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The White House Is Literally Infested With Vermin And Twitter's Got Jokes

by Meredith Bland
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Image via DEA / Archivio J. Lange / Getty

Work orders include installing mouse traps and bug lights

Sometimes, the current administration makes me rage and cry. Other times, it gives me little gifts, like this report from NBC News showing that the president’s home is infested with roaches and mice. Oh, Request For New Oval Office Toilet Seat, I just can’t stay mad at you.

According to roaches everywhere, you can learn a lot about a person by going through their garbage. As it turns out, you can also learn something about an administration by combing through their roach-related maintenance requests. We’re not sure what prompted the good folks at NBC News to obtain and pore over the hundreds of work orders, but we sure do appreciate it. Here are a few of the things we learned from the 43-page sample provided on the NBC News site:

There are a lot, and I mean, a lot of ants, mice, and roaches making themselves comfortable in the White House (insert the joke of your choice here.) They have been reported everywhere from the dining rooms to the Lower Press Suite to the Situation Room. There was a request for mouse traps outside the Vice President’s office, followed by a request in all caps to “PLEASE HAVE SOMEONE PICK UP DEAD MOUSE.”

Does that mean there’s a maintenance worker allowing a dead mouse to chill in Pence’s office? There’s a visual.

This White House is also a big fan of bug lights — two were put in Kellyanne Conway’s office alone.

In non-pest-related news that will shock no one, this group also loves their television. There were orders to mount eight new televisions in the building, including, according to NBC, “a DirecTV satellite DVR and TV system in the vice president’s office.”

There are also numerous requests for maintenance to raise the temperature in different areas by anywhere from one to three degrees. One request asked that workers raise the temperature in one room by “1.5 degrees.” If I were a betting woman, I’d guess that room belongs to a civil servant whose name rhymes with NellyLan Monway. The White House needs to watch their itchy thermometer fingers because it’s those kinds of requests that lead to work orders like this, my personal favorite: “2W-51 TOO HOT. TURN UP 3 DEGREES.”

Now, when you move into a new house, there are bound to be a few quirks here and there that you’re not sure about. But this one left us feeling slightly panicked: “Identify the small red light above the Cabinet room door. If the light is no longer used please remove and patch hole.” OH MY GOD, WHAT WAS THE LIGHT?! RED LIGHTS ARE ALWAYS 100% OF THE TIME IMPORTANT LIGHTS. This is why we’re all going to disintegrate in a plume of fire and smoke.

Twitter, of course, had it’s own reactions to these bizarre work orders:

Of course, we had to save the best news for last:

Got to be after hours because that’s where Trump does his workday thinking. The toilet in the residence is for 6 AM hate-tweeting. The man has a schedule.

TVs, toilets, ants, mice, and roaches. Your 2017 White House, ladies and gentlemen.

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