It might be the worst kept secret in NDG. Almost everyone seems to know about the rats at near the Shell station at the corner of Cavendish and Somerled.
“I was right there fueling my truck and I could see them coming out running through the branches and the bush. There was quite a nice pile of them. There could be 50 or more,” said Martin Lalancette, who regularly fills up at the gas station.
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“There were like dozens of them all poking their heads out. It was really scary,” said Clara Baron, who regularly passes by on her way to the gym.
Word spread quickly after a video of the rats was shared on the Parents NDG Facebook group earlier this month. Global News saw rats poking their heads out back then too.
A few weeks later, things look a lot different at the gas station. The large snowbank has been mostly removed, and there are two traps.
The rats, however, are still there. Global News observed rats poking their heads out twice Friday morning.
“I think it’s gross but I’m not surprised,” Baron said.
The city says the rats are on the Shell station’s property, and that management there has been cooperating.
“We reached out when we first received the reports about two weeks ago now,” said local city councilor Christian Arseneault. “They responded very promptly, very helpfully, and it was the gas station who got an inspector to come by and lay traps and inspect where the gas station’s pipes meet up with the city’s pipes.”
One theory is that the rats are coming up from the sewers through broken pipes.
“It looked like everything was good from the gas station side. The inspector recommended we check city pipes as well, so we’re going to follow up on that,” Arseneault said.
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Piles of seed can be seen near the holes the rats use to get to their underground lair. The city says someone has been feeding them.
“Please don’t feed the rats,” Arseneault said. The city and the gas station are working together to catch the culprit.
“The gas station attendant is on lookout duty, as is one of our municipal dog inspectors. They’re patrolling the area a little more closely,” he told Global News.
If the rats don’t go away, the city will ask the gas station to step up their efforts.
“If they don’t disappear I expect they’ll cooperate for future steps,” Arseneault said.
Nobody from the gas station would speak with Global News.