Capitol Hill's Animal House is their home-away-from-home
WASHINGTON -- In the barren kitchen of his sparsely appointed Capitol Hill crash pad, US Representative Bill Delahunt of Quincy is re enacting the Slaying of the Rat. "It was gigantic," Delahunt insists. "It came out from there, behind the stove. I wrestled the thing to the ground and throttled it. Durbin was asleep upstairs, and Schumer was over in his bedroom --" Delahunt points across an open space to an ancient daybed jammed into a corner "-- just trembling."
"Durbin" is Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, and "Schumer" is Senator Charles Schumer of New York, Delahunt's Washington roommates and tenants of veteran congressman George Miller of California. Miller owns the unprepossessing, two-story Capitol Hill townhouse and resents the suggestion that he is just another District of Columbia slumlord.
"Everything you were told was a lie," says Miller, who bought the house for his family in 1977. (They quickly fled back to California.) "There are no rats. Durbin killed all the rats with his putter several years ago. We had a scorecard on the refrigerator: 'Durbin 9 , Rats 0.'"
That's well and good, congressman. But a spokesman for Schumer says his boss found a dead rat in the kitchen "just a few months ago." And what about this business card prominently displayed on the kitchen counter:"Adcock's Trapping Service : Professional Trapper Specializing in the removal of Raccoons, Bats , Birds, Snakes and all other wildlife"?
"That's a head fake," Miller insists . "That's just Delahunt trying to negotiate the rent."
Welcome to 127 D Street , Capitol Hill's most storied Animal House, just a few steps from the House and Senate floors. Like most legislators, 127's denizens live in their home districts and maintain a pied a terre in Washington. Long the butt of insider jokes -- comedian Al Franken pitched a sitcom called "Little House on the Hill ," featuring four middle-aged congressmen in 2002 -- Animal House has suddenly become Power House, as the four out-of-the-chips Democrats are now A-list players.
Since last fall's election, Durbin has become the Senate's majority whip , and Schumer ranks third in the Senate leadership. Miller now heads the House's Education and Labor Committee , and Delahunt is also wielding a chairman's gavel, as head of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on investigations and oversight . "This is the first time they've been back in power since I left," says former congressman Leon Panetta , perhaps 127's most distinguished alumnus, who occupied Delahunt's stoveside bunk for a decade until he became President Clinton's budget director and then chief of staff . "I'm glad they're finally back and able to influence policy."
But that doesn't mean they are cleaning up their act.
"This is what power is all about," Delahunt jokes, as he responds to a challenge to locate the dishwasher detergent. After miscues with cupboard doors numbers one and two, the Distinguished Gentleman from Quincy locates the soap. "Ah, here it is."
After barely passing the soap test, Delahunt handles other, more sensitive questions like a witness squirming in front of a congressional inquisitor. When was the last time he shopped for groceries? "I don't recall." How terrifying is it to start the day seeing Chuck Schumer in his underwear? "Nothing special." Who last cooked in this kitchen? "It kind of slips my mind." Has anyone ever tended the Fort
While her boss gropes for a fourth way to say "no comment," Delahunt's Washington office chief, Michele Jalbert , intervenes. "No self-respecting woman would set foot in this place," Jalbert says. Case in point: Before this week, she hadn't visited D Street in three years. "I'll do anything to avoid delivering something to this address," she says.
Even though the house has been straightened up for visitors, many telling details remain on display. There is the drinks cooler in the fireplace. The empty picture frames stacked on top of the oven hood. The overturned rattrap behind the stove. The wicker chairs, whose broken seats have been replaced with ceiling tiles. The floor-to-ceiling mirror motif next to Schumer's bed. The weathervane, placed high on a 10-foot shelf, depicting a cow labeled "Taxpayer," being milked by Uncle Sam.
"I guess the cleaning lady couldn't hide everything," Delahunt muses.
To be fair, the house's second floor looks positively normal. Landlord Miller has a decent-size bedroom facing the backyard "garden," and his own private bathroom. Durbin's second-floor bedroom faces the street, but he is forced to share a tiny bathroom with Delahunt and Schumer, who is notorious for not wiping down the tub. "Not God's gift to cleaning," is how Panetta remembers his former housemate.
And you can't beat the neighborhood. Several since-cashiered Republican congresspeople, including the disgraced e-mailer Mark Foley , used to live up the street. When next-door neighbor Representative Porter Goss became director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the block briefly enjoyed security worthy of the storied Counter Terrorism Unit in the TV show "24."
But back on the ground floor, life remains much the same. A pair of boxer shorts -- a souvenir of a fund-raiser for Senator Barbara Boxer of California -- lies on top of a pile of what Delahunt calls "communal clothing." Inexplicably, a cluster of male toiletries stands next to the downstairs phone. "We share those," explains Delahunt, who, for understandable reasons, prefers to shower and shave at the House gym.
In his more subversive moments, Delahunt dares to talk about a rent strike. The three tenants each pay $750 a month, up from $550 in 2002. Landlord Miller can't believe his ears. "I don't know what those guys are complaining about," he says. "They were out on the street, and I had the decency to take them in."
Alex Beam's e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
