The rats took over James Klein’s backyard this spring.

He’d never had a rat problem in the more than two decades he’s lived in Montreal’s Snowdon neighbourhood. But now, when he watches TV in his family room, he sees them out of the corner of his eye, scurrying around outside the glass door leading onto his back deck.

“There’s no way to even describe what it’s like,” he said.

Klein doesn’t know why the rats suddenly appeared. He thinks they may have been displaced when the city dug up some of the pipes in his neighbourhood earlier this year.

But whatever the reason, the upshot is that he hasn’t had a meal outside all summer. “One night, there were a whole bunch of them that were having a party on my back deck. And literally, they’re running back and forth and chasing each other,” he sa

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