Click to enlarge this picture of the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C.
Years ago cats were put in the basements of the Shoreham to control and kill the rats and mice. Over the years the cats became feral. They are not domestic. They are wild animals. They will jump in your hair from the pipes in the ceilings.
There was an assistant Steward who starting shooting them with an air rifle. This somehow was reported to the old "Ear" gossip column in the old Washington Star. Then the Humane Society arrived and put a stop to that and said they would bait and trap the wild cats with cages. It did not work. The cats were still there when I left.
I found a little kitten once deep in the basement. I took it home as a pet for our children.
But it remained wild. It would pull on the kids hair at night while they slept.
I had to get rid of it. I took it to Rock Creek Park and turned it loose. As I was driving away I saw a lady stop her car and get out and go get the cat.
One time we had a bat in the lobby. The employees wanted nothing to do with catching and getting rid of the bat. The lobby of the Shoreham is very large and has very high ceilings. Nothing we had was long enough to get the bat which was way up high on a wall in the lobby. Finally someone came up with a solution. We got a fire extinguisher and shot the foam at the bat and it fell down. We wrapped in a towel and took it outside and released it.
