Victoria Village tenant claims rat infestation is driving her out

The resident, who was an apartment tenant on Victoria Avenue recently for seven months, said she moved to nearby Somerville Avenue after several incidents involving rats. She said she spotted rats above ground at least five times in the past 12 months.

"I'm going to move for the third time this year," said Marissa, who did not want her last name revealed. She said she contacted the City of Westmount for more than a year, but said she got an inadequate response.

Currently being sued by the landlord of the Victoria Avenue apartment building for rent that wasn't paid after she left, she said she was counting on a City inspector to examine the dwelling and attest that there was evidence of rats.

"They never even called me back," she said, claiming she spoke with as many as four different City employees over the period of a year. "I don't know what it takes for them to come and do an inspection … I phoned six times last year, figuring this is Westmount, they'll come …

"I understand that there are rats in sewers, but this is above ground," she added. "This is un-liveable. In the last building, I caught my dog three times with a rat above ground in the backyard.

"They were coming from the garbage room in the apartment building. The door wasn't sealed properly. The garbage room was infested. The backyard was infested. I couldn't continue living there. I was even afraid to go on my balcony."

She claims the situation at her new dwelling on Somerville is no better. "I woke up two mornings ago and my dog battled it out in my bathroom with a live rat," she said. "Now I have an infestation."

She suspects that recent street excavations and the improper disposal of garbage by some merchants are causing the problem. She also blames the Victoria Avenue landlord for inadequately maintaining the building and failing to call in an exterminator.

Contacted by the Examiner, the building's owner said no other tenants had complained about rats. He acknowledged evicting Marissa, but characterized her as unreliable. He dismissed her complaints about the rats as lies to avoid paying her rent.

An exterminator Marissa hired at her own expense on three occasions to deal with the problem on Somerville, found that one of the rats he caught weighed eight pounds. "The landlord has never acknowledged the problem," she said. "I moved back to Westmount because it's a dog-friendly environment. I can't live here with my dog. I'm not going to move every six months."

Susan and Graham Bell, who own a house next to Marissa's former Victoria Avenue address, confirmed that they, too, had a problem with rats last year, although there have been no recurrences. "We thought they came from the apartment building," said Susan Bell.

Contacted by the Examiner, Joanne Poirier, director of the City of Westmount's urban planning department, which conducts building inspections, said she was unaware of a rat problem in the Victoria Village. "It's the first time I hear about it," she said.

Poirier suggested that recent construction might have caused a local outbreak. "It does happen at times," she said. "There are rats in this city, obviously, and when there is excavation work they move out."

Frank Pulcini, who runs Central Extermination, confirmed that he was hired by Marissa to get rid of the rats. "It's an older building and the landlord doesn't seem to want to spend any money," he said.

While maintaining that the landlord is ultimately responsible for the problem, he said the City should also be involved. "An inspector should contact the landlord and have her do something a little bit more serious," he said. "If the landlord doesn't want to have anything to do with it, basically that's why she's called the City."