people can 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 pics.

Ira Glass

A muskrat is not a rat. It's bigger, puffier. But Karen says she faces a funny problem from Albertans reporting rats.

Ira Glass

Last year, of the 408 reports that Karen got, only 27 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 on rat pet owners, even on people they know.

Ira Glass

And this case 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 a 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 and infrastructure that wasn't degraded. The cost each year to keep rats out of Alberta? Shockingly low-- roughly $270,000 American, which is about half the price of one New York City garbage truck.

The low cost and Alberta's success at 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. Rats apparently don't cross mountains. They don't come up from the US because Karen says it's too far between food sources. And they won't come down from the north because it's too cold for rats up there.

OK, 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, Alaa, 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.

Ira Glass

Notice what nobody's mentioning?

Ira Glass

We talked to a few dozen people. Not one mentioned rats.

Ira Glass

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. When something is not around, you don't think about it. As one teenager put it--

Ira Glass

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.

Ira Glass

Out in the rat control zone, on the border, Karen and Jory 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.

Ira Glass

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 through 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 that's done the impossible, some things are truly impossible.

So what do you guys think? You can't enter Alberta, Canada.

Reggie

Oh, no.

Rachel

Oh, so sad.

Reggie

Oh, no. Hey, Rachel. Oh, no, we don't get to go to Canada.

Rachel

Oh, don't get to eat a bunch of sloppy poutine and fart all night.

Reggie

Hey, you want to catch a game by the Edmonton Oilers?

Reggie

OK, now it's time for Act Four, "Hey, Put That Down. You Can't Eat That."

Ira Glass

OK, so this is another story that you guys organized for us. Just explain what you did.

Reggie

Yeah, what we did was-- Rachel, you want to talk a little--

Rachel

Yeah, yeah, so we went under Delancey Street.

Reggie

Great street.

Rachel

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. We're very private inside the rat's nest.

Reggie

So those of you who like film, this is called verite.

Rachel

This is real rats talking real issues.

Reggie

Talk about that real rat.

Rachel

Real rat.

Reggie

Real rat, yes.

Rachel

Real rat rat.

Reggie

Real real rat rat.

Ira Glass

Now, now, I have actually heard this recording, and just an important fact for our human listeners to know before we play this. I should tell you, rat litters, rat litters are 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 found that the males are less likely to eat their own babies. Isn't that right, you guys?

Reggie

Exactly. Hey, it depends on how much you like the kid.

Rachel

Look, and it's a cold world, but 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?

Reggie

You're gonna eat a few.

Ira Glass

OK, so another thing-- 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, though as best we can tell, no studies have tested that yet. OK, anything else you guys think we need to say to set this up?

Rachel

No, just roll the tape, all right?

Reggie

Quick warning, this story acknowledges the existence of sex between mammals.

Ira Glass

OK, so this is a conversation between rats.

Rachel

Shout out to our friends, Jerry and Louise.

Reggie

Emmanuel Dzotsi produced that story.

["WE ARE THE RATS" BY MOTO]

Ira Glass

Our program was produced today by Diane Wu and Ike Sriskandarajah.

Rachel

The top of the show was produced by Valerie Kipnis.

Reggie

Alaa Mostafa produced our story from Alberta.

Ira Glass

The people who put together our show today include Phia Bennin, Mike Comite, Aviva Kornfeld, Bethel Habte, Cassie Howley, Seth Lind, Tobin Low, Stowe Nelson, Katherine Rae Mondo, Nadia Reiman, Ryan Rumery, Alissa Shipp, Alix Spiegel, Christopher Swetala, and Matt Tierney. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor, David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor, Emanuele Berry.

Rachel

Special thanks today to--

Reggie

Rat disease expert Kaylee Byers from the Vancouver Rat Project.

Rachel

Robin Nagle.

Reggie

Ben Miller.

Rachel

Ken McCarson.

Reggie

Moira Fitzgerald at the Archives at Yale University Library.

Rachel

James Edwards.

Reggie

Kate Smart.

Rachel

Lilly Lam.

Reggie

And Curtis Sherrod.

Ira Glass

And now in real life, you guys are Bashir Salahuddin and Chandra Russell. You guys, let's hear your real voices. Hello.

Chandra Russell

Hello.

Bashir Salahuddin

Hey, everybody.

Ira Glass

So and people can see you on the TV show South Side on Max. Chandra, you were one of the hosts of the podcast, Unglamorous Truth, that's right?

Chandra Russell

Yep, mm-hmm.

Bashir Salahuddin

Ow!

Ira Glass

Thank you so much for doing this.

Chandra Russell

Thank you for having us.

Bashir Salahuddin

Thank you for having us. Seriously, man. This is awesome.

Chandra Russell

Yes.

Bashir Salahuddin

The rat improv in our last story was Chris Gethard and Tami Sager.

Chandra Russell

He's the host of the podcast, Beautiful Anonymous.

Ira Glass

Chris and Tami do an improv show together once a month at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective. Our website, thisamericanlife.org.

Chandra Russell

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

Ira Glass

You guys, let me take the end of the show. Matt and Stowe and Rae, can you turn me into a rat for this last part?

[WARPING EFFECT]

Wow, everything is so big. Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia. He bought a new leather briefcase this week, but no, he didn't want cowhide, he didn't want snakeskin. He was very specific with the salesperson. They went back and forth.

Reggie

Talk about that real rat.

Rachel

Real rat.

Reggie

Real rat, yes.

Rachel

Real rat rat.

Reggie

Real real rat rat.

Ira Glass

I love the way this sounds. We should do this in a rat voice every week. And maybe we will, when we come back with more stories of This American Life.

["WE ARE THE RATS" BY MOTO]