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Comment by l3x4ur1n | Hacker News Reader

Is there really such a mice problem at Downing street that people catch mice during dinner?

Bear in mind that it's of Georgian construction and Grade 1 listed (so not just a façade), so there is presumably plenty of wood and plaster in its construction with corresponding voids. With humans comes food morsels. Some of the rooms offer doors onto the garden. Mice seem inevitable in those circumstances.

I think that if that is the case, then we might need a "tiny" more security if unsupervised rats could enter into their premise. It just feels kinda weird thinking how we have a country with nuclear power and yet the building where its highest ranking elected official / basically one of the most important buildings where they live can be infected with the tiny rat.

It almost feels poetic. They have the power to bend apple's arm in secret courts and doors to literally backdoor every/(billions?) of apple devices to mass control and yet a tiny rat can escape and enter their most prestigious building where such earlier decisions are made.

I am not sure why but it definitely gives me some david vs goliath the way I am picturing it.

I am not sure if this is such an unsolvable problem given I am pretty sure that there are definitely CCTV's everywhere with people surveilling over them 24x7 right?

If you're thinking of the 5th Element remote-controlled cockroach attack vector ... I think you're over-estimating what's feasible at the moment (even in a mouse sized package).

Probably not too far off though.

There's a mouse problem in the whole city. But then there's a mouse/rat problem in more or less any city of similar population density.

Yes, Number 10 Downing Street is three eighteenth-century houses joined together. When cleaning dirt from the industrial revolution off the building's facade, it was discovered that the bricks underneath were actually yellow, but it was soon painted black because people were so used to seeing it that way on TV.

More generally, Britain and its former empire are and always were governed strictly on a least-effort, least-cost basis. There is a lot of wealth and splendour in this country, but it's privately owned; the public realm is rather run down.

It's kind of unavoidable with those sorts of buildings. Amsterdam (and similar places) get it even worse - all those waterways with buildings of a similar age mean that it's a haven for mice.

British politicians are notorious sloppy eaters, lots of crumbs to be had.

These buildings are all quite old and in constant use so I'm guessing falling apart inside. The catch foxes in the houses of parliament every now and again

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