Modest Mice

When we wrote on Monday about a cute sign made on behalf of the city's rat population, thanking Mayor Miller and the striking unions for the proliferation of garbage around the city, we wrote that the artist whose signature was at the foot of the image, "madame HAIR," seemed to be, "sadly, human." She is! After seeing her work on Torontoist, she emailed us to tell us the big news: more of her rats are coming.

"I will have more of these critters adding up as the strike progresses," she explained, attaching the image at right. "I have them floating all over town...as the strike madness continues so do the number of rats who will be saying hello and top of the day to you sir!"

Her reasons for creating the posters, though, are a bit less sunny. "I decided to do these toones [sic] out of frustration and anger," HAIR told us. "The residents of Toronto are being held hostage[;] that is who pays at the end of the day, single parents who cannot take their children to daycare, kids who are now on their summer vacations who should be in the parks kicking a ball and taking a swim. And as for the garbage piling up and ca[u]sing a stink there may be something even more serious than that lurking[;] this kind of filth can lead to disease." (Disease!) "The toones [sic]," HAIR explains, "are my voice, my way of pointing out the ridiculousness of both parties."