Even the Pied Piper can’t permanently rid a town of rats

The Pied Piper saved Hamelin from rats.

But not forever.
As the Deister und Weser Zeitung (that’s German for the Deister and Weser Newspaper) recently reported, the scenic town in Lower Saxony is again suffering from an excess of the rascally rodents. Those uninvited guests have even rendered a popular fountain inoperable by gnawing through the cables that deliver electricity to it.

While the Pied Piper’s legendary public service of musically luring the furry fiends into the River Weser way back in 1284 has never been officially verified, this 2012 news story does ring of ratty retribution.

Yet Gunter Loschner, Hamelin’s official rat catcher, detected human culprits — specifically, tourists. He told that local paper:

“Visitors sit around the fountain and throw bread to feed the birds. At night the rats come out and take any leftovers. They dive into the cable ducts because they can eat undisturbed.”

And even if a modern Pied Piper could strike up a fetching tune to put the rats back in the river, as many residents of our own riverfront city know, rats can swim.

Most of us also know that tourists can sometimes be a messy bunch.