Rat Catcher
Cities overrun by rodents once employed full-time rat catchers—often armed with sticks, sacks, and, if they were lucky, a ferret or dog. They didn’t just trap rats—they wrestled them. Some even caught them bare-handed for bounty payments based on size or quantity.
Aside from the constant risk of disease (hello, bubonic plague!), rat catchers were often viewed as shady characters. They sometimes bred rats to ensure future work, creating an odd economic cycle of pest control. When sanitation improved and pest control became scientific, this gritty profession faded into history.
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