Moncton, N.B., earns dubious honour as Atlantic Canada's 'rattiest city'

MONCTON, N.B. -

The city of Moncton, N.B., has received an accolade it likely would prefer to do without.

Pest control company, Orkin Canada, released their annual "rattiest cities" rankings for Atlantic Canada and the hub city took home the top spot on the unfortunate list.

"No city wants to be on that list, it's not a glamorous list to be on," says Sean Rollo, technical director for the nationwide rodent control company.

According to Orkin's website, cities were ranked by the number of rodent treatments performed by the company between Aug. 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021.

"All of our calls that we get for rodents and we go out and do a service call, we record that and then we look at what is the percentage of calls coming in. So, for all of Atlantic Canada, Moncton had the highest percentage," says Rollo.

The list included 15 Atlantic Canadian cities, with Moncton, St. John's, Dieppe (N.B.), Halifax, and Charlottetown rounding out the top five.

The ranking comes as no surprise to Moncton resident Dave Rogers, who has been living in the city's north end for nearly a decade. When one of his neighbours informed him that rats had chewed the wires in his car a few weeks ago, costing him a few hundred dollars in repairs, Rogers decided to take a look under his own hood.

"I checked the engine of my car and low and behold, there were rat droppings," says Rogers.

Since then, he says he's lost count of the number of rodents he's caught in the multiple traps set around the perimeter of his property. In an effort to keep the pests from coming into his yard, Rogers installed wire mesh, dug two feet into the ground, and spread 14 tonnes of gravel along his fence line.

He says he's also reached out to the city for help.

"That was about nine weeks ago now and since then, I've had a couple of emails saying they'll contact a contractor to come out and have a look, but we've never seen a contractor, we've never heard back on anything."

Director of community safety for the city of Moncton, Conrad Landry, says his department has only received approximately 12 complaints about rodents from the public since the beginning of spring.

"We are only responsible for the city property, meaning the roads, and our parks and etc. Having said that, we will assist some residents with an evaluation," says Landry.

The city official reminded residents that things like construction, garbage collection, unattended bird feeders and more can contribute to an increased sighting of the pesky problem makers.

Rogers says he wishes the city would do more to prevent the problem from getting out of hand.

"I think the city could step in and take their share of responsibility. They will tell you and they feel that rats on your property are your problem."

Over the last 19 months, Rollo says the COVID-19 pandemic has also caused a spike in rodent sightings within residential areas.

"They're driven to find opportunity, so if a restaurant was an area where maybe the rodents were feeding in the back garbage or so on, but now the restaurant is now closed, so there's no garbage, no food scraps," Rollo said. "Those rodents are now moving and looking for that new opportunity."