How Toronto became a vermin breeding ground
UNFORGETTABLE SAGAS, SCOOPS AND SCANDALS
from Toronto Life’slong-form archives |
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Dear reader, Only in the days leading up to a potentially cataclysmic US election would this news be a welcome respite from doomscrolling: Toronto has yet again been crowned “rattiest city” in Canada. This past week, it was handed the title by pest control company Orkin, which also listed Mississauga and Scarborough in its top 10. Growing up in the countryside near Ottawa, I was used to rodents. One winter, my parents affectionately christened the mystery animal that scratched at the walls in the attic bedroom I shared with my sisters “Roger the Lodger.” But it was only once I’d lived in cities that I truly understood how omnipresent (and disruptive) rats can be. As writer Jason McBride explained in“Rat Apocalypse!”—a piece that is even more relevant 10 years on—milder winters lead to longer life cycles for pests, while construction booms disturb nests and more people means more food sources for rats. In short: as long as we’re here, they’ll be here too. For more great long-reads from Toronto Life, subscribe to our print edition here. |
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| —Stéphanie Verge, features editor |
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Rats feasting in our green bins and backyard tomato patches. Rats scurrying through our living rooms. Rats popping out of our toilets. An investigation into how Toronto became a vermin breeding ground |
BY JASON MCBRIDE | DECEMBER 18, 2013 |
Rats are everybody’s problem. They can spread disease, destroy gardens, damage electrical wires and send real estate values plummeting. So pest control expert Kevin Diamond bought a pair as pets to study their behaviour up close. He was most struck by their resilience. One day, Diamond accidentally closed the bathroom door on one of them, seemingly breaking its back. He watched with amazement as the rat somehow regenerated itself—“like a self-chiropractor,” he says—slowly clicking its vertebrae and hips back together and then scurrying back out of the bathroom. “Unlike a dog or a cat, they’ll never ever back down,” he says. “They’re stubborn as hell. It’s like, screw you, we own you.” |
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