MONCTON, NB –
The city of Moncton, New Brunswick, received an honor that it would probably prefer to do without.
Pest control company Orkin Canada released its annual ranking of the “dirtiest cities” for Atlantic Canada and the hub city took first place on the unhappy list.
“No city wants to be on this list, it’s not a glamorous list,” says Sean Rollo, technical director of the National Rodent Control Society.
According to Orkin’s website, cities were ranked based on the number of rodent treatments performed by the company between August 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021.
“All of our calls that we get for rodents and we go out and make a service call, we record that and then we look at what the percentage of incoming calls is. So for all of Atlantic Canada, Moncton had the highest percentage. high, ”said Rollo.
The list included 15 cities in Atlantic Canada, with Moncton, St. John’s, Dieppe (NB), Halifax and Charlottetown completing the top five.
The ranking comes as no surprise to Moncton resident Dave Rogers, who has lived in the north of the city for almost a decade. When one of his neighbors informed him that rats had gnawed at his car’s wires a few weeks ago, costing him a few hundred dollars in repairs, Rogers decided to take a look under his own hood.
“I checked my car’s engine and there it was rat droppings,” says Rogers.
Since then, he says he has lost count of the number of rodents he caught in the multiple traps set around the perimeter of his property. In an effort to keep pests out of his yard, Rogers installed wire mesh, dug two feet into the ground, and spread 14 tons of gravel along his fence.
He says he also asked the city for help.
“It was about nine weeks ago now and since then I got a few emails saying they would contact a contractor to come and take a look, but we never saw a contractor, we never got a response on anything. “
City of Moncton’s director of community safety Conrad Landry says his department has only received a dozen public complaints about rodents since early spring.
“We are only responsible for city property ie roads, our parks etc. That said, we will be helping some residents with an assessment,” Landry said.
The city official reminded residents that things like construction, garbage collection, unsupervised bird feeders and more can contribute to an increase in sighting of pesky problem makers.
Rogers says he wants the city to do more to keep the problem from spiraling out of control.
“I think the city could step in and take its share of the blame. They’ll tell you and they think the rats on your property are your problem.”
Over the past 19 months, Rollo says the COVID-19 pandemic has also caused an increase in rodent sightings in residential areas.
“They are driven to find opportunities, so if a restaurant was an area where maybe rodents were feeding on back garbage or so on, but now the restaurant is now closed so there is no waste, no leftover food, ”Rollo said. . “These rodents are moving now and looking for this new opportunity.”
“Evil alcohol lover. Twitter junkie. Future teen idol. Reader. Food aficionado. Introvert. Coffee evangelist. Typical bacon enthusiast.”