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Rats Chew Off Newborn Baby's Nose, Upper Lip in Kansas City, Mo., Apartment (Prayers for the child)
Foxnews ^ | 2/28/2007 | AP

Posted on 02/28/2007 9:04:41 AM PST by tobyhill

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1 posted on 02/28/2007 9:04:46 AM PST by tobyhill
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To: tobyhill

Oh G-d, how awful.

(avoiding the inevitable 'Rat jokes)


2 posted on 02/28/2007 9:06:40 AM PST by Uncledave
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To: tobyhill

The pathetic cesspool, formerly known as Kansas City, MO (once a shining star of the home of the Pony Express, home to Walt Disney and Joan Crawford)has been as much of a Socialism Home on the Muddy Mo as is NO LA.


3 posted on 02/28/2007 9:08:32 AM PST by zerosix
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To: tobyhill

A horrible story. Poor baby half eaten by rats, hard to imagine.


4 posted on 02/28/2007 9:08:57 AM PST by kinoxi
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To: zerosix

I lived in Independence most of last year and worked in KC and I know exactly what you are talking about. The only thing of interest in KC anymore is Crown Plaza and that's going downhill fast.


5 posted on 02/28/2007 9:11:36 AM PST by tobyhill (The War on Terrorism is not for the weak.)
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To: zerosix

How does that apply to this tragedy?


6 posted on 02/28/2007 9:11:47 AM PST by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: stuartcr
How does that apply to this tragedy?

Since it is not typical for American homes to be rat-infested, one might reasonably wonder what caused the infestation that resulted in this tragedy.

8 posted on 02/28/2007 9:15:29 AM PST by rogue yam
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To: F15Eagle

I hope so. The child is small enough that any corrective surgery now will leave minimal scaring.


9 posted on 02/28/2007 9:17:41 AM PST by tobyhill (The War on Terrorism is not for the weak.)
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: kinoxi

Way back yonder while I was in high school, I happened to see a painting of a baby lying face down in a crib, its arm extended through the bars of the crib (this was before bumper pads) and its hand missing with blood dripping from the stump. (It was an amateur sentivity-raising painting.)In the background was a large rat. I have never been able to get that image out of my head and this just brings it back vividly, only worse. I've never even seen a sewer rat in real life. This is the stuff of nightmares. Should the parents have known rats were around?


11 posted on 02/28/2007 9:23:35 AM PST by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things.)
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To: rogue yam

The city caused it?


12 posted on 02/28/2007 9:24:20 AM PST by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: caseinpoint
Should the parents have known rats were around?

I find it hard to believe that the baby wasn't screaming in pain as the rat attacked her.

13 posted on 02/28/2007 9:33:16 AM PST by yhwhsman ("Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small..." -Sir Winston Churchill)
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To: caseinpoint

I think the parents should have been aware of the infestation, rat's don't typically eat people out of the blue to the best of my knowledge, but that does nothing to help the child afterward.


14 posted on 02/28/2007 9:33:58 AM PST by kinoxi
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To: stuartcr
Kansas City has so very many people getting public assistance in almost everything that their citizens, ala NOLA, seem to be completely unable to do anything without "assistance" from some social service agency. They will wait for a "neighborhood clean up freebie" to pick up litter in their yards, neighborhoods, mow their own lawns or landlords/Housing Authority to exterminate rodents and other vermin from their homes or apartments.

They are unable to put out trash without government granted trash cans/trash bags and wait for City Sanitation to come through neighborhoods 6 months after an ice storm to pick up guttering strewn all over their lawns.

I can state this from first hand knowledge as I live 5 minutes from the State Line between MO and KS. When it snows, KS salts/sands and plows their streets. Driving east into MO the story is entirely different, they wait for a thaw to melt the snow telling everyone that "their salt/sand supplies were in limited supply based upon unusually heavy snows, etc." What makes it even tougher to take, the City of Kansas City, MO has an "earnings tax" that they put on everyone who works in the city "to cover the maintenance of city services" necessary for the extra citizens' needs.

Yes, this is indeed a tragedy, but this story sounds like one that might have been written in the early 1900s, as though there are no advances in dealing with rodents roaming in neighborhoods. One just might expect this to happen in the summer when garbage is left lying around on city streets attracting rodents but we have had a particularly cold, snowy winter and many former slums of public housing have been torn down and new housing erected but unfortunately, the reason the former dwellings were in such a condition, was the results of the people living there.

Side note, I grew up in what is now some of the worst "inner city poverty area" and it breaks my heart to ever drive into the area where I used to live. We were a working class neighborhood, not at all wealthy but we mowed our own lawns, painted our own homes, picked up our own trash and exterminated any rodents found anywhere!!!

15 posted on 02/28/2007 9:35:33 AM PST by zerosix
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To: tobyhill

Where was the rat poison? Any WalMart sells it.


16 posted on 02/28/2007 9:36:20 AM PST by Citizen Tom Paine (An old sailor sends we need a 800 ship Navy.)
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To: zerosix

I'm lucky, in that I've never lived in a big city or one like this one.


17 posted on 02/28/2007 9:38:59 AM PST by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: yhwhsman

"I find it hard to believe that the baby wasn't screaming in pain as the rat attacked her."

The baby was on a heart & lung monitor.

I presume (from experience) that the baby was premature and too weak to scream at any volume.

I would also presume that the parents were physically and mentally exhausted from caring for a premature infant (feedings every hour or so; depends) that you could shoot a gun off in the room and they would sleep through it.


18 posted on 02/28/2007 9:39:08 AM PST by MeanWestTexan (Kol Hakavod Lezahal)
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To: rogue yam

Last winter we had a family of rats move into our basement.....Keep in mind that our finished basement is about 2000sq ft with numerous ducts, drop ceiling, conduit runs and hollow walls.

We had a terrible time getting rid of them. We first tried humane traps but quickly moved to poison and snap traps....They are incredibly bright animals for their size and it took us two weeks to get them all. We actually had them invade the main house from their basement "base" and leave their little droppings in the Kitchen and a chewed door edge in a failed attempt to get into the pantry.

You have to assume that they had full run of the house at that point while we were asleep. We had the kids close their doors at night to their rooms. Very Creepy....

Our home is in a very upscale area of North Atlanta, not the projects.


19 posted on 02/28/2007 9:40:02 AM PST by nevergore (?It could be that the purpose of my life is simply to serve as a warning to others.?)
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To: kinoxi

Rats will attack anything defenseless.


20 posted on 02/28/2007 9:40:57 AM PST by MeanWestTexan (Kol Hakavod Lezahal)
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