Mr. Saad has fenced the area in using thrown away household appliances that have become infested with rats.

via Life in Baghdad’s Slums: Fighting to Survive in Sadr City – SPIEGEL ONLINE

“Iraq’s poorest people live on trash heaps, sleep amongst the rats and drink polluted water. In the country with the world’s third largest oil reserves, a million people live in misery, despite the fact that the US has spent $53 billion on the country’s reconstruction efforts.

The rats come at night, when the Saads are sleeping. They force their way through the spaces between the thrown-away household appliances that Saad Kadi Saad has piled up to form a wall around his part of the rubbish dump. They scamper around the shredded double mattress where the five-member family is crowded, and make their way to the outhouse that the family uses to relieve itself, which is just a few steps away from their outdoor bed”.

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