A Pierrefonds resident says her backyard is infested with rats and that her neighbour is to blame.
Tracey Featherstone says she has reached out to the city to help find a solution, but nothing has been done.
“Over the last several years, they have been feeding the wildlife excessively,” Featherstone told Global News, speaking of her next-door neighbours.
She says what she saw on Sunday night put her over the edge.
“My son says, ‘Mom, I have to tell you something — there’s rats all over the backyard,'” she said.
Featherstone claims when she looked through the window, she saw rats scurrying into her yard from the other side of the fence. She said she found a dead rat in her back yard over the summer — and sees them regularly.
“We’re looking at the window, and one runs along the fence like a squirrel would do!” she exclaimed.
Featherstone pointed to a hole by the fence and said it leads to a large, open-air composting bin her neighbours maintain on the other side of the fence.
“The homemade compost that’s up against my fence seeps through into my yard, literally piled up. There’s like shells coming into my yard, it seeps through and I have to clean it up,” she said.
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Her partner David Pelletier told Global News a storage bin near the fence is often full of mice. They’ve also put glue traps near the fence in an effort to catch and kill the rats.
Featherstone called the city to complain last year and says nothing happened.
“I wanted an inspector to come shut that compost down, and hopefully get them to stop feeding the wildlife,” she said.
The neighbour, Sandy Forrester, said her compost had never been a problem in the over 30 years she and her husband have been maintaining it.
“It’s natural, organic composting. There are no meats, no greases, nothing. We’ve been feeding the birds, and never had an issue until last summer,” Forrester told Global News.
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Forrester just hired an exterminator to deal with the rats. The exterminator told her the rats may have sought refuge in her compost pile after being displaced by road work, or the closure of the quarry on Oakwood, she said.
“They’re going wherever they can find refuge, and our compost pile happened to be a refuge,” she said, adding she had been having panic attacks since the rat problem seemingly got worse over the weekend.
“He said it’s a colony, they have to have come from somewhere. He’s put of 48 pieces of poison, which will not only kill the rats but all the birds and the squirrels,” she said through tears.
Forrester said her husband can barely walk because of serious back problems, and that he enjoys feeding the birds.
“He gets joy from watching the bids. We have a chair in our patio window and he just sits there and watches the birds come and feed. There are cardinals, blue jays, crows.”
Pierrefonds Mayor Jim Beis said he is aware of the problem.
“The information was given to our services, our inspectors, to make sure they go investigate and apply the necessary bylaws if we could, to correct the situation,” he told Global News, adding that if he finds no one acted on Featherstone’s first complaint, he will seek an explanation.
After Global News spoke with Beis, Featherstone said city inspectors showed up to investigate. The exterminator will return for a follow-up visit.