Irony Department: Man Fined For Feeding Rats Found Eaten By Rats

[MrScorpio]

Man Repeatedly Told To Stop Feeding Rats

POSTED: 1:03 pm EST December 14, 2006

KIRKLAND, Wash. -- For years, the neighbors have been complaining that Thomas H. Stone, 67, was feeding rats at his suburban Seattle home.

They apparently won't have to worry about that anymore. But the sheriff's deputy who checked on the last complaint may have a hard time getting the image he found out of his head.

Authorities said the deputy found a dead body, believed to be Stone, on the second floor in a house full of rodents, feces and garbage -- with rats feeding on the decomposing corpse.

One neighbor said they'd been warning officials for about five years about the rats. And county health workers told Stone to stop feeding them.

"I wanted to get him help," neighbor Tom Ellis told the Seattle Times. "And I wanted the rats to go away."

Investigators even imposed fines, got a lien on the house, and won a judgment that's now more than $200,000.

Ellis said he and his family watched as Stone threw peanuts to the rats and squirrels sitting on his balcony.

"In the end, he wouldn't even take out the garbage," Ellis said. "It looks like he never took down the Christmas decorations from when his mother died in 1999. It was all very Edgar Allan Poe-ish."

The man lived in the home with his mother and became the owner upon her 1999 death.

http://www.newsnet5.com/home-backup/10534893/detail.html

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. WILLARD!

:scared:

[seemunkee]

5. That was my first thought too

[philosophie_en_rose]

2. Sad. APS should have intervened.

:(

[petronius]

3. I wonder how big the fine will be this time?

:shrug:

[crim son]

4. MrScorpio!

I haven't seen you around. Glad to have you back :hug:

[hickman]

6. I wonder if they were his only friends.

Bizarre and sad.