In the ‘70’s I worked briefly at one of the Baltimore network affiliate TV stations in the newsroom on the Assignments Desk. My job was to monitor the police and fire frequencies on a scanner and make rounds of calls to the city and surrounding counties’ police PIO’s to find out what was going on that we could cover. On a very slow news day (most of them started out like that), you’d go through your evergreen file with leads on people who had called complaining about neighborhood problems. Rat infestation was one such evergreen and about once every two months I would send a reporter and camera crew to some address in some marginal inner city Baltimore neighborhood to talk to old ladies about their rat problems. Every once in awhile one would oblige the cameras with an appearance. That would make at least a voice over for the 11.
So do yo think they waited it out for a shot of rat or it was just coincidence.
Ben, you're always running here and there
You feel you're not wanted anywhere
If you ever look behind and don't like what you find
There's something you should know, you've got a place to go