You Could Legally Cash In Rat Heads At Your Township Clerk In Michigan

Michigan once had a law that paid people cash for rat heads.  And yes, there were very specific rules about how many you had to bring in at once.

May 19th, 2000, was a day of celebration in the rat community.  Remy and Splinter can finally rest easy with the bounty off their tails. I hope their families are celebrating over a cheese block.  Why?  Because that is the day that Michigan repealed 'The Rat Bounty Law of 1915.'  The law was technically called The Public Act 50 of 1950.  This is an excerpt of that law, according to  American Greatness.

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There were rules if you wanted to cash in on Michigan’s rat bounty. For starters, you couldn’t stroll into the township clerk’s office proudly holding a single rat head. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Bounty hunters had to present a bundle of at least five rat heads before collecting their hard-earned dimes.

Talk about a literal rat race. People were out there chasing rodents for pocket change. It turns out the real cheese wasn’t in the trap—it was waiting at the township clerk’s office.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Michigan State Law Revision Task Force began cleaning out the state’s legal attic, including the outdated rat bounty act.

Obviously, nobody wants rats taking over their home or business. So why repeal the law? Well, imagine working at a township office when someone walks in, drops a bundle of rat heads on the counter, and demands their dimes. That’s a customer-service situation no training manual could prepare you for.

Plus, rodents simply weren’t the widespread problem they had been a century earlier. The law had outlived its usefulness and, thankfully, so did the need for government employees to count rat heads.

I guess back in the day it paid to be a rat, on rats. I'll show myself out.