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The White House Is Infested with Roaches and Ants

Melania's Christmas decorations aren't the only terrifying thing going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Photos by Alex Wong/Getty Images and Steve Lodefink

Under Melania Trump, the White House is gradually becoming darker and darker in preparation for her Christmas from hell. But even as the estate starts to look more and more like something out of a horror film, it's not as scary as the swarm of pests that has apparently invaded 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

According to NBC Washington, mice, cockroaches, and ants have been running rampant through the White House. Hundreds of White House work orders show the president's administration made a host of requests to fight the infestation, along with asking for some more basic repairs.

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According to the records, mice cropped up in the Situation Room and the Navy Mess kitchen, which might help explain President Trump's decision to opt for Mickey D's instead of a White House meal. Officials reported at least four cockroach infestations on the White House grounds and asked maintenance workers to wipe out a colony of ants that had settled in the chief of staff's office.



The maintenance crew reportedly got to work setting mouse traps outside of Vice President Mike Pence's office and in the West Wing's basement, according to the New York Daily News, and they apparently got the job done. A follow-up request asked the White House's landscape crew "to check all the traps in the West Wing… because they’re smelling something funky or [a] dead mouse."

But pests weren't the only issue. Someone requested a new set of drapes for Melania's office in the East Wing, hoping to create the "overall effect of the room being taller." Officials also reportedly asked for a new toilet seat in the Oval Office bathroom, and while records don't identify who might've broken it, the office is, you know, Trump's.

Maybe Trump was onto something when he reportedly called the place "a real dump" last summer, or maybe the creepy crawlies are just another element of Melania's plan to Make Christmas Goth Again.

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