NYT SCIENCE: Is There an Ethical Way to Kill Rats? Should We Even Ask?
By Oliver Whang
Section: Science
Source: New York Times
Published Date: February 27, 2023 at 02:00AM
Mr. Schuelke was speaking breathlessly to a camera that he had trained on himself. He was alone behind the house, but his intended audience was the nearly 250,000 subscribers of the Twin Home Experts YouTube channel, where he and his identical twin brother, Jim, post videos of themselves on the job. Nine years ago they began uploading videos about general home repair, with titles like “How to Unclog a Toilet Without a Plunger” and “How to Find a Sewer Odor,” but, more than 70 million views later, their content has skewed toward rats. “Attic Rats! We Smoked Them Out” is one recent title. Also, “Destroying Fat Rats in Washington, D.C.” And “Rat Trapping in Mexico City, We Baited With Churros.”
“People want to see that type of gory-looking stuff,” Dave Schuelke said, setting down the camera. “People want to see the action.”
View counts are directly related to whether a video’s thumbnail shows some sort of tool — a screwdriver, or a Sawzall, or a bulked-up trap — pointing at a rat. The thumbnail of the Schuelkes’ most popular video, with over five million views, features an airsoft gun pointed at a rat nest.
By Oliver Whang
Section: Science
Source: New York Times
Published Date: February 27, 2023 at 02:00AM
Welcome to the rat trapper’s dilemma.
The place: a modest house at the end of a narrow street in Culver City, Calif. The problem: The house’s owner had been feeding bread to a population of rats, which had moved into her kitchen and living room and then into the ceilings, where they had begun encroaching on the neighboring tenants from above. The diagnosis: “Unbelievable,” said Dave Schuelke, a buff and ruddy-faced exterminator who is one-half of the pest control and home repair company Twin Home Experts. “I’ve never seen this before.”Mr. Schuelke was speaking breathlessly to a camera that he had trained on himself. He was alone behind the house, but his intended audience was the nearly 250,000 subscribers of the Twin Home Experts YouTube channel, where he and his identical twin brother, Jim, post videos of themselves on the job. Nine years ago they began uploading videos about general home repair, with titles like “How to Unclog a Toilet Without a Plunger” and “How to Find a Sewer Odor,” but, more than 70 million views later, their content has skewed toward rats. “Attic Rats! We Smoked Them Out” is one recent title. Also, “Destroying Fat Rats in Washington, D.C.” And “Rat Trapping in Mexico City, We Baited With Churros.”
“People want to see that type of gory-looking stuff,” Dave Schuelke said, setting down the camera. “People want to see the action.”
View counts are directly related to whether a video’s thumbnail shows some sort of tool — a screwdriver, or a Sawzall, or a bulked-up trap — pointing at a rat. The thumbnail of the Schuelkes’ most popular video, with over five million views, features an airsoft gun pointed at a rat nest.
Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/science/rats-rodents-trapping.html
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