Weekend Edition: Anatomy of a (Dead) Pest
The Supreme Aglet will continue to combine the Saturday and Sunday editions of The Supreme Aglet into a single weekend edition with a weekend-filling thought to ponder.
The thought for this week:
Why are there such things as live rat traps?
The recent tangle with rats in my garage, along with the various strategies employed to ending their presence there, has given me pause to think about the whole concept of live rat traps.
Rats are pests, just like cockroaches are pests. Rats are arguably more dangerous than other kinds of pests because of the diseases they can carry, the fact that they have teeth, and because of the damage they can cause to your property.
So why live rat traps? If you're of the persuasion that prefers to address a rat problem by procuring live traps, then would you just as easily purchase live cockroach traps if such things existed?
(A quick Google search reveals that you can actually buy such a thing; but I'm talking about the existence of goods outside of those intended to profit from fringe kooks. If I have offended anyone who actually does buy live cockroach traps, then I apologize for you being a kook.)
Walk in to a Home Depot, ask one of the friendly folks where they keep their humane cockroach traps, and you'll likely be directed to the aisle with the flying pigs.
The notion of catch-and-release cockroach traps is ludicrous, yet the same Home Depot store will likely stock more catch-and-release rat and mouse traps than boxes of rat poison.
Why do you suppose this is? Would it be different if cockroaches were cute? Perhaps if Hollywood would just give us a movie like An American Tail--replacing the cute little rodent with a cuddly little cockroach who gets separated from his family--maybe then the idea of live cockroach traps will make its way from the kook fringe to the mainstream. Yeah, there's some money there.
Fellow Agleteers, I'm as much an animal lover as the next guy, but sparing the life of a rat is not a fair exchange for the prospect of bringing disease into my house or damaging my property. Especially my cars. Kill the rats. Save my cars. Hug a cockroach, and the world of the Supreme Aglet is once again in perfect balance.
The thought for this week:
Why are there such things as live rat traps?
The recent tangle with rats in my garage, along with the various strategies employed to ending their presence there, has given me pause to think about the whole concept of live rat traps.
Rats are pests, just like cockroaches are pests. Rats are arguably more dangerous than other kinds of pests because of the diseases they can carry, the fact that they have teeth, and because of the damage they can cause to your property.
So why live rat traps? If you're of the persuasion that prefers to address a rat problem by procuring live traps, then would you just as easily purchase live cockroach traps if such things existed?
(A quick Google search reveals that you can actually buy such a thing; but I'm talking about the existence of goods outside of those intended to profit from fringe kooks. If I have offended anyone who actually does buy live cockroach traps, then I apologize for you being a kook.)
Walk in to a Home Depot, ask one of the friendly folks where they keep their humane cockroach traps, and you'll likely be directed to the aisle with the flying pigs.
The notion of catch-and-release cockroach traps is ludicrous, yet the same Home Depot store will likely stock more catch-and-release rat and mouse traps than boxes of rat poison.
Why do you suppose this is? Would it be different if cockroaches were cute? Perhaps if Hollywood would just give us a movie like An American Tail--replacing the cute little rodent with a cuddly little cockroach who gets separated from his family--maybe then the idea of live cockroach traps will make its way from the kook fringe to the mainstream. Yeah, there's some money there.
Fellow Agleteers, I'm as much an animal lover as the next guy, but sparing the life of a rat is not a fair exchange for the prospect of bringing disease into my house or damaging my property. Especially my cars. Kill the rats. Save my cars. Hug a cockroach, and the world of the Supreme Aglet is once again in perfect balance.
posted by The Supreme Aglet at 9:50 AM
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