THUNDER BAY – A public education campaign is being looked at as the city's answer to mitigate the escalating rat problem, which officials acknowledge is not likely to go away.
City administration earlier this year was tasked with developing a strategy to exterminate a skyrocketing rat population, with sightings becoming increasingly prevalent throughout urban and downtown areas.
In a report that will go before council on Monday night, city officials recommend collaborating with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit on a $5,000 multimedia public awareness and education campaign to inform residents about how to stop their property from luring the rodents.
“I think there’s no magic solution or silver bullet. The reality is we’re not going to magically go out there and eliminate rats in the community. I think we have to come to terms with the fact that they’re here,” city manager of solid waste and recycling services Jason Sherband said on Thursday.
“We can talk about different reasons why they may or may not be here. I think they’re all speculative.”
Two Ontario cities operate formal rat abatement programs, though both of their administrations have previously recommended discontinuing the services.
In Sault Ste. Marie, residents who observe rats on their property apply to have up to three visits from a contracted pest control company. The city has 189 residential properties where baiting is currently been set up. The program is estimated to cost at least $100,000 going forward. Windsor has operated a similar program for about 20 years, with an annual budget of $140,000.
While Ottawa and Kingston both have forms of baiting service programs for their sanitary sewer programs, Sherband said there is limited effectiveness for those kinds of initiatives with most municipalities relying on residents to deal with issues on their property themselves.
“It’s not eliminating the problem. It’s simply managing it,” Sherband said of the abatement programs.
“I think what we’re hoping is to go out and formally educate the community. Then, let’s come back in a year or so and see how that’s working. Maybe we come back in a year or so and think we might have to do more than we’re doing now but we figure this is a good starting point.”
The recommendation to council would direct the city to partner with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit to educate residents about individual measures that can be taken to prevent infestations and options that can be used to eradicate or drive rats away from their property.
The city’s bylaw division would also remain responsible for enforcing issues around property standards and yard maintenance on a complaint-driven basis.
“With rats, the big thing is a food source. Making sure you don’t have things like food sources in your yard, you don’t have standing water,” Sherband said. “Sometimes it’s little things that create a huge problem.”
Canadian Pest Control owner Doug Rondeau earlier this year said the frequency of rats has increased from just a few times a week or a month to now being a daily occurrence.
“Really, nobody understands why,” Rondeau said at the time.
The health unit released a map earlier this year tracking rat sightings from September 2016 to April 2017, which showed Northwood, Westfort and various areas of the McKellar ward to be hot spots.
One common perceived source that draws rats is backyard composters but Sherband insisted composting should not be a rat magnet if done correctly.
“We don’t want to put a fear out in the community that properly backyard home composting is causing an increase in the population. The composters that we utilize are utilized by municipalities across the province,” Sherband said.
“What we’ve identified is we can look at providing rodent-proof bases for those units. We’re actually in the process of ordering those so when we move forward for future purchases that those bases will be attached so hopefully that will alleviate some of the concern people have about backyard home composting attributing to that.”
