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Comment by id34 | Hacker News Reader

Growing up in AB, I really didn't conceptually understand what rats are like in other places. I can't think of another animal with that same ubiquitousness.

Having no exposure as a kid means I find them terribly terribly gross when I see them in other places - in a park in Mexico City a couple months ago I audibly jumped when I saw them rooting around in gardens. Probably something to be said about exposure therapy

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I've lived in Saskatchewan my whole life where we don't have this law and I can't say I've seen a lot of rats in my life. Maybe if you work in unhygienic restaurant kitchens, or on a farm you might see them more. But in the city, it's not a thing I can ever remember encountering.

If you're in Saskatchewan and you see rats you call Alberta. They'll come by and get rid of them for you.

I laughed so so hard when Ratatouille came out and had this little extra feature on the DVD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=-2xD9ShhMZU

Also another SK HNer checking in!

You'll see vast numbers of rats any night in downtown Seattle or San Francisco.

I lived in both for more than a decade. I only remember seeing a mouse sized rat once in Seattle. Never saw one in SF.

I live in NYC now and see multiple on a daily basis. Exposure therapy helps, but barely. It still scares the shit out of me a few years in.

Been seeing them more frequently in Montreal, apparently the city banned some specific poisons used to control the population so we end up with fun videos like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/x5cnu6/sweet_old_...

I'm also from Saskatchewan, cheers

There are dozens of us!

I saw you all at the last Stamps v. RR game, wearing watermelons on your heads!

-30 reporting in

    And it's a ho, hi
    Farmers bar your doors
    When you see the Jolly Roger
    on Regina's mighty shores

I grew up in Alberta, too. Intellectually, I knew what a rat was but I'd never seen one in my life. After school, I moved down to California and was leaving work late one night (Sunnyvale, CA) and saw this crazy thing walking along the curb near my car. It was like a really small cat, or a huge mouse, or a short weasel with a long tail. There I was, all alone in the parking lot in the middle of the night shouting at this rat, "Hey! You're a RAT!"

The rat was not concerned by this.

It was probably poisoned & couldn't give a damn about anything else.

>I can't think of another animal with that same ubiquitousness.

In Toronto, you have rats, Racoons, Canadian geese, and pigeons. An infestation almost everywhere downtown and throughout the city.

I've seen a rat in Toronto that I mistaken for a Raccoon, it was insane how big it was. A crowd of people waiting for the Subway started running for their lives as it ran toward them on the platform. There is a rat, Racoon, epidemic in Toronto. They are everywhere and I don't think there is an effort to try and control them. As a matter of fact, I think they may be protected by law since I have heard of people almost going to jail for trying to chase away Raccoons with a broom.

I also grew up in Alberta, and I never even saw a raw in my life until I visited Europe in my 20s.

MB has regular amounts of rats. My dad said he once saw one the size of a small cat in an old basement.

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