THUNDER BAY — The number of complaints about rats being made to local public health officials has fallen off in the last few years, but extermination companies say the disease-carrying pests continue to show up on farms and rural homes near Thunder Bay.
“I was just at (an infested) house in Kaministiquia,” Thunder Bay’s Doug Rondeau said on Wednesday.
According to Thunder Bay District Health Unit, rat complaints in the city shot up to 72 in 2020, then slowly dropped down to under 50 per year over the next three years. In 2023, there were 37 complaints in the health units.
“A quick (data) scan of the last six months shows only one rat-related complaint from the rural area immediately west of Thunder Bay,” a health unit spokesman said.
Still, social media posts — including a recent one from an Oliver Paipoonge resident — suggest some rural residents continue to feel helpless about getting rid of rats once they’ve invaded a residential crawl space, for instance.
Rondeau, who has been in the extermination business for nearly 50 years, describes rats as “tough and hardy” creatures.
“There’s a saying in our business,” he said. “If you kill one rat, there’ll be 50 showing up at his funeral.”
Some believe rats migrated to residential neighbourhoods and rural areas outside Thunder Bay during the COVID-19 pandemic when many city restaurant dumpsters were closed down.
Rats are a scourge in virtually every city around the globe.
Curtis Bagnall, another Thunder Bay-based exterminator, said he, too, has noticed an uptick in rural rat-infestation calls over the last five years or so.
“We have gone to Kakabeka Falls and also some farms,” Bagnall said. Rats “have been migrating, just like people will migrate.”
Rats can be trapped or poisoned, but experts say the latter method is best left to licensed exterminators.
Health officials and exterminators agree that it helps to keep backyards clear of materials that are known to attract vermin, including bird feeders and dog feces.
Though some bird watchers consider feeders essential, one exterminator, who didn’t want to be named, likened a bird feeder to a “buffet” for rats and other animals.
The Chronicle Journal / Local Journalism Initiative
