Video shows rats and mice falling off a garbage truck as it leaves an apartment building on Fisher Avenue
A video of more than a dozen rats falling off a moving dump truck on Fisher Avenue is causing a stir on social media and making people wonder how to get rid of rats in one area of Ottawa.
Eashan Raman, who lives in Ottawa, took the video on Thursday morning while riding in his friend’s car.
Raman said that they had just left his friend’s apartment building at 1170 Fisher Ave. He said that the truck had been picking up trash at the building, and one of the people in the truck told Raman and his friend to follow behind and see what happens.
In the 44-second video that Raman took, more than a dozen rats can be seen falling from the truck as it drives south on Fisher before turning east on Baseline Road. After falling to the ground, many of the rats can be seen running back toward the building.
“It’s definitely an infestation,” Raman told CBC. “It’s a problem because that many rats jumping out of a truck shouldn’t happen.”
Raman’s friend’s wife, Skyler Boileau, said she had never heard of rats in the building, which is next to the Central Experimental Farm. But, Boileau said, they are always in the parking lots.
“They always just hang out by the trash can. We’ve seen them under our car, and they often attack birds “she told me. “Even more so at night, when you’re walking to your car and hear them running. It’s kind of creepy, to be honest.”
Boileau worries that the rats could be dangerous if drivers swerve to avoid them when they fall off moving trucks, like her husband does in the video.
The city has looked into the property
CBC asked the property owners, Homestead Land Holdings Ltd., for a comment, but they didn’t get back to us.
But the building’s rodent problem was reported to the City of Ottawa’s bylaw department on January 3.
Jennifer Therkelsen, acting director of bylaw and regulatory services, said that officers looked into the problem and found that the owner was taking care of it.
Therkelsen said that bylaw will only look into it again if someone else makes a complaint.
Bobby Corrigan, an urban rodentologist from New York City, said that rats falling off a garbage truck shouldn’t be a surprise, but he thinks the building’s owner needs to do a better job of keeping them away.
Corrigan said, “They’ll always try to get into a building for shelter.” “I always tell people to check all their outside doors, garage doors, and pipes. Check your foundation to make sure that it is all sealed and rodent-proof.”
Corrigan said it was clear that the rats were getting food from the trash in the building.
“The average rat you see, like the ones you saw falling off the truck, needs 30 to 90 grams of food every 24 hours,” he said. “We call them “opportunity hunters.”
Corrigan said that if rats get into a garbage truck by accident and are taken away, the problem could get worse.
“They’ll jump off all along the way, and the first place they land, they’ll look for a place to hide,” he said.
“Johnny Appleseed is a name we’ve all heard of. That’s like Johnny Ratseed: wherever that truck goes, rats are being spread along the route, and that’s not okay.”