“There’s this sort of cultural expectation that students will put up with substandard living conditions at high prices because that’s just what students do,” Tobias Gurl says.
Tobias Gurl first heard scrabbling behind the walls of his McGill University residence apartment sometime in April.
A master’s student, Gurl, 34, has been living in his University Ave. residence, owned by McGill student housing, since January. He had been having a series of health issues and thought perhaps he was imagining things.
Then he noticed a bag of his flour had been chewed through and partially eaten. And there were holes gnawed through one of his blankets. He called student housing. They sent an exterminator.
The first rat he encountered in the flesh was stuck in a glue trap and struggling to break free. Gurl killed it with a hammer to end its misery. The exterminator put more traps down, this time the spring-loaded instant-kill type. Maintenance workers from McGill came to try to block entry points. They found steel wool had already been stuffed into holes leading into the apartment.
The previous tenants had rat problems too, they said.
The infestation continued through May and June. When he walked into the living room of his one-bedroom, $1,300-a-month apartment, Gurl would hear rapid scrabbling noises. He couldn’t figure out where they were coming from until one day he opened the door to a mini-pantry filled with dry goods and “the rats streamed out, three to five of them, all just ran out of there.” Two more rats were caught. There were rat feces and urine in all his rooms, he said. He worried about the health effects for him and his dog. He worried the stress of dealing with the rats was exacerbating his health issues.
After returning from a weekend getaway, he found his sleeping bag and one blanket chewed through. Dog treats were also missing. On June 26, he awoke to the sound of a rat caught in a trap thrashing around beside his bed.
“It flailed around the room for five to 10 minutes before I accepted it was not going die in a timely manner and I swept it out onto the balcony,” where it died, Gurl said.
At this point, the exterminator who had returned at least four times advised Gurl he needed to leave the apartment temporarily so exterminators and maintenance workers could do a thorough job.
To tackle a rat infestation, you have to open up the walls to find out where the animals are coming from and living, said Frédéric Cloutier, owner of the AS Trappeur extermination service, which was not involved in the McGill operation.
“Once you open the walls, then you have to pay to repair them too,” Cloutier said. “It’s like repairing a car; if you want to fix it permanently, you have to spend the money to do it properly.”
McGill student housing told Gurl he could move to another apartment in the aging stone building. Gurl asked, via email, how much of his belongings would have to be moved and if the university would help, and if it could guarantee he would not have a rodent problem in the new lodging or in his old one when he returned.
Nobody responded for two weeks. Gurl then discovered by chance the apartment offered as temporary lodging had mould issues because of flooding damage and was not habitable.
“That’s when I lost my temper,” he said. “It crossed the line from ‘This is a difficult problem, it’s hard to get rid of rodents,’ to ‘These people are just not doing their jobs.’ ”
He filed a complaint with the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, requesting an inspection. Then he contacted The Gazette.
One day after The Gazette sent an email to McGill student housing asking for details about Gurl’s case, the university sent him an email expressing “our deepest apologies” for the delay and offering him a spot in another residence building one block away.
In an email to The Gazette sent Thursday, the university said: “Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS) has arranged an alternative apartment that is available today. The temporary move will allow the maintenance team and exterminators time to properly assess and treat any pest issues. The health and safety of our community members is our topmost priority.”
McGill student housing services did not respond to questions about whether Gurl would be compensated.
Gurl has decided to seek legal counsel, which is offered to graduate students via a McGill program free of charge, to see what his next steps should be before deciding where he may move to. He wants to be compensated for the months of rent he paid while not being able to enjoy his apartment because of the rat problems and wants to be moved to another residence permanently. He’s also seeking compensation for his destroyed sleeping bag, blankets and food. He would like to see an inspection done by an outside company to see if the seven-unit apartment building he’s living in is actually inhabitable.
“There’s this sort of cultural expectation that students will put up with substandard living conditions at high prices because that’s just what students do,” Gurl said. “It’s not just some cosmic law of the universe. It’s just the university taking advantage of vulnerable people.”
Meanwhile, three more rats were trapped in his apartment in the past week, including one discovered during a visit by a Gazette photographer.
Gurl said he has seen a hawk flying over his building and a feral cat stalking the alley.
“I wish them both very happy hunting,” he said.