St. Pete woman faces dilemma after rats overrun home

FLORIDA -- With hundreds of rodents running loose in her house, a St. Pete woman knows she has a problem. But no one can quite agree on how to help Florine Brown.

"The rats have taken over," she admitted. "They are in every room, pretty much, in the house."

  

  

 

The SPCA estimates there at 300 to 500 rats inside the home on 10th Avenue South. Brown said they are practically her family -- or at least their earlier relatives were.

She said it all started with a handful of pet rats two years ago, until some escaped. The rats did their thing, and pretty soon, a few rats had turned into a few hundred.

Browns said she called the SPCA a year ago seeking help, but the agency told her they didn't have room for the rodents. She didn't have the heart to fumigate.

"I want to save them," she explained.

 

 

 

Now the home is filled with feces and the odor is overpowering. Brown, 29, doesn't know what to do. She'd like to humanely trap and remove the squeaky squatters, but that's easier said than done.

"Everyone hates them but I just want to give them love," she added. "Everyone says bad things about rats and I've never been sick or had any diseases or anything."

(Fox10Phoenix - Dec 10, 2014)