I heard about that as it happened. I belong to some rat communities.
This story gives all rat owners a bad image because this man was irresponsible.
Responsibly kept rats are amazing intelligent little animals. Just don’t keep males and females together and you won’t have 1,000 of them. 
P.S. Here’s an article with pictures:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/22/MNGFDJJ61J16.DTL
They were well-fed and not suffering from any obvious health problems, other than severe overcrowding.
P.P.S. I have a friend in Petaluma who is going Wednesday to adopt 2 of the males.
I saw an interesting story about mice and rats recently where they noted that the dirtier the conditions that these animals lived in, the healthier they were (to a point). It seems their imune systems need to be constantly stimulated to keep the animals in top form.
The scientists were using this evidence to suggest that the increase in chronic human health problems in the developed world probably has to do with us living in too clean an environment, the so called “hygiene argument”, that we need to have our immune systems stimulated just like the rodents in order to minimize the incidence of allergies, diabetes, etc.
djm
This rings so true, having been around the chronically ill super-duper hygienic Berkeleyites from hell and their private school kids.
They seem to end up being allergic to everything and put school administrators through contortions in getting their way..
I have a friend who is a contractor in a company that caters to high-end super allergen free house makeovers. You can’t believe the stuff they are doing in these houses.
Their argument is that there are more and more hidden toxins, which seems very plausible, but the theory above might better explain why there are so many people who aren’t being affected living in the same world.
By the same token, low-income people near chemical plants and refineries have their kids in the emergency rooms all the time, and many on steroids for chronic asthma.
We need better and more science about it.
I’m glad this is being studied. I’ve been a proponent of this idea for
awhile. I don’t have any problem with immunization, it’s better to have
the risk of developing alergies than dieing of smallpox. But our germ
phobias are probably hurting us more than helping. We’re definitely
overprescribing antibiotics.
Here’s the article](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060616.wratshealth0616/BNStory/Science/home%22%3Earticle) I referred to for those who are interested.
djm
What’s life expectancy like in funky environments compared to that in overly hygenic environments?
Yes, I know that there are other factors at work like access to good health care. But I’m wondering what evidence there could be that we would be better off in less hygenic environments.
The thing is that Anti-biotics cause a different problem than disinfectants.
Boiling or bleaching things cause bacteria and other parasites to die. The Anti-biotics over prescribed can lead to resistant strains of bacteria, and only bacteria. that is why it is not a good reason to prescribe them for a virus, it does nothing for the cold and may lead to resistant bacterial strain. The argument against the use of Anti-biotics is that the human body needs to “exersize” it’s immune system. From what I have read this theory has yet to be fully tested, but studies seem to point to people in clean environments living longer with more chronic problems.
I know, that’s what I was referring to. I guess I was being somewhat tangential.
The disinfectants thing is just as bad. Note that none of the manufacturers claim to be able to destroy more than 99% of bacteria on any given surface. Great! So the types of bacteria resistant to the disinfectant take over, using whatever resources were previously used by the bacteria that were killed by the disinfectant. This may turn out to be worse for us, depending on the type(s) of bacteria unaffected by the dinifectant.
I have read that there are strains of botulism that survive quite readily in the heart of nuclear reactors. What else are we doing to natural bacterial populations with disinfectants - not much different than what we are doing with over-use of antibiotics, I think.
djm
I disagree, those bacteria will still be vulnerable to Anti-biotics and may be stopped when infection occurs. I doubt that most doctors will have you inject bleach, DMQ, Expose yourself to UV, or autoclave. These are all ways of disinfecting.
Again, the real problem is the lack of challenge to the immune system. This again is from what I have read.
Well, then, you’ll appreciate that the Domestic Goddess does not use disinfectants. 
I clean using soap and hot water, with only an occasional bit of chlorine bleach. With good ventilation, of course.
Of course. Speaking of chlorine:
Another recent interesting article I read talks about how the off-gassing of chlorine used in indoor swimming pools has been shown to severely damage children’s lungs, and is suspected as being a major cause of asthma in developed countries. The rise in incidence of asthma nicely matches the rise in the number of indoor swimming pools, and their use by young children in developed countries. Children under the age of six are not supposed to use these facilities.
Oh, goody! Just one more thing to agonize over. 
djm
Hmmm, well, that would be an advantage to living in Florida. We leave most of ours outdoors.
Yep! Hence my aversion to ‘anti-bacterial’ soaps. i wash my hands many times a day anyway, but killing all the bacteria on them isn’t really a good idea. Some are actually beneficial, and a certain amount of exposure does boost our ability to develope immunities.
Sunlight (or at least the UV) is also a good disinfectent. Those old clothes lines for drying may have been a good idea.
Yes, and you just cannot improve on the smell of fresh, sun-dried laundry!
UPDATE: This group has been created to try to save as many of these rats as possible:
Hey, that’s really great!
Here’s someone I bet could help. He seems to really get off on rats . . . has his own website for them and everything.
Probably has room for some more.