PETA Billboard Blames ‘Rich Pests’ for Baltimore’s Rodent Problem: Offers Tips

For Immediate Release:
July 31, 2019

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Following reports that Jared Kushner owns several apartment buildings inhabited by rodents in Baltimore, which President Donald Trump recently called a “rat and rodent infested mess,” PETA plans to place a billboard in the city that drives home the difference between a “rich pest” and a poor fella just trying to survive on crumbs.

Below, please find a statement from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk:

It’s a landlord’s responsibility to rodent-proof buildings humanely by providing sturdy trash containers, clearing overgrown weeds, and sealing the holes that hungry little visitors use in their search for the delicious food that they can smell cooking. If over-privileged landlords neglect humane rodent control, renters pay a price and rodents—who are smart animals and good mothers and who can certainly suffer—pay the highest price of all: being killed for just trying to survive.

PETA offers the following tips for humane rodent control:

• Johns Hopkins University researchers who studied rat populations concluded that the only way to control the population effectively is to reduce the amount of food, water, and shelter available. Maryland law states that removal of animals must “employ the most humane method” available.
• Put all food and garbage in sturdy, well-sealed containers that rats can’t chew through, and feed animal companions indoors (and pick up the dishes when they’ve finished eating).
• Trim back vegetation around buildings, stack wood in tight piles away from the house, and seal holes larger than a quarter inch in diameter, cracks in the walls and floors, and gaps around doors, windows, and plumbing.
• After rat-proofing the building, live-trap and remove any rats still inside. Use a commercially available Havahart trap or make your own. Check the trap hourly, and release any captured rats within 100 yards of where they were caught.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on humane rodent control, please click here.

Note: PETA supports animal rights and opposes all forms of animal exploitation and educates the public on those issues. PETA does not directly or indirectly participate or intervene in any political campaign in support of or in opposition to any candidate for public office or any political party.