Garbage left lying around the city from the civic strike is feeding a booming rat infestation, and with the cooler weather, those rats will be scurrying to find a warm home indoors, a pest control expert is warning.

Wayne Page of Canadian Pest Control said business is already up 30 per cent since the civic strike began, compared to the same period last year.

Brenda Chassie says she 'screamed and ran out of the bathroom,' and put her boots on after seeing a rat coming out of her toilet.
(CBC)

"We didn't have a lot of hot spells, but we did have one when the garbage strike was on. So they had lots of food, great weather. They had perfect conditions to breed — and they can multiply fairly quickly," he said.

Page is now beefing up his inventory of traps and bait by 25 per cent to be ready for what he expects will be a boom in the pest control business this fall.

"As it starts to cool down they are going to look for warmer places to harbour," Page said.

To keep the rats out, homeowners should make sure seals on doors and windows are tight. Even cat doors should be sealed shut, Page said.
 
Some Vancouver homeowners are already having close encounters with the unwelcome guests.

Brenda Chassie woke in the middle of the night to the sound of splashing coming from her bathroom.
 
"I went into the bathroom thinking one of my children was in the bathroom. I went in and found no child, but found a rat coming out of my toilet!"

Chassie said she panicked and "screamed and ran out of the bathroom, and put my boots on, and in my jammies, stood up on a kitchen chair and phoned a neighbour."

The unwelcome nocturnal experience prompted Chassie to take extra precautions.

She believes the rat swam up though the sewer pipe in the toilet, so now she has put a seven kilogram weight on her toilet to make sure no rat can get through.

Page said it is possible for rats to come up through sewer pipes, but it is also possible the rodent was already in the house and fell into the toilet while trying to get a drink of water.

The three main species of rodent pests in the Vancouver area are the larger Norway rat, which tends to nest in moist lower levels of buildings, the black roof rat, which can climb up through holes as small as 1.5 cm in diameter, and the common house mouse that needs only a 4 to 6 mm hole to enter a home, according to Canadian Pest Control.