Another Reason The Neighbors Might Not Like Fort Worth's Big Cheese Rodent Factory

I know if I lived in the Big Cheese Rodent Factory's neighborhood the type scenario so graphically depicted on the left might give me nightmares.

It's almost November.

I wonder how the Big Cheese are doing with their City of Fort Worth ultimatum to quit stinking up the neighborhood by November 1?

I haven't read another word about it.

Big Cheese Rodent Factory Has 3 Weeks To Quit Stinking

Last night the Fort Worth City Council, aka Fort Worth's Ruling Junta, gave the owners of the Big Cheese Rodent Factory 3 weeks to quit stinking up their neighborhood.

The Rodent Factory was given something called "planned development" zoning, instead of the "industrial zoning" the Rodent Factory owners had requested.

The new zoning lets the mouse breeders keep on breeding in their Rosemont neighborhood factory in south Fort Worth. The smell must be gone by November 1.

The Big Cheese Rodent Factory sells between 500,000 and 600,000 rats and mice a month. The rodents go to research, zoo food for snakes and birds and other uses.

An investigation by Fort Worth's Environmental Department (I'm shocked Fort Worth has such a department) found that the Rodent Factory's stench violated the Texas nuisance standard for odors.

Apparently the Big Cheese Rodent Factory reeks of an ammonia-like smell.

It will be interesting to see if the Rodent Factory stops stinking by November 1. And what Fort Worth does about it when the problem continues.

I'd blogged about the Big Cheese Rodent Factory previously.

Fort Worth Dumbness About ZLB Plasma

I recently learned yet one more thing that makes me cranky about how the Ruling Junta of Fort Worth runs things in this backwater town that doesn't know that that's what it is.

In one neighborhood of Fort Worth the residents can not get the city to shut down something that is making them miserable due to the smells coming from the Big Cheese Rodent Factory. Yes, the city is allowing a mice breeding operation where people live.

Meanwhile in my area of Fort Worth a company named ZLB Plasma has a branch office doing a good deed. They are so successful they bought a nearby bigger building to move their operation to so they could do even more good deeds.

But, the city of Fort Worth's Ruling Junta thinks this business attracts an unsavory crowd that lingers in McDonald's and the bus stop and make residents nervous. At least that's part of the excuse given to denying a permit to open a bigger clinic in a bigger building which would attract even more unsavory characters.

ZLB Plasma extracts blood plasma from willing donors. Plasma is used to make products that treat patients suffering from bleeding disorders, immune deficiencies, shock, trauma and burns.

There is an urgent, critical need for products that can only be made from plasma.

Every day, but Sunday, 100s of people show up at my neighborhood ZLB Plasma clinic to do a good thing. They are paid $25-$40 per donation. If you donate plasma a second time in one week they give you $40, one time you get $25.

So, you've got all these people, healthy people, well-tested before plasma is drawn, willing to do this good deed. You've got a company willing to locate in Fort Worth to do this good deed.

And you've got an idiotic city bureaucracy that does not work with them, instead, works against them. ZLB had no idea what sort of backwater place they were dealing with. They naively went ahead and bought the new, bigger building. Likely because the company had never been located in a place where permission to make a move to a bigger building would be denied.

Someone needs to overthrow Fort Worth's Ruling Junta and install a working democracy. I think maybe the Ruling Junta is running a WMD operation at the Big Cheese Rodent Factory. Time for some pre-emptive striking for the greater good of the good citizens of Fort Worth. America, please takeover this town. You'll be welcomed as liberators. I'm almost certain of that.

DaFoWo Show & The Big Cheese Rodent Factory

Below is this week's DaFoWo Show. A Fort Worth Star-Telegram production. The show uses the Big Cheese Rodent Factory stinking story as humor fodder. My one longtime reader may remember me blogging about this a few weeks ago. There is also an amusing bit about Exorcism. DaFoWo had to use subtitles so we could understand one of the Texans being interviewed.

The Big Cheese Rodent Factory

There is a rodent breeding factory in south Fort Worth called the Big Cheese Rodent Factory that produces between 500,000 and 600,000 mice and rats a month.

Why you wonder? I know I did.

Well. In 1999 Lynda Hanna read in the Wall Street Journal that there was a need for rodents to feed the growing population of exotic animals for whom rats and mice are dinner. So, Lynda and her son, Chad Martin opened the Big Cheese Rodent Factory.

All was hunky dory in the rat/mice breeding business until neighboring businesses and residents started complaining to the city about the foul odor coming from the Rodent Factory. That complaining grew louder in the past couple months because the Big Cheese owners have asked for a zoning change so they can expand the Rodent Factory.

A city inspector sent to check out the smell said it was so bad he had moments of nausea while inspecting.

The Rodent Factory is trying to lessen its stench. One of their breeding zones has had a ozone filter installed that greatly improves air quality. Another odor source is the used up sawdust tossed into a garbage bin. They are trying to lessen that problem with disinfectant sprays.

What I know for certain is I would not want to live by a Big Cheese Rodent Factory. Bad smells aside. What if the rats escaped? Remember the movie, Willard?