So I'm here with Alan Dufinski, who is a producer of the Terrestrial's podcast. Hi, Alan. Thanks for,

thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, absolutely. So glad to be here. So it's bad rap week on the show.

And all week we've been collaborating with the Terrestrial's podcast to tell stories of people, places,

animals that have a bad reputation.

And the sometimes surprising truths behind them.

Not everyone is getting reformed.

We're just figuring out whether they deserve their reputation or not.

Today, we are talking about rats.

It's bad rat week or bad rat day on the show.

And, you know, to be honest, I'm, I guess call me neutral on rats.

I don't love them.

I'm a rat agnostic.

I don't even know that I think they're gross.

They're just part of the city.

It's like seeing like a squirrel in the backyard of a suburban home. They're just there. They're part of the landscape. But of course, people have very strong opinions about rats, especially New Yorkers, who we do honestly have interactions with rats almost every day. Alan, you live in the city.

When you started doing all this reporting on rats,

you came up with what I thought was like a really fun project.

You set up this rat hotline.

You posted flyers around the city with a phone number

and asked people to call in and report their stories

and opinions about rats.

I love this. I would like to hear some of this tape.

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