Most fingers are pointing west, toward California.... Idaho has few native rat species.... Figuring out where they came from has been a popular, if unscientific, pastime in a region undergoing substantial growth and change, much of it driven by people leaving blue West Coast states for ultrared Idaho. Newcomers have brought dizzying change to Idaho. They’ve driven state politics further to the right, added to traffic woes and helped speed the replacement of farmland with subdivisions. Now rats?...
Kaylee Byers, a public health professor at the University of British Columbia who studied the migration of the rodents in Vancouver, said... “Where you have people, you will have rats”.... The rodents, she added, “are a reflection of us.”
Top-rated comment at the NYT:
This is precious. Right wing extremists leave California (thank you) and move to Idaho, where local right wing extremists blame them for bringing rats to Idaho (while it’s possible that right wing immigrants from CA brought the their vermin with them, it’s far more likely that regional agricultural operations brought them, and local agricultural infrastructure is sustaining them). And the thing these right wing extremists have in common is that they hate gubmint solutions. The pest guy Dean, incompetent and ineffective in dealing with a huge rat problem beyond the capabilities of exterminators, is worried that bidness will dry up if gubmint actually solves the problem. None of this could have happened to a more deserving bunch.
ADDED: It's silly to think of a rat in someone's suitcase, so "Check your luggage" amused me, but if people are moving with a truck full of boxes, it's not so funny. Getting into those boxes seems like exactly the sort of thing rats have been doing over the centuries. I'm thinking about ships and the plague....
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DemocRats, amirite?
Half the fun of Althouse comments is predicting them.
Even the rats are leaving the sinking ship.
Rats don't vote in statist tax-raisers.
Rats don't nod off on dope and poop on the sidewalk in front of your kids' school.
Rats don't shoplift from your stores, causing them to close.
It may cost money to deal with a rat infestation, but the rats don't get to vote on the money.
Rats don't stick you up or drag your women into the bushes to rape them.
Rats don't make you change your congressional district boundaries.
You don't have to pay for Ratphones.
Rats won't occupy Section 8 housing in your neighborhood.
A rat won't stand in front of you in the supermarket checkout line using four or five EBT cards.
Rats won't call you a rat-cist when you disagree with them.
Lots of reasons to put up with rats as the price of living in a red state.
CC, JSM
"Rats won't occupy Section 8 housing in your neighborhood."
Au contraire
These are not the RAATs you would think in the popular consensus of a listing ship.
Your employer won't fire you and make you train the rat who will do your job for half the wage.
A rat never answers the phone when you call customer service.
No one will buy the 2 BR house next door to you and turn it into a bunkhouse for a dozen rats.
Your kid's art teacher won't be fired to pay for a "Non-Rat As A Second Language" teacher.
When you call customer service, the recording will never say "squeek-squeek, 2 squeek-squeek-squeek" before giving you the menu in English.
Joe Biden: "you'll never have to walk into a 7-11 and speak Rat."
CC, JSM
"is worried that bidness will dry up if gubmint actually solves the problem."
Name a problem government has solved. (There must be something.)
Is it "Right wing extremists" leaving California to move to Idaho? Other states who have received people fleeing from California seem to be trending blue. Is that not the case with Idaho, or is it that anyone to the right of Stalin is a right-wing extremist?
it’s far more likely that regional agricultural operations brought them, and local agricultural infrastructure is sustaining them
Sure, it's the farms that are the problem. It just took almost 200 years for it to manifest and just happened to coincide with the influx of California refugees. What an amazing, random happenstance.
NYT journalism leads its readers to conclusions - where the far right extremists are always both dumb and dastardly. Readers compete in the comment section to best articulate the prescribed conclusion - just like the annoying kids in third grade brown-nosing the teacher.
" it’s far more likely that regional agricultural operations brought them, and local agricultural infrastructure is sustaining them"
If that was so, then this...
"added to traffic woes and helped speed the replacement of farmland with subdivisions."
should be eliminating them, not enabling infestations.
Hold on a dang second, thought we Blue Californicators were invading red states to turn them blue? Suspect it is the new Bluies bring rats, on purpose .
"Name a problem government has solved."
White Privilege.
"Other states who have received people fleeing from California seem to be trending blue."
The Boise area attracts refugees from Portland and Seattle. Some of them seem determined to replicate the conditions in the cities they are fleeing here.
So California has a huge homeless population. A majority of which have mental illness and a majority of which have addiction issues (significant overlap here). Shelters are
Not equipped to handle either of those problems. Jails aren’t equipped to handle either problem.
https://nypost.com/2026/05/21/us-news/stomach-turning-video-shows-la-homeless-encampment-overrun-by-rats-near-residential-neighborhood/
California mandates separating compostable materials. You are not allowed to bag compostable food waste in compostable bags. You are allowed to layer it in shredded paper (how many people still read print editions of the newspaper?), you can freeze it until collection (makes absolute sense given the cheap abundant electricity in California) or you can layer it in yard waste (there isn’t going to be a lot of that with California’s defensible space restrictions - possible but getting harder/more limited each year).
You drive through a neighborhood at night and a significant number of houses have lights on under their vehicles. Nextdoor has numerous posts about dealing with rats destroying engines and invading houses.
This isn’t a problem created by the right wing.
Idaho has increased population greatly in the last 40 years but if you check the voting trends in the presidential races over that time, the percentage taken by right leaning candidates is pretty stable at about 66%.
‘rats in teh Spud place
‘unicornians in town
What a place
This state’s in tatters
Bring in the cats
If you are wondering about the layering issue with compostable food scraps it’s to cut down on the soup created after a weeks worth of food scraps are left unbagged in a container in 80 to 100 degree heat. Yum! For the rats at least.
I’m sorry outdoor cats aren’t allowed in California.
Fleas the size of rats
sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand ‘unicornians
split into small tribes
"White Privilege."
Ha!
Smells like libtard Party propaganda to me. It's an absurd contention that rats never existed in Idaho suburbs before recent years. Rats are well-known to be ubiquitous in all realms of human society, rural, urban and suburban. I live in an agricultural area in a neighboring state and worked in pest control for years. By all accounts from longtime locals that I have worked for, this town I live in has had a notorious rat problem for decades, exacerbated by the demolition of an old hospital on a hill above town. People who live within a two mile radius of the teardown site would tell me horror stories of the rats running around through the streets and yards and showing up in their houses for years after. Any sudden increase in rat-sightings is almost certainly the result of some disruption bringing the rodents out of their dens into the open.
At this point, the New York Times is just pablum to soothe the bawling adult babies of the Democrat Party.
Reader said: "I’m sorry outdoor cats aren’t allowed in California."
Actually they are everywhere. You couldn't stop them if you tried. We have a local charity that will spay/neuter feral cats and either try to find them homes...or return them to the cat colony with the idea that they won't continue to breed.
Almost everyone here has "barn cats" to keep the mouse and rat population down.
What REALLY isn't allowed in California is any kind of rat or mouse bait/poison that would even work. We have to drive to Oregon or Nevada to get anything that will kill rats or ground squirrels (or any other type of gardening equipment that will work).
We do have a few Squirrelinator Traps, which we bait with peanut butter. But after a while the ground squirrels catch on and don't go into the trap. Then we just shoot them.
I meant my comment jokingly, because in suburban neighborhoods you will be hectored for having an outdoor cat. A decade ago I had an outdoor cat that a person kept for a few weeks until they took it to the vet and the microchip listed my phone number. I had to pay the vet fees to get him back.
Also, I recently lost a cat due to cancer. I was checking out the humane society for listings for our county and the website states that they don’t have any cats for adoptions. I could get one from private rescues but those provide the country (Mexico) where the cat is located and the cost of flying it to you with an angel carer (wth?).
I find the comment from the Libtard "Thanking" conservatives for leaving their state so hilarious. Doesn't she understand she's suppposed to be upset at people leaving her state?
The Rightwingers always proudly pronounce "Im leaving state X and they'll be sorry". And it looks like they arent.
"it’s far more likely that regional agricultural operations brought them, and local agricultural infrastructure is sustaining them)."
What a moronic statement. All that's changed is - they have more rats and more Californians. They seem to go together.
But "far more likely" is one of those slippery phrases that implies more than it actually says. Its just a way to say "I don't believe that, so here's something I do believe".
50 years ago, Time magazine had a profile of a conservative Idaho senator and cited his vote against a federal rat control problem for the cities. 'In Payette we kill our own rats' he said (or words to that effect). Karma? Or just the bad effect of Californians and Californication.
The California migrant theory isn’t beyond belief. Having return to California after 50+ years away (family ties) among the changes I have noted is a plethora of rats, particularly among the politicians and elites. NYT readers would find them cuddly.
YouTube: Rats Are Disappearing From New York City - I'll spare you having to watch the video. The reason is Red Tail hawks have moved in.
Flea-borne typhus surges across LA County with 90% of cases requiring hospitalization
Los Angeles County is experiencing a record number of flea-borne typhus cases, and nearly 90% of patients have had to be hospitalized.
Infected fleas tend to live on rats, free roaming cats and possums.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
https://abc7.com/post/flea-borne-typhus-surges-la-county-90-cases-requiring-hospitalization/18849790/
Just sayin'.
Where you have unsanitary conditions you have rats
And then you have the rats in city hall and the state house efen in boise
Why does the top rated comment in the NYT uses 'gubmint' and 'bidness'? It's intentional, but why? That's what you'd get in a Reddit comment from 2010.
Because they like the stupid comments
There is some evidence that previously most people leaving California were "economic refugees" and brought their blue political patterns with them. Now it seems that those leaving lotus land are "political refugees" and are bringing bright red political patterns.
What's more to the point for Idaho is - Check for those Rats moving in from California.
IIRC The History Guy did a segment on rat history recently and my impression was rats and humans have a much more symbiotic relationship than we often imagine so the replacement of farmland with suburban habitation is likely leading to the increase in rats.
Also, the claim rat fleas are responsible for the plague is likely incorrect.
".. it’s far more likely that regional agricultural operations brought them, and local agricultural infrastructure.."
as Al Smith would say; let's take a look, at the record.
Idaho has had 'local agricultural' for more than a Hundred years..
They've had mass migration from Cali for about 15 years..
They've had a rat problem for ONLY the last few years..
If i was not a democrat (which i'm NOT) i'd draw some conclusions from that
An old friend recently returned from A road trip that included eastern Oregon and Washington. She, a very '"liberal" person, pink pussy hat type, was enthusiastically telling me about a lovely small city. Full of older architecture, small businesses, and community activities. She's thinking of moving there with her retired husband. Also, she said that the two of them could contribute to changing the local values to be more progressive.
I was speechless.
Consumers of NYeT are leaning into Learing.
"She's thinking of moving there with her retired husband. Also, she said that the two of them could contribute to changing the local values to be more progressive."
This is exactly the conversation I had with a libtard online a number of years ago.
Her: "My husband and I moved from Washington to Boise. The culture shock was pronounced. At that time Boise seemed like a provincial outpost to us. As immigrants, we wanted the goods and services and modern culture we enjoyed elsewhere before moving here, and our demand and influence has modernized and improved Treasure Valley immeasurably."
Me: "I came to Idaho years ago. I am watching not-so-happily, as I liked Idaho the way it was back then. Now, not so much. Some people are distressed at seeing the place they live converted into the place other people used to live before they got here and decided it needed changing.
Her: "There is no way to stop growth, and with growth comes change. You can embrace it, live with it, or move somewhere that suits you better."
The Progressive Attitude, in a nutshell: Destroy your home then move someplace else and work on destroying it too while telling the natives to fuck off and move somewhere else if they don't like it.
"I was speechless."
And your friend is clueless. But then, self-awareness is not a progressive strong suit. But they sure think highly of themselves.
Fred Drinkwater... Next time you have a chance, you should ask your friend about her position on settler colonialism.
Destroy your home then move someplace else and work on destroying it too
Anthropologists call it slash and burn.
When you're a far-left extremist, you view even the normal people as "far-right extremists."
There is nothing more provincial than the NYTimes Comments.
…on a couple if Idaho districts Democrats showed up to vote and will have two more Democrats come fall
…Yah, Boise and McCall and to a certain extent Coeur D’Alene are safe havens for California refugees…
"Top-rated comment at the NYT:
'This is precious. Right wing extremists leave California (thank you) and move to Idaho, where local right wing extremists blame them for bringing rats to Idaho (while it’s possible that right wing immigrants from CA brought the their vermin with them, it’s far more likely that regional agricultural operations brought them...' "
NYT readers think anyone not to their left is a right-wing extremist.
I shouldn't generalize. NYT readers who comment on articles think anyone not to their left is a right-wing extremist.
How do the rats vote? D or R?
How do the rats vote? D or R?
From voteidaho.gov...
Do I need an ID to register to vote?
An Idaho driver’s license with a current address is required to register to vote. To register to vote in person, you will need a photo ID and proof of residence.
What identification do I need to vote?
If you’ve already registered, you’ll be asked to show one of the following forms of photo identification:
-Idaho driver’s license or identification card.
-U.S. Passport or Federal photo Identification card.
-Tribal Identification card.
-Concealed weapons license issued by a county sheriff in Idaho.
A registered voter may sign a Personal Identification Affidavit instead of presenting photo identification.
Albert, Canada is rat free thanks to the work of government provincial rat officers and a rat control zone at the border with Saskatchewan.
Uh...NYT commenter has zero idea of what's going on in Boise, who moved there and why. We worked there a handful of times when it was absorbing newcomers. Locals described the town as "an island of blue in a sea of red." It was a hipster paradise. Bicyclists, green hair, "crunchy" coffee shops-- an outdoorsy Disneyland for 20- and 30- something CA, OR and WA refugees. No talk of "gubmint" or "bidness." At one point, homelessness was a problem just off the downtown. They clumped near a local skatepark rendering it skateless. Then they somehow cleaned it up after pressure from the "homed." I guess it was them rednecks who disliked "big gubmint" solutions. What a tool.
Original Mike: Government has solved a few problems, from imperial ambitions by Germany (twice) and Japan (once, they learn faster) and Russia (coming up on twice, unfortunately) and Iran (God help them if they remain a problem). But those are outliers on the scale of issues addressed by government. Usually the government does best when it first tries to do something useful, but that then metastasizes from doing something useful to just trying to expand and continue its own authoritay, which leads to everlasting problems from both the original problem and the government. Hope that helps.
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