TORONTO – A local couple are elated to have just signed the lease for a new apartment; a cozy one bedroom for $2000, with a full bathroom, a washer and dryer in the unit, and just one horde of rats whose tails had become inextricably and gruesomely intertwined.
“I’m beyond thrilled,” said Michael Vance, opening a bottle of wine to celebrate with partner Emily Shu. “We were this close to passing it up too, but then the landlord told us that most of the second rat king we saw was already dead.”
The couple told reporters that they were shocked when the listing went up on Kijiji, claiming to be for a relatively spacious apartment with full amenities and only one cruel joke of nature that 16th century Germans considered to be a terrible omen.
“You don’t let a deal like that go,” said Shu, while burning what the couple wore to the viewing and rat king-proofing everything else they own. “Not when it’s in the Annex.”
“Besides, it’s not even a big one. Only 12 or 13 rats by my count.”
When asked why he would rent the “(rat) King Suite” for such a reasonable price, landlord Joey Sturino claimed he is doing so out of the goodness of his heart.
“An apartment like this, I could be charging twenty-two-hundred, or maybe even twenty three,” said Sturino. “But these kids have it hard enough, what with the current market for housing right now and with trying to keep a rat king from eating their faces while they sleep.”
At press time, the couple were extremely annoyed to discover that the building had a problem with bedbugs, and would have tried to knock a bit off the utilities had they known.
