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Comment by mig39 | Hacker News Reader

I live in Alberta. No rats here. Also the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.

Maybe I’m just lucky but I’ve lived in Ontario (in cities and the country) and have never seen a rat here. I know they exist but it’s not like we’re inundated by them. Maybe some specific businesses have problems with them, but it’s not something you see every day.

I also lived in Montreal and did see them there sometimes. This was always early morning when I was out running - did not see them in Toronto, Ottawa, etc under similar conditions.

Edit based on reading some other comments: I have seen lots of coyotes and foxes so maybe that explains fewer rats. I know Montreal has coyotes but I’ve never seen them there and where I was there were also squirrels everywhere suggesting fewer predators.

Maybe the rats only speak French and avoid primarily English-speaking provinces.

I live in Ottawa and I watched a crow rip a dead brown rat apart in my front street this week. I don’t see them often but they’re here. (I swear I live in a nice neighbourhood)

I never really saw them until I started working around Vanier. Seen some huge colonies near dumpsters.

You sure see them everyday in Metro Vancouver

There are certainly rats in Hamilton and Toronto; and I had the misfortune of dealing with them in my home at one point. They ate through (or under) the crawl space, and they would eat through anything we tried to store food in.

Unlike the sibling though I couldn't claim a nice neighborhood, it was near a soy processing factory.

I care about the Lyme more than the rats tbh. That is way more likely to fuck you up long term than anything a rat will bring in this day and age. We aren’t getting the black plague anymore.

Around 7 people the US get the plague each year. Yes that’s low, but it’s low specially because measures actively keeping it low.

Which means understanding and maintaining these systems is still valuable as even if millions aren’t actively dying, that can change,

Whereas tens of thousands contract Lyme, often in life altering infections. Lyme is a big deal. But yes, I agree, we can both aim to reduce new disease without letting old vectors for disease back in.

Albertan here too. Can confirm no rats

My friend got Lyme disease from a tick though so I can't agree with that part

A tick bite in alberta? diagnosed lyme? when? seems very unlikely - there are no recorded cases in the 30+ years of tracking of a case of lyme disease from a bite _in alberta_. All from exposure elsewhere

(not to say that alberta will stay that lucky forever)

Possible she wasn't in Alberta when she got the tick bite, I'm not 100% certain. She may have been on a trip to Saskatchewan or something but she lives in Alberta and definitely was diagnosed with lyme disease from a tick bite.

Possible the bite happened elsewhere and just wasn't discovered until she got back home though. She does travel around a bit

> the ticks here don't spread Lyme disease.

this is out of date information unfortunately. With warming climate, the black-legged tick has spread into Alberta and samples have been found with the Lyme disease bacterium.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/tick-lyme-diseas...

They likely spread rocky mountain fever instead, if they are dog ticks like we have in Colorado.

They don’t spread Lyme yet

From Alberta, never saw a rat in my life until visiting BC...

Gophers everywhere though.

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