Property Managers Use DNA To Sniff Out Dog Poop Offenders 234
Nerval's Lobster writes "News changes during holidays. It gets thinner and lighter and weirder as the hordes of writers and editors who produce the overwhelming flood of news, updates and infotainments go home to annoy friends and family rather than readers and advertisers. Top points in ridiculousness, however, go to the condo- and apartment-complex managers in Braintree, MA, who were inspired to become amateur zoo-geneticists by resident pet owners who not only refused to clean up after their pets, but challenged the apartment managers to prove it was their pets contributing the increasingly hazardous, unpleasant piles of doggie doo on apartment properties. Rather than put up with a neverending supply of potential EcoBot fuel on marring the landscaping, facilities managers took cheek swabs of all the dogs on the property and sent them to A Knoxville, Tenn. that provided DNA profiles under a program with the dignified name 'PooPrints.' Now, for a fee of only $60 per pooch, residential managers can confirm the provider of a pile of PooPrintable material by comparing the DNA in the dog with the DNA in the pile. 'Now you don't really have to worry about dog poop,' said one fan of the practical application of zoological genetic analysis. 'The grass is now ours again, we don't have to worry about it [poop], and that's a good thing.' Restraint is just as important as innovation, of course, so the building managers made a point of telling the AP reporter who wrote the story that they wouldn't extend the effort to identifying which pooch peed on which bush and when. 'That's a little more difficult. We are not going to tackle that.' Finally, in this holiday season, something to be thankful for." The city of Petah Tikva, Israel started a similar identification program in 2008.
Doesn't really help much (Score:1, Interesting)
Where I live, the HOA can get DNA tests of poop all it wants, the main culprits are non-residents. This is mainly for income through fines, not really enforcement.
It could be worse. One neighborhood in the town I live in is a gated community, and has restrictions on the cars residents can own. They have to be Acuras, Mercedes, BMWs, or another luxury brand, 5 year olders or newer. Anything else gets towed, and a $300 "eyesore" fee charged. The ironic thing is that I was there with a Freightliner van that I slapped Mercedes emblems on [1], and the enforcement crew [2] considered it an acceptable choice of vehicle.
[1]: Two Torx screws on the center van logo. The front grille would take a little bit more time, so I just parked the thing in frontwards when I was using it.
[2]: People who had "Enforcement patrol" badges on their cars stating their job was to force others to obey all speed limits by pulling out in front of people. Was amusing watching them just sit for stretches at a time just so they could pull out on someone.
Re:inconsiderate... (Score:5, Interesting)
I inadvertently taught my dog to not crap on the lawn. When he was still house training, I always took him off into the tall weeds to do his business - since then, he goes to great lengths to not crap on the lawn. He'll find tall weeds, go off in the woods or crap over an embankment if at all possible. Last week, he had to go and there was only lawn in site, so he made sure to crap on a large rock rather than the grass... made it easier for me to scoop it up.
poop DNA trumps rape kit backlogs? (Score:0, Interesting)
I guess we're really just a misogynist society.
Or is there something different about dog poop that makes it easier to identify this unwanted deposit more than your typical rape kit analyses?
Re:This is why (Score:5, Interesting)
Cats have traditionally played very important roles in pest control --- keeping rodents out of granaries, etc. --- which is how they gained widespread acceptance and favor in human societies. A farm or city with a few semi-domesticated cats around was greatly preferable to swarms of rats. Ancient Egyptian civilization --- the ones who put cats on the level of gods (which status the cats have never forgotten) --- was able to become a powerful empire through large-scale storage and distribution of grain, requiring methods (such as cats) for preventing mass-scale spoilage of food supplies due to vermin infestation.