Who rules the rats in Boston? The self-proclaimed Boston Rat Queen has been feuding with a group of vigilantes known as the Allston City Rat Rangers.
The beef between Sariah Wertman, who declared herself queen of the city’s rats a little over a year ago, and the Rat Rangers played out in the backdrop of the second-ever National Urban Rat Summit that took place in Boston this past week.
“She’s the self-appointed rat queen, and she has a little beef with one of our rat rangers, and they did a rat rap battle at the Rat City Arts Festival,” one of the rangers, Zeth Weissman, told the Herald at the rat walk the city hosted Wednesday night to showcase mitigation strategies that were discussed at the two-day summit.
“She just called him out because she’s the rat queen and we’re the Rat Rangers so she’s trying to call out … the head of the Rat Rangers and have a showdown,” Weissman added.
Keeping with the rat queen’s other antics that have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram over the past year, as part of her “rats foiled again” handle, the battle was streamed live online, according to Weissman.
Dressed as the “great grey rat,” Wertman, 26, was spotted throughout the summit, including the downtown evening rat walk, where she played her trumpet for attendees, and followed the group to the Cheers bar afterwards, per her Instagram.
Wertman acknowledged the feud when speaking with the Herald, but shared that she’s “heard rumors that it may just be a PR stunt because it’s fun to watch.”
“But I would never admit to that,” Wertman said. “Of course, I’m not very good friends with any of them. But you know, I would say you always have to have a decent respect for your sworn enemies, of course. So, if I am enemies with the Rat Rangers, I would have obviously chosen well.”
Fueling the turf war, which Weissman insists is “not that serious,” is a fundamental difference in how the two rat activists view the city’s rodents.
Wertman said she loves rats, while the Rangers, which organized a few years ago, are all for killing them.
“Well, they’re not necessarily trying to exterminate the rats, but they’re not necessarily for the rats,” Wertman said of the Rangers. “And so, I’ve got to stand up for my rat people. I’ve got to make sure the rats have a representative, just like the humans do.”
The rat queen’s assessment does not necessarily pertain to all the Rat Rangers, according to Weissman, who said he is strictly “anti-rat” while demonstrating his point by carrying around a net filled with stuffed fake rats at the rat walk.
Weissman said he is all for Boston’s rat crackdown when asked about the more aggressive mitigation measures being piloted by the city, including the different types of technology, machines that pump lethal carbon monoxide into the ground, and rat-killing terrier dogs that were shown off during the rat walk.
“I kill about 100 a year, so the fewer the better,” Weissman said. “I’m anti-rat.”
Weissman said the Rat Rangers as a group are not necessarily pro- or anti-rat. The community organization educates people on rats, he said, and is taking part in the Rat City Arts Festival, which is for Allston-Brighton. If weather permitted, the festival was set to include a rat march featuring the hat-wearing Rangers on Sunday.
“We have rats, and we just acknowledge that they’re there,” Weissman said. “We have to live with them.”
Given that Allston is known as “Rat City,” in part, due to its rodent infestation problem, Weissman said, “We’re taking the joke and just kind of going with it.”
Wertman, the rat queen, said she resides in Beacon Hill. Along with standing up for rats, she said the goal of her antics is “just to make people smile and to spread positivity.”
Unlike her “sworn enemies,” Wertman said she feels “positively about rats.”
“I’m really happy whenever I see a rat,” Wertman said. “I like them.”
Wertman acknowledged that other people in Boston may not share her positive feelings towards rats, which have been flagged as a persistent quality of life issue in the city, and understands why officials are trying to eliminate them.
“I understand why they have to, and I understand why a lot of people want them to,” Wertman said. “I do support the more non-lethal methods, of course. … As they pursue more humane ways to mitigate the rats in the city, I do support those efforts.”
The Rat Queen chats with the Rat Rangers on the Boston rat tour. (Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)