The State - News from Sept. 25, 1989

The Legislature might be gone for the year, but rats are still roaming the Capitol. Four “formidable-sized rats” have been trapped in the last few days, says Bob Connelly, the Capitol’s administrative officer. “We’ve always had mice, as well as crickets and wasps,” he said. “But the rats were kind of like the Phantom of the Opera. . . . It was like the Loch Ness monster, where everyone knew someone who had seen it, but nobody had actually seen it himself.” A pest-control firm was hired and set traps and put down a rodenticide, he said. Three rats were trapped and killed in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee room and another was found in the basement, Connelly said.