Dumpster Diving brings up riches

Opportunity strikes

As Vancouver's civic strike drags on, individuals and businesses--from day camps and gyms to binners like Mark Michelle--are quietly benefiting from the absence of city services

Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, August 01, 2007

"If you got more exposed garbage bags, you are going to have more skunks and raccoons," yells Brad Gerwing from the cab of his Poulin's Pest Control truck. "And the same rats and rodents that are there were already there--it's just the increased garbage."

Gerwing, Poulin's operations supervisor, talks into his cellphone en route to a potential rodent problem at a Vancouver home. He's busy. And if the city workers strike, which has shut down city garbage collection, drags on into late August, he predicts the city's rat population will increase with an accelerated breeding cycle spurred by the increased availability of rotting garbage. And that will make him busier.

Even in the interim, Gerwing expects to field more calls from Vancouverites as city rats become more brazen due to growing piles of garbage.