When a Florida woman shopping at her local Super Walmart saw a large rat in the meat case, stampering across the shrink-wrapped packages, she knew that no one was going to believe her. She insisted on snapping a photo with her mobile phone. “[I] told my mom I wasn’t leaving without one,” she told a local news station.
The woman also described watching employees attempt to catch a second rat near the checkout using a broom and a cardboard box. What’s strange, though, is that past inspection reports don’t show any signs of rodents in the store. Those reports are public records, and one would think that rodents scampering over the food displays would attract state inspectors’ attention. Nope. Must have been a new infestation.
Walmart, for its part, is taking the situation very seriously. They issued a statement to Bay News 9:
This is unacceptable and we take matters like this seriously. We have dedicated resources to ensure our customers can feel confident knowing we are committed to providing safe, quality food. We are monitoring the issue closely and actively working with our third party pest control company and Department of Agriculture to help prevent this from happening again.
Glad to hear that they’re being proactive. We have to wonder, though: would the customer’s complaint have been taken as seriously without photographic proof?
Exclusive: Rat scurries across meat at local Walmart [Bay News 9]
RELATED:
Long-Running Mouse Infestation May Shut Down N.Y. Walmart
More From Consumerist
-
Walmart To Test In-Store Lockers For Pick-Up Of Online Orders
-
Walmart: Prices So Low, We Have To Raise Them To Put Things On Sale
-
This Antifreeze Is Defective: It Froze Solid
-
At Walmart, “Clearance” Means Trying To Finally Sell Chips With A Year-Old “Best Before” Date
-
Walmart Offers Rain Checks, Doesn’t Know How To Give Them To Customers
Rodnets are like ants, they move based on weather. So past health reports don’t say much if they were done at the same time of year every year.
“We have to wonder, though: would the customer’s complaint have been taken as seriously without photographic proof?”
Why? Even by the person’s statements, the employees were trying to catch the rat, so it’s not like the local employees thought it was A-Ok.
No, they were trying to catch a different rat, by her accounting. And that doesn’t mean that they even recognize or were taking steps to resolve an infestation in the store – only that they were trying to remove the one that customers would notice.
Ok, I admit I phrased it poorly. “trying to catch one of the rats”.
But the point is that they recognized rats are bad. Laura acted like the head office wouldn’t have believed she saw a rat without the photos. I asked on what she bases this; there’s nothing in the story that implies they didn’t think it was a problem, or that they didn’t think the rats existed.
Word must have gotten out about those new Walmart prime USDA steaks.
(which they’ve been heavily advertising lately on tv).
The rats just had to see for themselves if they lived up to the hype.
My wife was all taken in by the commercials as of late. She went to get steaks, and they were gone. Maybe they’re gone for another reason sweetie. Maybe because rat crap on my sirloin isn’t kosher.
*Obviously* she put the rat there to try and get a gift card or something (that or just an axe to grind against Walmart)
/blamin the OP
do NOT feed the mar..er..trolls.
1. what is a “rodnet” ? rodent ?
Martin (btw nice ss cap icon): rodents and ants are not like ants. just to name one diff, the skeletal struct.
“they” move off what ? weather ? sers thats pretty funny. you must mean they move off what ever the sci.er….syfi channel tells you they move off of. my pers experience is they move according to food, heat (my magifying glass really makes them scoot) etc.
and yes, past historical data, no matter the source means nothing if it was done at the same time of the year, every year. fuck recorded data.
blade: read up, eyewitness intel is wrong most of time. I have personally been wrong after sitting down and thinking about it. scientists study this shit, its proven.
also data has been faked, manipulated.
In the end you just try to do the best you can and in the end so what.
peace.
I believe it’s “scampering”, not “stampering”, unless the rat was stamping the meat with rollback prices. Still, a horrible thought nonetheless.
If someone told me they saw anything “stampering” I wouldn’t believe them either.
Wal-Mart passes recent health inspection.
Customer sees a rat and takes a picture of it.
Employees try to chase it down.
Wal-Mart calls pest control.
“We have to wonder, though: would the customer’s complaint have been taken as seriously without photographic proof?”
Rather than applaud them, let’s just take a big steamy dump on Wal-Mart for doing what they need to do to stay in business. Wal-Mart isn’t in the business to get shut down or make their customers sick.
I think they just need to hire some cats. Cats are usually pretty good at taking care of vermin.
But what happens when the cats get out of control? Bring in coyotes?
Good point. You’d have to have neutered and spayed cats so they didn’t breed. I do know that a couple of sturdy large striped cats would put an end to the problem pretty quickly. (speaking from experience after having a field mouse issue – my two cats quashed the problem pretty fast)
Owls. Definitely owls.
Of course not. The next step is dogs:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/446759.The_King_the_Mice_and_the_Cheese
The kitties are stupid. They would eat what was in the meat case not the rat silly.
Mmmmmm…. yummy. Cat hair in the meat. I have a shorthair cat and her fur flies up & floats in the air whenever anyone pets her. We call it Vitamin F.
You could probably feed them any trimmings or past date stuff.
I’ve known this to be done, although it is illegal (at least in most places).
I have worked in inventory for many years, and there used to be a grocery store where the back of the store faced a sugar cane field. At the end of the growing season, the farmers burn the field, so all the rats living there have to find a new residence — and what better place than a store with a comfortable temperature and lots of food?
This store didn’t just have rats. It was completely overrun. Usually they will stay in the stockrooms and only occasionally venture out to the salesfloor, at least during business hours. But in this store they were EVERYWHERE — on the shelves, under the checkouts — I almost expected them to drop from the ceiling tiles.
The next time we went to that store — no rats. The manager had somehow rounded up cats and put them in the store, but discreetly so the health inspector wouldn’t know. It turned out the rats had even chewed through the wiring in the freezers.
But this also brings up another point: rats (and mice) can easily enter a clean store through the walls, especially interior walls in a strip center if the neighbors are less vigilant or there is a vacant space. And if you chase them out of your store, they may just go next door.
Walmart would lose every possible customer, such as me, that is allergic to cat dander.
“We have to wonder, though: would the customer’s complaint have been taken as seriously without photographic proof?”
Absolute not would have her complaint been taken as seriously.
Ya, like a manager wants to get fired for not taking care of his/her store. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt considering their recent inspection results. Shit happens, and that’s what pest control is for.
Claiming they maybe wouldn’t do something because of X when they already completed the correct action is ridiculous.
Christ, it’s just a rat. The steer used to live in the field and have poop covering his fur. The eggs come out of a hen’s butt (note: not really the hen’s butt). Pigs lie in their own crap all day. Just ‘cos something sounds gross doesn’t mean we should be horrified.
I’m glad that they’re not selling us rat meat as shredded chicken or something.
The difference is that the meat is not touching the crap on the ground. The rat has and directly introduces quite a few bacteria that would love to make you sick.
Well Homer, how’s that intestinal amoeba infection that your cuzzin
Poopeater said your whole family had.
Er, um, brainiac, the animals that we eat go through a LENGTHY process
before they get to the meat case, the ground beef is not sitting in poop.
The rat as far as I know is not on the list of meats that Wal-Mart sells but
it sure could be soon if that there third-party pest control still has the contract.
I knew there was a reason I don’t get fresh anything meats, veggies, etc at
Wal-Mart.
I don’t know about you, but I eat the INSIDE of the animal that is theoreticaly cleaner than the outside. I find egg shells a bit too crunchy.
Those packages the rat was stampering on are made of cheap plastic that are like tissue paper to a rat’s claws and teeth. So they end up contaminating the meat. I’ll sell you all my Food Lion meat, since you don’t seem to care.
Hens have cloaca, which is the one hole for the urethra, colon and oviduct (I hear it’s all the rage in the animal kingdom among the cool animals). So, yeah, it’s the hen’s butt.
What I really want to know is what Walmart did
with all the meat that the rat “stampered” over?
Re-sell it to Cub Foods
The best point made so far. But you know what they did. They lowered the price.
Better prices. Better life. or whatever the hell it is they lie to us about.
They took it to a nearby high-end steak house and made a new Steak-over(tm) commercial. No use in wasting perfectly good Wal-Mart Steaks! Mmmm… that’s good! And cost-efficient!
“Glad to hear that they’re being proactive”
Fixing an issue AFTER it has occurred is being reactive, not proactive.
Anything that happens before the lawsuit counts as proactive these days.
LOL if you think that stores with Walmart’s square footage don’t have the occasional rat/mouse visitor. It’s impossible to seal a building of that size, including air ducts, roofing, etc. You can safely assume that at some point, bugs, mice or a kid that just sneezed is touching your food. And guess what, it won’t kill you!
If she’s concerned about it, she should inspect the food packaging. If it has little rat tooth marks in the steak, probably shouldn’t eat that.
The bigger issue is that the rats are active when the store is lit and shoppers are about. That usually means there is even a bigger population and that, either they have become immune to the light/people or they are over-populated and need to “hunt” during the day.
Aren’t Walmart’s lit up and full of people basically 24 hours per day?
“And guess what, it won’t kill you!”
Tell that to the thousands of Londoners that died of bubonic plaque.
Do you mean the 14th Century people of Europe with their excellent hygiene and wide access to basic sanitation? You’re an idiot.
I’ve been to Winter Haven FL, and I am familiar with the lowest common denominator of that population. With that in mind, my suspicion is that the most likely cause of this infestation is someone from the general public (or possibly a disgruntled employee) intentionally releasing a pair of terrified rats into the meat case.
Rats so numerous that they become bold enough to forage during peak hours would leave a lot of evidence for the health inspector to find. These rats came seemed to come from nowhere, just like the used needles found in the pockets of new clothing at the Cartersville GA Wal-Mart.
I wouldn’t put it past a disgruntled person to release a set of rats somewhere either, but, I will do you one better regarding having been to Winter Haven, where we have our residence. The simple fact is that there a rats around. Twice in the past decade we had a rat in our garage and attic. It also came out of nowhere, somehow, someway, … without a disgruntled person letting it in. Likely through the open garage door after dark, but the point is, that there are rats around town, and likely most towns.
My neighbor Dale says it wasn’t a rat. It was Chuck Mangione.
The rats outside my local Walmart are ENORMOUS. Like large cat size. The first time I saw one I was getting in my car at night and I swore it was a possum. Then, the next time, I was much closer and there was no doubt it was a rat. Florida has a serious rat problem in general in areas of large population. It also doesn’t help that Walmart frequently places food and feed outside on display.