The British government is reportedly spending the equivalent of more than $11,000 a month fighting mutant rats that have infested Parliament.
According to the Daily Star, pest control experts at the House of Commons spent £7,000 (about $11,216) dealing with poison-resistant -- ergo, "mutant" -- rodents in a single month.
That bill represents an increase of 15 percent from two years go.
That's not all. The rats are apparently spreading across the UK. International Business Times reports that the mutants look like normal rats, but eat poison pellets intended to kill them "like feed."
"Normal rats are being killed off by poison, so these resistant species are taking their place. It's only natural that their numbers are expanding," British Pest Control Association spokesman Richard Moseley told the Metro.
Ain't evolution a rat bastard?
Since poison doesn't work on the so-called "super rats," officials are turning to more traditional methods of pest control.
"Government officials brought in a team of cats to keep mice from offices in Whitehall," the Daily Star reported.
Aside from hunting the rodents, the terrifying (not just to rats) stink of cat pee might help keep the problem at bay.
That is, unless the rats contract the parasite Toxoplasma gondii and storm the government in a sexed-up riot of awful.
Britain isn't the only nation to struggle with mutant rats.
Earlier this year, the Iranian government, also frustrated by the nation's growing population of poison-resistant rats, reportedly deployed special teams of army snipers to hunt the vermin with rifles and infrared scopes.
However, based on the size of the Iranian rats, some of which reportedly weighed more than 11 pounds, firearms might present a better option than feline countermeasures.
Source: dailystar
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