Watch as a steady stream of rats falls from this moving truck

A video showing more than a dozen rats falling from a moving dump truck on Fisher Avenue is causing a stir on social media — and prompting questions about rodent control in one Ottawa neighbourhood.

Ottawa resident Eashan Raman shot the video Thursday morning while riding in the passenger seat of his friend's car.

Raman said they'd just left an apartment building at 1170 Fisher Ave., where his friend lives. He said the truck had been picking up garbage at the building, and one of the truck's occupants told Raman and his friend to follow behind and watch what happens.

In the 44-second video Raman shot, more than a dozen rats can be seeing dropping from the truck as it travels south on Fisher before turning east on Baseline Road. Many of the rats can be seen scurrying back toward the building after falling onto the pavement.

"It's definitely an infestation, so it's a problem because there shouldn't be that many rats jumping out of a truck," Raman told CBC.

Skyler Boileau, the wife of Raman's friend, said she'd never heard of rats in the building, which sits beside the Central Experimental Farm. But they are constantly in the parking lots, Boileau said.

"They always just stay near the dumpster. We see them under our car, and they attack the birds a lot," she said. "Especially at nighttime, because you walk to your car and then you hear them [scurrying]. It's actually kind of creepy."

Boileau fears the rats could pose a danger if drivers swerve to avoid them when they fall off moving trucks, as her husband appears to do at one point in the video.

City has investigated property 

The property owners, Homestead Land Holdings Ltd., did not return a request for a comment from CBC. 

But according the City of Ottawa's bylaw department, a request for service came in on Jan. 3 about rodents at the building.

Officers investigated and found that the owner was addressing the problem, according to a statement from Jennifer Therkelsen, acting director of bylaw and regulatory services.

Therkelsen said bylaw will investigate again only if there's another complaint.

Bobby Corrigan, an urban rodentologist based in New York City, said it shouldn't come as a surprise to see rats falling from a garbage truck, but he believes the building's owner needs to do a better job at keeping them away.

"They're always going to try to get into a building for [shelter]," Corrigan said. "I always advise people check all your exterior doors, your garage doors, any pipes. Go through your foundation and make sure that's all rodent-proofed and sealed tightly."

Refuse from the building is obviously providing the rats with a food source, Corrigan said.

"The typical rat that you see, the ones that you saw falling off the truck, they need anywhere between 30 to 90 grams of food every 24 hours," he said "We call them foraging opportunists."

When rats are inadvertently loaded into a garbage truck and hauled away, the problem could spread, Corrigan said.

"All along the way, they're going to be jumping off, and at the first place they're going to look for someplace to hide," he said.

"We've all heard of Johnny Appleseed. That's like Johnny Ratseed: they're spreading rats all along the route, wherever that truck goes, and it's not acceptable."