CITY 3
ARTS & CULTURE 11
COMMUNITY 10
Land deal splits legion
Tragic past in focus at Nikkei
Families get artsy
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COVERAGE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2017
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
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‘HUGE PROBLEM’
Forced out by rats “I went downstairs and told my husband,‘Move your car. I gotta get out of here.’ ” Tereza Verenca
tverenca@burnabynow.com
A Burnaby woman who’s been sleeping in a tent in her backyard with her 11-yearold son for the last week wants her neighbours to be mindful of attracting rats. Teresa Anderson has owned her Edmonds area home for more than two decades. She tells the NOW that rats have been a problem in the community for years, with rats breeding out of nearby abandoned homes on 14th Avenue. “There’s a huge problem.You just stand outside and they’re walking in front of you. It’s disgusting.” The rodents became a problem in the winter, Anderson adds, when they started to nest in the insulation underneath her floors. “We didn’t even know.Then, in November, we started smelling something weird. I blamed it on my husband’s riding gear.” An exterminator was called in, but no rats were caught. Earlier this month, Anderson fell asleep upstairs and awoke to scratching in her attic. “I’m staring at the wall, and all of a sudden, a rat from under my son’s bedroom area ran down the stairs,” she says. “I went downstairs and told my husband, ‘Move your car. I gotta get out of here.’” For nearly three weeks, Anderson has been sleeping at friends’ houses, in her car,
INFESTED Above, Teresa Anderson and
her son Reese have been sleeping in a tent in their backyard for the last week. Right, the family has set traps indoors, where rats have found a home.
PHOTOS JENNIFER GAUTHIER
and most recently, in a tent she pitched in the backyard. One of her sons sleeps there, one sleeps at grandma’s house and the other has been told to “pack your bags” and move into the tent. Her husband, meanwhile, has taken time off from work to rip out the insulation in the floors. Due to the smell of urine and fecal matter, the mother of three says she’s developed a lung infection and has been put on inhalers and antihistamines. “The thing is, no one is affected here except me,” says Anderson. When she has to go to the bathroom, she Continued on page 8
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