another nice one from boing boing: elderly twins who fed rats in their home for at least 5 years, while the local authorities dithered:

It’s hard to imagine a case more appropriate for Adult Protective Services than two elderly women drowning in biblical prophecy who live with packs of probably diseased rats. Yet there’s no record that Adult Protective Services ever sent anyone, even when City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s office finally — and ineffectively — stepped in.

Eventually, Barthel family friend Robinson and her husband came with chain saws one day. They cut down large, overgrown, rat-friendly thickets of birds of paradise, and, Robinson admits to the Weekly, “It was bad. It was infested.”

According to the meager records that portray only a fraction of what unfolded, county inspectors returned a week later and saw another rat through the window. Margaret refused to allow the inspectors, who had no search warrant, inside. The resulting county health report was a testament to how poorly the county dealt with the unchecked rat boom: Neither inspector knew the rats had chewed through the wood floors of the kitchen, living room and bedroom, allowing themselves free rein from a basement crawling with them, as the Weekly learned from court documents.