New York City officials have a mystery on their hands: There have been three recent cases of humans falling ill — including one fatality — with a rare disease that’s transmitted through rat urine, all in the same neighborhood of the Bronx. [More]
Rat’s
NYC Health Officials Investigating Report Of Fried Rat Head Served At Popeyes
By 9.20.16
Let’s start with a warning: if you have recently eaten food, are planning to eat food in the near future, or ever want to eat food again, you might want to stop reading. Now that that’s covered, let’s talk about a Popeyes customer who claims she received a fried rat head with her chicken. [More]
Subway Customer Claims Dead Rat Came Free With His Spinach-Filled Sandwich
By 10.13.15
There’s just something about frogs, spiders and rats that make our skin crawl, especially when they come free in our bags of lettuce, grapes, frozen lemonade, and now, as one Oregon man claims, a Subway sandwich. [More]
KFC Wants An Apology After Lab Tests Show Fried Rat Shape Is Actually Just Chicken
By 6.23.15
Last week after a KFC customer posted photos and video of what he claimed was a fried rat he’d received with his order of chicken, the company said it believed the whole thing was a hoax, and asked the man to turn over the food in question for independent testing. Lab results are in… and the word is, it’s a bird. Chicken, to be exact. [More]
Customer Claims California KFC Served Him Deep-Fried Rat
By 6.17.15
UPDATE: KFC gave Consumerist an updated statement on the situation saying the company believes the whole thing is a hoax. [More]
Golden Corral Customer Claims His Chili Came With A Free Rat
By 10.21.14
Warning: If you want to make sure your breakfast/any food you’ve eaten recently stays put, you probably won’t want to click over and watch any videos that I’m about to link to. Because I already had to go through that for you, and don’t want you to suffer. To that end, a guy in Florida says he found a rat head in his chili at a Golden Corral restaurant. [More]
Study: Even Rats Have Regrets After Passing Up A Good Deal
By 6.10.14
Ah, buyer’s remorse, that sinking feeling like maybe you shouldn’t have paid for that thing you just got. Or maybe you got a raw deal or passed up something you really wanted to settle for something else. That old ghost isn’t confined to haunting humans, researchers say — rats, too, can feel regret after passing up what they really want in the interest of another, less ideal deal with a shorter wait for satisfaction. [More]
Man’s Lawsuit Claims Infected Rodent From Petco Gave Him Rat-Bite Fever
By 4.24.14
Following a lawsuit earlier this year accusing Petco of selling an infected rat that led to a boy’s death, a Maine man is now suing the chain claiming he got rat-bite fever from a rat he bought at the store. [More]
Flight Attendant Suing Jay Leno For On-Air Jokes About Her Close Relationship With A Pet Rat
By 11.19.13
Remember the American Airlines flight attendant who sued her employers over allegations that people claimed she smuggled her pet rat onboard in her underthings? She’s now claiming in a new lawsuit that the host of the Tonight Show, Jay Leno, and NBC defamed her by falsely accusing her of “engaging in bestiality and sexual misconduct with a rat.” So there’s that. [More]
Jury: No Damages For Allegedly Rat-Infested Lemonade
By 9.26.13
How does a dead, decomposing rat end up in a can of frozen lemonade? It doesn’t, argued Coca-Cola, parent company of Minute Maid, defending itself in a civil lawsuit in New Hampshire this week. A woman claimed that the frozen lemonade she bought for a party contained a rat with a side helping of maggots, and the experience has left her unable to buy frozen food. [More]
Customer Wants Refund After Storage Facility Let Rats Eat Her Stuff
By 8.26.13
When you rent a storage unit, you sort of assume that most of your worldly belongings won’t be nommed on by rats. That’s why you’re paying for a storage unit, and didn’t pile your furniture and family heirlooms in the woods or in an abandoned building. Yet a California storage facility just sort of shrugged when one of their customers lost many of her belongings in a rat infestation. [More]
Family Orders Toy Table From Overstock.com, Gets Free Rat Instead
By 8.19.13
A family near Houston claims that they ordered a toy wooden table from Overstock.com, and received a box with what appears to be a mummified rat in it instead. They contacted a local TV news station…presumably only after they were done screaming. [More]
American Airlines Flight Attendant Says She Didn’t Hide Pet Rat In Her Skivvies While On The Job
By 7.8.13
An American Airlines flight attendant is suing mad over accusations that she kept her pet rat snuggled in her underthings while in flight, saying in a lawsuit that suggestions otherwise by her coworkers has created a big old mess in her life. The 33-year veteran of the airline says accusations from her coworkers are “absurd” and “patently false.” Also? That sounds uncomfortable. [More]
This Walmart Offers Really, Really Fresh Meat
By 7.30.12
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. [More]
Video Evidence That Rats Like Starbucks Too
By 4.26.11
Lest you think that rats are only fans of garbage, cheese and fine French cuisine, here is proof that they are addicted to the sweet, sugary beverages at Starbucks. [More]
To Your Brain, Bacon And Chocolate Are Sort Of Like Cocaine
By 3.28.10
A recent scientific study on rats shows that our brains’ wiring is what causes humans to love overeating so darn much. Rats offered a selection of rich, tasty human foods not only became obese, but their brain chemistry changed. The rats needed more food to feel content…and discomfort wouldn’t keep them away from their tasty snacks. [More]
Rat Planter Pleads Guilty To Restaurant Extortion
By 2.8.10
Finding frogs in your weight watchers food or snakes in your TGIF or mice in your Pepsi is one thing and alerting the authorities for infomational purposes is one thing, but please don’t plant rats in your soup in the hopes of extorting a half-million. Because you will be caught, like Debbie Miller of Wisconsin. Here brilliant scheme was defeated by a microwave. [More]
Loaf Of Bread Comes With Baked-In Rodent Goodness
By 6.11.09 — Updated: 2.24.14
Back in 2007, a man in Northern Ireland opened up a loaf of bread and found a whole, mercifully dead, rat. (The BBC is reporting that it’s a mouse, but it’s either a giant mutant mouse or a rat.) A judge heard the case this week, and fined the bakery ÔøΩ1,000 ($1,653) “plus costs.”
