Concerns about rats running rampant in Waterloo, Ont.

It appears large rats have taken up residence in Waterloo, Ont.

Olivia Masiuk and her friend were walking uptown last week at around 2 a.m. when they spotted the rodents.

“All of a sudden, a massive rat comes running by my foot,” she recalled. “I was like, what the hell is that?”

So they did what any social media-savvy students would do and pulled out their cameras.

It turned into a series which they then posted online.

Of course, they had a little fun with it, narrating the videos as if they were a nature documentary.

“We literally have New York rats in Waterloo! That’s the crazy part,” Masiuk told CTV News.

While the videos were just a little bit of fun, she does want to see something done about the rodents.

“A lot of the students that come out here clubbing, like during the weekend, they see the rats. You’ll see them all screaming and running away from colonies of rats down the road,” Masiuk said.

She said she sat on King Street with her friend multiple nights and saw dozens of rats getting into the garbage bags left out at night. 

“The rats will run back and forth, they’ll grab food, take it down to the hole, come back out [and] grab more food. Sometimes you’ll find like 20 of them in one [garbage] bag. You’ll literally see a bag moving down the street in the middle of the night.”

Businesses on the rat problem

Some Uptown Waterloo businesses have also noticed rodents running rampant.

“It’s just a bad look for the whole area in general,” said Timothy Goodwin, co-owner of Champa Kitchen.

He feels lucky that the rats only seem to come out after his business closes for the night.

But the damage they leave behind is another matter.

“We had to come out and clean up in front of our business every day, because the rats would get into the garbage up and down the street,” Goodwin explained. “We’d be up here sweeping it up and stuff.”

CTV News also spoke to other uptown business owners.

One, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the rodent problem really started to ramp up this spring. The pest control company where he works was called in and told the trees that line King Street are the perfect breeding ground for rats.

“They did what they could to try and set extra traps but essentially, without taking out the trees, we would not be able to rid the streets of them,” he explained.

He also recalled watching people eat a high-end meal while rats crawled out of the trees and run around the streets.

“It’s just brutal,” he admitted.

Response from the region and city

Business owners said garbage collection should be part of the solution.

In an email to CTV News, Region of Waterloo Waste Services said: “In downtown cores, garbage collection operates six days a week across [Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge]. The Region of Waterloo collaborates with municipal partners and regional bylaw to address property standards issues, such as waste accumulation and early set-outs.”

Cari Van Niekerk, corporate communications for the City of Waterloo, said: “We are working the Uptown BIA businesses and the Region of Waterloo on progressive strategies to reduce access to food waste in the area.”

The city also noted that rodents in Uptown Waterloo – or any other city – isn’t unusual.

“Not only is it making Waterloo gross, but we’re just going to let these rats keep breeding, keep getting massive and we definitely don’t want that,” Masiuk said.