Plumbing the ratty depths

So there’s this house in New Brighton, PA that is overrun with rats.  It is scheduled to be demolished soon, after neighbors called to complain about all the rats.

So far, so good, right?  I mean, not good, but not yet “off the wall bat-shit insane.”  But wait, there’s more.  The town says the rats are piled a foot deep in some places.  A FOOT DEEP! The interwebs tell me that your standard adult rat stands anywhere from 2″ to 5″ tall, so that’s anywhere between two and six rats standing on each others backs.  Can you even picture  a room where the floor is covered in rats six deep?  Don’t try.  Seriously.  Just don’t.

But that’s not even the worst of it.  Think about this.  In order to figure this out, some guy had to measure the depth of the rats.  Some guy in that town actually took a yardstick and stuck it in the middle of a pile of rats.  They actually told a guy “Hey, we need some accurate numbers.  Take this yardstick and go find out how deep those rats are in there.”  And he did it.

Is that just this guy’s job?  Do his business cards say “Rat Depth Finder”?  And how much does he get paid?  I’m guessing “not nearly enough.”