A WAR ON RATS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 11

A WAR ON RATS

Keeping the White House free of rats and mice—a constant effort to which Mrs. Roosevelt referred in a recent radio address—is one of a number of activities carried on by a staff of fifty-eight men and women regularly employed to maintain the Executive Mansion in its present running order, says the "New York Times." It is a large building—l7o feet long and 85 wide, with four floors—and the precious nature of many of its contents calls for careful attention. Further, it is an old building, and, like older buildings in general, it becomes frequently subject to repair and to visitations by non-humans. The war against rats, mice, and smaller vermin is recurrent. It calls • for the use of measures ranging 'from traps and vaporising devices to the more drastic correctives employed on occasion by experts of the Public Health Service. Access to the White House, .as well as to other public structures in Washington, is made particularly easy for rodents because of the tunnels which carry the steam pipes to the buildings. These tunnels are quite literally corridors for rats. .

• The menace from below is forgotten, however, when one glimpses the White House today. Happily situated in spacious grounds, with a park to the north and south, the Treasury on the east, and the State, War, and Navy Building on the west, .it gleams through blossoming trees, reflecting in the spring sunshine the glory of much white paint liberally applied. Its generally swept and garnished appearance, within and; without, proclaims the vigorous housecleaning to Which it has been subjected. ■