I think the problem here was really spoken to by one of the persons that was interviewed by the reporter; that is, the entire street had become a rat's nest simply because of the lack of a concerted effort to rid the area of pests. Personally I find the issue similar to how the complaint about in tenement roach control from years gone by. Years ago, when tenement housing was rampant in the City of New York, so was the cockroach problem. Exterminator services used to offer the "Bomb" method of insecticide dispersal application; that is, you covered up all your linens, furniture, and consumables, and left the apartment for 24 hours while a large can of aerosol insecticide was released in each room of the apartment. Needless to say, the fine mist impregnated itself into all the cracks, nooks, crannies of the abode such that the insects had no place to hide. They either had to leave or die. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Your neighbor just discovered that he had a sudden large roach infestation as your problem simply dispersed into all the neighboring apartments. Invariably, it became really bad social form in tenement life to try to just rid your own place of the roaches (using this method). You did like every else; just smack 'em whenever you saw one. If the owner drove out the rats, they would just go next door. The problem here too is, that even if the restaurant owner closed permanently, the store he was in would still be infested with rats simply because that's where rats live. If you ever seen rats in abandoned building you'll know exactly what I mean. There doesn't need to be any appreciable human consumable food source within for rats to live quite comfortably. Also, if you looked at the rat from the video, what is he doing? Is he searching for food? No, he's not, else he would be in the kitchen where the food smell is the strongest; he's exploring an environ that he's probably quite used to. He's not even afraid of daylight, and presumably a human standing right outside the window with a video camera. These are urban rats that have been conditioned to co-exist with a very tolerant human society. Again, this is genuinely a city problem. I do agree with your assessment that the shop owner should have pointed all this out to the city and, like you stated, have asked for help. But on the other hand, what municipalities generally do is simply offer a few rodent traps for free or at low cost. They themselves don't really want to spend any money of pest control either (just take a walk in any city run hospital of any city in any country and you'll get a good picture of the lack of rodent control despite the rhetoric and hysteria). Rats are here to stay unless governments come up with cohesive and rationale plans to rid the city of them. While certain restaurants are declared clean, the caveat is, that they just haven't been caught yet. Like the video pointed out, the eatery had only conditionally passed a day to two before the video was shot. Keeping his hands clean, food fresh, and refrigerated at the proper temperature, or fully cooked to avoid salmonella? Sure that's the owner's problem. Keeping rats at bay when they've already over run the entire city? Come on now, he's in the food business, not extermination. This is a problem that's already way beyond what he can do. Frankly, if I were him, I would just close the restaurant and sell video games. Less public health inspection, no spoilage of inventory, et cetera. But that's just me... :rolleyes2: Sidebar here: This isn't the first time that I've thought of this problem, and I've come up with a solution that I think is worth exploring. Namely a municipally organized rat extermination program that uses pheromones on an episodic nature to periodically lure an areas rats into disposal units. I envision trucks with flexible pipes that snake into basements or "target areas" where a scent is released from the pipe that would attract any nearby rodent. They clamber up the pipe and drop into a sealed chamber that they cannot escape from. The truck returns every so often to keep the area rodent population under control. Right now, the way that most cities control rats is to lay out warfarin (the same as the medical blood thinner coumadin, but in a very excessive dose) laced bait. Historically, this really hasn't been too effective.
seriously though. the rats in video look like they were pets or something. The were running around in daylight so people can see. Thought someone bought them in and let them loose to get back at the owners
Well, I think it is. The rats were right outside their windows, if it was behind the place it would seem more reasonable. They obviously have put forth very little effort to correct their rodent problems.
Or so one would automatically assume because the rats were there on the eatery's property. But if you really think about it, if the entire building is infested with rats, how can one store owner prevent them from coming in? Even the video pointed out that the average sized rat can squeeze through an opening the diameter of a 25 cent piece. Unless the store was hermetically sealed, rats will always find their way in. It then becomes a game of administrative action Russian roulette; that is, if a rat shows up while the inspector (or a news camera) is there, then you're doomed. I think it would be rather ironic if the shop owner turned around and sue Toronto instead, for failure to provide vermin safe streets for him to place his business. Consider is you went to the restaurant, and drank a glass of water that had some chemical in it that made you sick? Then upon discovery, found that the water was tainted by the city's water treatment plant; would you blame the restaurant for serving you bad water? Of course not because there was very little that the shop owner could have done to prevent it, outside of constantly testing his water supply as it is piped in by the city. That wouldn't make any sense, anymore than to blame one shop owner for what is admittedly a citywide infestation problem. I'm not saying that I want rat droppings in my food, nor am I saying that shopkeeps are totally without blame, but rather that the city often vilifies shop owners while ignoring the government's responsibilities for eradication of pests. There needs to be a more coordinated effort and partnership between small businesses and government in order to effectively deal with such infestations.
there is rats on every chinatown, if you are looking for a 100% clean meal, don't look in any chinatown.
