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A Boston woman is dealing with an unwelcome tenant on her front porch — a rat that has turned a baby stroller into a cozy winter hideaway.
The woman shared her ordeal Thursday on the r/Boston subreddit, explaining that she had left her stroller, complete with a muff, on her second-floor porch. When she checked on it later, she discovered a rat had moved in.
“I stupidly left our stroller with a muff out on the porch,” she wrote. “Today I found a big rat is nested in there. I can’t see clearly, but it seems it has chewed up the muff lining and is using the filling for a nest.”
The woman said she’s called a few pest control companies, but instead of offering immediate removal, they just tried to sell her a long-term bait boxing service.
“…Which is fine, but I urgently need someone to just safely remove the rat and the nest so I can clean or dispose of the stroller if needed,” she wrote, adding that she couldn’t secure a next-day appointment and felt Monday was too far away.
Turning to Reddit for advice, the woman asked whether she should attempt to remove the rat herself, saying she was worried about being bitten or contracting a disease. “Which professional can I call?” she asked.
Redditors reacted with a mix of humor and practical advice. The top comment began, “Sounds like it’s their porch now,” before offering an elaborate plan involving a bucket trap and joking that the rat could then “go on to be a Michelin star chef at a French restaurant,” a nod to the 2007 film “Ratatouille.”
Others suggested she evict the rat by vigorously shaking the stroller or whacking it with a broom, while many urged her to cut her losses entirely and throw the stroller out.
“I honestly wouldn’t ever use it for a small child after a rat had been cribbed up there,” one commenter wrote.
Pest control experts generally advise against handling rats without professional help. According to Terminix, rodents can become aggressive and scratch when threatened and may carry diseases such as hantavirus and leptospirosis.
“When it comes to getting rid of a rat’s nest in the house, DIY treatments won’t cut it,” the company warns on its website.
Boston has been grappling with heightened rat activity in recent years, prompting a citywide rodent action plan known as BRAP. City officials urge residents to “see something, squeak something!” and report rodent activity to 311. Officials said response teams are typically dispatched within one to two days.
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Three males were arrested while fleeing from an alleged break in at property in downtown Boston Thursday evening, police said.
A call reporting a breaking and entering in progress across from 7 Water St. came in at 7:33 p.m., a police spokesperson said.
The call prompted nearly a dozen marked squad cars to race to the scene in the Financial District.
The three males were wearing black ski masks when they allegedly ran from officers near Water and Washington streets toward Court Square, police said.
All three were arrested.
No other information was immediately available.
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.
President Trump holds up an executive order to limit mail-in voting as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick looks on in the White House’s Oval Office in March.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
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Alex Wong/Getty Images
President Trump’s executive order to limit voting by mail has hit a legal hurdle.
On Thursday, a Boston-based judge blocked parts of the order that, at least so far, has not directly affected mail-in voting for this year’s midterm primary elections.
The legal fight, however, is likely to continue. The order pushes the boundaries of Trump’s authority under the Constitution, which gives state legislatures and Congress — not the U.S. president — the power to set the rules for federal elections.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the new ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, as a separate appeal of an earlier ruling by another federal judge moves forward in a similar set of lawsuits based in Washington, D.C.

Among other directives, Trump’s order from March calls for the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service to create lists of adult U.S. citizens or eligible voters in each state. It also calls for USPS, which is independent of a president’s administration, to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists.
In response, USPS has proposed using information from state election officials to create voter lists. Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers Wednesday that under the proposal, the Postal Service would not deliver the mail ballots of any states that refuse to turn over their absentee voter lists to the federal government.
For the D.C.-based cases, the judge found in late May that it was too early for an emergency ruling that would block directives that the Trump administration has yet to carry out. Democrats are appealing that judge’s ruling to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
Editor’s note: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Local News
A 13-year-old boy was flown to a Boston hospital after he was found unresponsive in a swimming pool at a home in Beverly on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
Police and firefighters were called to a home on Parramatta Road after bystanders pulled the boy from the pool, the Beverly Police Department wrote in a press release.
Bystanders administered CPR until first responders arrived, according to police. First responders continued CPR and other “life saving measures,” police said.
An ambulance took the boy to Beverly Hospital where he was stabilized. He was then taken by medical helicopter to a Boston hospital, police said.
The incident is currently being investigated by Beverly police, the department said.
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