NEWS AND COMMENT: Neighbours are understandably annoyed by this elderly gentleman because he lives in a mess of an apartment full of junk and he treats the rats that come into it as pets which means that he feeds them, which in turn means that they queue up to get inside. The image below is a screenshot of a video which I can’t embed on this page which you can see by clicking on this link (links to other websites eventually fail so please don’t surprised if this one is broken. If it is, I am sorry).
The rats are walking along some sort of scaffolding or perhaps it is a framework for a canopy, it is not clear (it is actually a clothesline I have found out). But what is clear is that the rats are using it as a pathway to a window or a door to get into the flat where he feeds them.
He lives with 100 rats. The video was filmed in Shanghai on May 19. The man is in his 70s and he lives alone. He collects scraps of food and brings them back to feed himself and his pet rats. The management committee for the apartment block are trying to persuade him to tidy up! And below are some more screenshots of a tidying up process taking place by the local authority it seems to me. I don’t have more information sadly.
