Rats are back in the crosshairs of Sicamous council after a couple of the critters decided to shop local.

Coun. Bob Evans revisited the issue after a local business owner reported seeing a 鈥渞at walk through the front door鈥� of his store and had to help remove one from a neighbouring location. 

鈥淭his is just small anecdotal evidence of a big problem we have,鈥� he pointed out, asking about options. 鈥淐an we... consider kind of getting aggressive with this and bringing in Orkin with traps and getting some rat hit men on the job, or something like that.鈥�

Operations manager Darrell Symbaluk explained that the district has thus far 鈥渇ought back鈥� with education of cleaning up compost, fruit fall and garbage. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e continually pushing out that information as best we can,鈥� he said, adding that he鈥檒l also look into Orkin and whether or not they use poison.

In response to Evans鈥� query about traps the district used to have available for use by the public, Symbaluk said they鈥檙e baited with poison and can鈥檛 be used due to the threat to birds of prey and other predators. He wasn鈥檛, however, sure about other, safer bait options for the traps. 

鈥淚 can take that as an information request,鈥� Symbaluk said. 鈥淎nd reach out to somebody that does rats for a living and see what we can come up with.鈥�

As a restaurateur, Coun.Ian Baillie has explored options to keep vermin away from his establishments and said there a number of 鈥渘on-poison but lethal鈥� routes certified by the province that the district could look at. With that and other suggestions on the table, council directed Symbaluk to work with Baillie in exploring different options that would work for the community.