A Modest Proposal

I intend to solve the issue that is NYC rats. The main audience for this proposal is NYC residents, but if the place you live in has a big rat problem then you should propose this to your government. 

There are more than 8 million people that live in NYC and there are approximately 2 million rats roaming the streets along with us. NYC mostly has brown rats and they average weighing a pound. They wander around in the subway, places we eat, our homes, and on the sidewalks where we walk. How would you feel being in your home and hearing a squeak in your kitchen? Just to find out that there is a big rat eating the sandwich you left on your counter. Rats die pretty quickly, but they have many babies before they die. Rats start mating early and have about a dozen babies every 2 months. 100 people get bit by rats a year and, while it is rare, you can get rat bite fever which can lead to your death and your family will have to spend thousands of dollars on your funeral. Creating a program within the sanitation work would fix this problem because they would get rid of the rat problems that we have. 

The solution I’m proposing is to create a program that cleans the streets of rats. This program would include big garbage trucks that patrol the city like animal control and they would spray rat poison on the streets to kill them. Rats love garbage so it would make sense for parts of the sanitation crew to get rid of them. Considering sanitation workers are basically always around rats and seeing them, they could easily be bitten and die. Then you wouldn’t have anyone to get rid of your garbage and would have to do it yourself. You wouldn’t want that right? So this program takes care of the sanitation workers and makes it so that you don’t have to do anything with your garbage and can lay lazily on the couch while others work. For the rats that do not die within that week, the workers for this program will have to catch any rats they see using a live catch cage and kill them aferwards using either poison or a baseball bat. Any person that sees a rat on the street must call the hotline that will be up to contact the rat patrol workers and follow that rat until they get there. These garbage trucks will have sirens on them because capturing and killing the rats is a top priority. The only solution for them is death because if they get released then they will be on the hunt for us and start a war by biting people for vengeance. In order to catch the rats that are not outside, like in subways and homes, rat patrol will wear hazmat suits and kill them on site with their spears. 

While it may seem like rodenticide can be harmful to other animals or even people, this new program will have researchers and scientists working on a product that is only harmful to rats. These scientists will determine whether the rodenticide is better in the form of pellets or a spray. 

In order to make sure everybody is on board with this proposal; the sanitation workers will collect a bonus every time they catch a rat. They just need to send a picture of the rat they caught to a site that will keep track of the situation. In order to convince others that killing rats is the only solution for our safety and health, they need to acknowledge that rats carry all types of diseases that can either hurt you, the people you love, or even your pets. Imagine your pet dies because they got bit by a rat that had a serious disease and it killed them. You could’ve prevented that if you just agreed with this proposal. 

The materials such as, the garbage trucks, catch cages, ingredients for the rodenticide, etc., for this project will be payed by the government and residents tax dollars. About 20% of the federal budget goes to the military which is about defense and security. If the government just split it in half and put 10% into getting rid of these disgusting rats, it would also count as defense and security. It would keep us safe and secure from the harm that these rats bring to all people. It is the best solution for our rat problem and if we don’t act now then we will continue to be in danger. 

Fun fact: I was just joking this entire time. Well not entire time, but my proposed solution for this issue is completely satirical. I would not expect for anyone to believe this was 100% serious and while I do believe that New York City rats are an issue that needs to be addressed one way or another, I don’t expect it to get done like this.