At 2:30 a.m. on June 26, Tobias Gurl, a third-year master’s student in the Department of Family Medicine, woke up to the sound of a rat squealing and thrashing, its head stuck in a trap. Unsure what to do, Gurl swept the dying rat onto the fire escape of his one-bedroom unit in the McGill graduate residence, 3643 University. Gurl told The Tribune that this was just one of the multiple rodent-related incidents he has encountered while living in McGill residences.

Gurl moved into 3643 University in January 2024. By late March, he started to hear scuttling noises in his unit and noticed holes in his groceries. At the beginning of April, he contacted Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS), who sent an exterminator to lay traps. Gurl explained that the noises continued, so he notified SHHS again, and they sent another exterminator. This pattern persisted until late July when the university relocated Gurl to Solin Hall at his request. Altogether, Gurl estimates that exterminators visited his 3643 University unit over five times and caught up to nine rats in the span of four months. 

“At the start of July, I started to get really fed up with this,” Gurl said in an interview with The Tribune. “I was losing more and more space in my unit to the rats [….] There were droppings everywhere. The burden was put on me to clean them up, despite the fact that they were a health hazard.”

Amid this, Gurl also explained that he was concerned for the health of himself and his service dog from the prolonged exposure to rodents. On June 27, Gurl sent an email to SHHS requesting relocation per the suggestion of the exterminator who had laid traps earlier that day. SHHS initially offered to relocate Gurl to the basement unit of 3643 University; however, Gurl did not receive further information until July 10 when SHHS notified him that the other unit was no longer available due to a “major water leak.” During this lull in communication, Gurl contacted a reporter from The Montreal Gazette through a friend and a lawyer through the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) referral.

“What I needed was verification that I wasn’t losing my mind that something was very wrong here, that it wasn’t reasonable for me to be accepting this many rats in an area, or even one rat,” Gurl said. “I had no sense of what was normal, what was proportionate and I also needed that backup, that when I said something, or when I asked for something, I would have someone with actual enforcement muscles standing behind me.”

Gurl explained to The Tribune that he had advocated to live in McGill residences in the first place due to discrimination he faced in the private market on the basis of having a service dog. For him, McGill residences were the only viable option for accommodation while he finished his degree. Without another option, Gurl hoped the problem would be resolved proactively.

“There was also a frog boiling effect, where at every stage I assumed that this next step they were taking was correct,” Gurl said. “There was no [moment] until July, where it was obvious the problem wasn’t going to be fixed.”

After some negotiation over email, SHHS offered to help move Gurl’s belongings to a one-bedroom apartment in Solin Hall on July 19. On Aug. 22, Gurl reported a mouse in his new unit.

“I started hearing those noises again and little flashes of something along the edges of the walls. I thought I was imagining things at first, that my brain was playing tricks on me,” Gurl said. “There was no possible way I had gone from a place with rats to a place with more rodents.”

On Sept. 13, maintenance sealed a hole suspected as an entry point for rodents in the Solin Hall unit. This temporarily quieted the issue but on Oct. 15, maintenance found another mouse in the apartment. According to McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO), the university has received five complaints of rodents in residences since the beginning of the academic year—an issue which becomes more salient in the fall as rodents seek shelter and food to survive the cold.

Speaking to The Tribune, Gurl expressed that he felt failed by what he perceived as a lack of a proactive response from McGill.

“I have a lot of sympathy for the position McGill is in,” Gurl said. “They’re not responsible for the rising rat population in the city [….] They don’t have control over the derelict buildings in the block or so where a lot of their housing is. They don’t have full control over trash pickup. But the [thing] I would have wanted from them [was] communication.”

He also felt “siloed” and isolated by McGill’s response to the situation.

“The way McGill presented solutions to me was always focused on things I should be doing,” Gurl said. “The emphasis [was] placed on me cleaning things up, me putting the food away [….] It really communicated this message that I was doing something wrong, I was at fault. And when you send that message to a tenant, it makes them want to hide the problem, because if I’m the only one going through this, if it’s because I’m not clean enough, then I can’t talk about that with other people.”

In an email to The Tribune the MRO explained that McGill’s pest control strategy includes regular inspections and specific complaints are handled on a case-by-case basis.

“This issue is taken very seriously by McGill,” the MRO wrote. “As a landlord, McGill is bound by the requirements of the [Tribunal administratif du logement]. It’s worth noting that tenants also have a responsibility to ensure that there is no food left out in dorm rooms since that can attract and sustain pests.”

PGSS Member Support Commissioner Emily Tetrault explained the The Tribune that while PGSS does not offer direct support to members facing issues with their landlords, it can connect students with services such as the Legal Information Clinic at McGill, and the Legal Protection Program. Tetrault also underscored the vulnerable position international students can be in when dealing with landlord disputes.

“Knowing your rights as a tenant, especially as an international student, is key from the beginning in my opinion. Educaloi is a great website to help people in Quebec understand their rights in relation to various topics but especially renting in Quebec. Unfortunately, many out-of-province and international students don’t know that landlords cannot take a damage deposit, and some landlords take advantage of this,” Tetrault said.

In an email to //The Tribune//, the Syndicat des locataires de Montréal/Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union (SLAM/MATU) encouraged students to start a dialogue about their living conditions in and out of McGill residences.

“At the very least, students can make each other aware that they don’t have to take price gouging and neglect from their landlords,” the union wrote. “We highly encourage McGill students to discuss their housing conditions and pricing and to plan actions, and to keep that conversation going even after they leave their dorms.”

For Gurl, refusing to stay silent and advocating for oneself is crucial to advancing change.

“[Landlords] rely on tenants keeping quiet to keep getting away with bullshit, and as soon as your voice becomes impossible to ignore, then they’ll act.”