Rat complaints from restaurant patrons show a dramatic rise
Warmer winters create a comfortable environment for rodents to find food
This year’s mild winter was a welcome relief to Torontonians — both the city’s humans and its rats.
The first half of the year has seen an almost 50 per cent rise in the number of rodent-related complaints to the city by Toronto restaurant patrons, compared to the same sixmonth period last year.
Toronto Public Health (TPH), the city division that investigates rat complaints at food premises, received 113 rodent-related complaints since the start of the year, said spokesman Sylvanus Thompson. That’s up from 76 complaints in the first six months of 2015. TPH averaged 91 complaints by that point in the year since 2012.
Rudy Boonstra, a professor of ecology, evolution and physiology at the University of Toronto, said he suspects this year’s overwinter survival rate of rats was reasonably high and thus the initial spring populations in the city were higher than years with severe winters. Common rats, also known as Norway rats, “have an enormous reproductive capacity and can quickly capitalize on good environmental conditions,” Boonstra said. Many Toronto-area exterminator companies have noticed. “This year in particular, we’ve prob- ably done more rat work than we’ve done in the past five or six years,” said Daniel Mackie, technical director at GreenLeaf Pest Control.
Mackie said he finds that more people take great pride in beautifying their homes by planting tress and flowers in their yards. However, this increases the risk of rats.
“We want to bring nature close to home . . . you’re making a natural meadow to encourage bees and butterflies and humming birds,” he said. “People are very proud of that, but along with this movement also comes some not-so-pretty, not-so-wanted guests.”
This year’s warmer winter meant rats not only had more readily available food, but had more time to find a mate, according to Mackie.
“If you’re out and about and you’re more active in the winter, the more chance you’re going to encounter a female or a male, and the more chance that you’re going to be able to have some romance in your life,” he said.
While studies show warm, wet winters and springs tend to increase rodent populations, Thompson could not say for certain that’s the reason for Toronto’s spike this year. There’s also the possibility that smartphones simply make it easier to report incidents now, he said.
Carlo Panacci, owner of Cain Pest Control, said congestion is a big factor.
“Generally speaking, the more congested an area is, the more people, the more garbage,” Panacci said. “Rats basically need food, water and shelter. If they can find those three things, then they’ll flourish.”
The vast majority of rat calls Panacci receives come from properties on or near busy roads such as Bloor St. or St. Clair Ave. He said lack of maintenance to old buildings or carelessness can increase the risk of rats finding shelter there.
“Inevitably, in a lot of cases, they do,” said Panacci. “I’ve known a lot of restaurants along, say, Bloor or St. Clair or so on where in the summer time, their kitchens are in the back and it’s really hot, so they leave the door wide open.”
Mackie said his company has noticed a steady rise in rat activity over the last five years.