at the rat walk<\/a> the city hosted Wednesday night to showcase mitigation strategies that were discussed at the two-day summit.<\/p>\n\u201cShe just called him out because she\u2019s the rat queen and we\u2019re the Rat Rangers so she\u2019s trying to call out \u2026 the head of the Rat Rangers and have a showdown,\u201d Weissman added.<\/p>\n
Keeping with the rat queen\u2019s other antics that have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram over the past year, as part of her \u201crats foiled again\u201d handle, the battle was streamed live online, according to Weissman.<\/p>\n
Dressed as the \u201cgreat grey rat,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Wertman acknowledged the feud when speaking with the Herald, but shared that she\u2019s \u201cheard rumors that it may just be a PR stunt because it\u2019s fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I would never admit to that,\u201d Wertman said. \u201cOf course, I\u2019m 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fueling the turf war, which Weissman insists is \u201cnot that serious,\u201d is a fundamental difference in how the two rat activists view the city\u2019s rodents.<\/p>\n
Wertman said she loves rats, while the Rangers, which organized a few years ago, are all for killing them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, they\u2019re not necessarily trying to exterminate the rats, but they\u2019re not necessarily for the rats,\u201d Wertman said of the Rangers. \u201cAnd so, I\u2019ve got to stand up for my rat people. I\u2019ve got to make sure the rats have a representative, just like the humans do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rat queen\u2019s assessment does not necessarily pertain to all the Rat Rangers, according to Weissman, who said he is strictly \u201canti-rat\u201d while demonstrating his point by carrying around a net filled with stuffed fake rats at the rat walk.<\/p>\n
Weissman said he is all for Boston\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kill about 100 a year, so the fewer the better,\u201d Weissman said. \u201cI\u2019m anti-rat.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have rats, and we just acknowledge that they\u2019re there,\u201d Weissman said. \u201cWe have to live with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given that Allston is known as \u201cRat City,\u201d in part, due to its rodent infestation problem, Weissman said, \u201cWe\u2019re taking the joke and just kind of going with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wertman, the rat queen, said she resides in Beacon Hill. Along with standing up for rats, she said the goal of her antics is \u201cjust to make people smile and to spread positivity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike her \u201csworn enemies,\u201d Wertman said she feels \u201cpositively about rats.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy whenever I see a rat,\u201d Wertman said. \u201cI like them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand why they have to, and I understand why a lot of people want them to,\u201d Wertman said. \u201cI do support the more non-lethal methods, of course. \u2026 As they pursue more humane ways to mitigate the rats in the city, I do support those efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/RATSsc-012.jpg\")
The Rat Queen chats with the Rat Rangers on the Boston rat tour. (Stuart Cahill\/Boston Herald)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who rules the rats in Boston? The self-proclaimed Boston Rat Queen has been feuding with a group of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[133338,84197,133336,133339,133335,133341,84198,133340,9,24,63,122,124,123,133342,133337],"class_list":["post-358031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-allston-rat-rangers","tag-boston-news","tag-boston-rat-queen","tag-boston-rat-summit","tag-boston-rats","tag-boston-rodent-action-plan","tag-massachusetts-news","tag-national-urban-rat-summit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rat-city-arts-festival","tag-sariah-wertman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}