Ana Cojuhari lay wide awake in bed each night, unable to sleep because of the horrifying screeches of the rats scurrying behind the walls of her Ottawa home.
“It was just insane. It’s just impossible, it was so loud,” she said.
Then there was the odour. “[It] just smells like death in that house,” Cojuhari said.
Cojuhari rents one of the four units in a row house in Kanata South, all of which have become infested with rats since early July.
Videos she took show nearly a dozen rats climbing over her seven-year-old son’s toys in the backyard. The rodents have also been chewing and destroying the inside of her home, she said.
We hear them running, screaming, fighting, and at night it was like a nightmare.– Heba Wasfy
Cojuhari said she tried to stick it out, holding out hope the city would intervene to resolve the situation. When that didn’t happen, she and her son fled last month to stay with a friend.
“At this point I had to [say], let’s save myself, save my kid, and we had to leave the house,” said Cojuhari.
The infestation has also forced her former neighbour Heba Wasfy, who came to Canada three years ago, to temporarily move back to the United Arab Emirates.
“It’s like a nightmare or it’s like a horror film, believe me,” Wasfy said in an interview from the U.A.E.
“We hear them running, screaming, fighting, and at night it was like a nightmare. No one can understand except [those] who [have] lived in this situation.”
Wasfy’s unit, which she owns, has been vacant since August, but before leaving she installed five cameras to monitor the rats from abroad.
Even from more than 10,000 kilometres away, she said she can still hear them screeching “like crazy.”
‘We screamed for help’
Residents of the row house allege the problem started at an end unit and the rats have spread from there.
“We called 311, we called the city, we called the fire department. We called everyone that we can. We screamed for help but no one took it seriously,” Wasfy said.
Ottawa’s bylaw department confirmed it received a report about an infestation at a property on the street.
“Following inspections of the property in question, Property Standards Orders were issued requiring the owner to conduct pest control, extensive repairs, and a clean-up of the property,” according to a statement attributed to Roger Chapman, the department’s director.
The owner of that unit was originally given until the end of September to comply with the orders before charges could be issued.
But just days before the deadline, the owner appealed one of the orders and after a hearing the deadline was extended to Oct. 11, the city said.
The city said the extension was provided “as the resident had already taken steps to begin the work.”
CBC reached out to that unit’s owner for comment but never received a response.
A costly problem
Residents of the other three units said with no help from the city, they’ve had to hire pest control companies in an effort to manage the situation.
Kim Hallarn, who owns and still occupies the remaining unit in the row house, said dealing with the infestation has cost her nearly $3,000.
“I didn’t see any other choice,” the retiree said. The other owners told CBC they, too, have spent thousand of dollars on exterminators.
Hallarn showed CBC around her property to demonstrate the damage the rats have caused, and the measures she’s had to take to prevent more: traps laid inside and out, cages covering vents and other exterior openings, and areas where insulation has been removed to keep the rodents from burrowing further and causing more destruction.
“There still is a cost that I still am going to have to incur because we had to remove all of our insulation because of the feces and the urine and the burrowed holes, so now I have to replace it,” she said.
Hallarn said she’s caught six rats in her house, each about 40 centimetres in length. When CBC visited, one rat was seen dead on the lawn and another was seen through the window of a neighbouring unit.
Hallarn feels that because the problem didn’t start in her unit, she shouldn’t have to bear the cost of fixing it.
“I do feel that I should be compensated for the stress, the trauma, the cost, either through [the owner of the suspected problem unit] or the city,” Hallarn said. “I know I didn’t bring the rats into my home, I can tell you that.”
Rats on the rise in Ottawa
Bill Dowd, CEO of Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control, said the city has seen growing numbers of rats and mice over the past “number of years.” He estimated that Ottawa’s rodent population has increased by nearly 15 per cent each year, and said it’s the same in every major city across the country.
This time of year is especially bad, he said.
“Especially now that we’re getting into the fall season, this is when what we call rodent season,” Dowd said. “Just like us humans, they’re just flocking into our homes looking for that warm, secure area to survive.”
He said rats need to be dealt with quickly because they breed every 21 days and their litters can number anywhere from six to 14 babies. Then there are the communicable diseases they carry, Dowd added.
“That rat running across your kitchen table or your dining room table is going to be urinating and defecating constantly,” he said. “It’s a real health concern for homeowners.”