Rats! West Kelowna office evacuated due to dead rodents in walls

If ever the City of West Kelowna needed an excuse to build a new city hall, dead rats would likely be it.

City council is expected to approve $35,000 in emergency spending on Tuesday night to repair a portable office likely housing dead rats.

Jim Zaffino, the chief administrative officer, said the problem has caused considerable hardship to staff.

“The odour is potent to the point that staff were wearing masks to work until it became unbearable and ultimately the portable was evacuated,” Zaffino’s report says.

Seven finance staff have been displaced after the smell became intolerable. The repair work is considerably cheaper than the $200,000 to buy a new portable, Zaffino said.

Coun. Bryden Winsby said as far as he’s concerned, the money needs to be spent.

“I’ve got them in my garage,” Winsby said.

“These portables are pretty ancient, and crowded,” he added. “We have to (spend the money). This is patchwork stuff.”

He’s worried if the portable office is condemned, the city will have no choice but to spend bigger dollars on a new portable.

This is the second time this year rats have infested the portable, not at all surprising to one local exterminator.

George Forgie said the problem is only going to get worse, too. The long-time BugMaster Pest Control expert has caught 86 rats since Jan. 1. Last year, he caught 196. Not only that, but rats are able to feast outdoors. Brace for potential invasions this fall when the weather gets colder and the food starts to vanish.

“And this is not prime season for them right now,” he told KelownaNow.

Forgie said he tried to warn city councils across the Okanagan two years ago, but nobody wanted to listen.

Now, we he’s finding rats from Oliver-Osoyoos to Vernon. He spoke between eight calls on Monday, which is becoming the norm.

“I’ve been doing this for about 20 years, and I never had a rat call for 15 of them,” he said. “Now they’re everywhere.”

He cautioned against poison. Forgie said the tried-and-true poison Warfarin isn’t as effective as it once might have been. Snap traps are the best solution. If you have kids or pets, put the traps inside a box with good bait.

“We never poison a rat,” Forgie said. “He’s not going to drop dead immediately. He’s going to get drowsy … run up the inside of your insulation and die. Then you’re doing construction or your moving. It stinks to high heaven.”

Much has been said the rats stormed city streets after the regional district closed the Westside landfill.

Bruce Smith, spokesman for the Regional District of the Central Okanagan, rejected that idea.

“There are no rats at the old Westside landfill. … It’s just not the case,” he said. “We don’t know where they came from.”

It doesn’t matter anyway, Forgie said.

Rats are becoming a national problem. He said even “rat-free Alberta” is having issues.

“People are in denial right now,” he said.