The Abitibi-Témiscamingue Walmart received a $1,000 fine in January for a rodent infestation two months earlier.
A food safety inspector went to the store on November 5, after receiving a complaint about the presence of vermin in the supermarket.
She first notices that several mouse traps are installed near the warehouse. An exterminator’s report dated the previous day also mentions the presence of four mice in a trap. But, obviously, the daily visit of the vermin expert was not enough since the household does not seem to have followed the extermination of the last animals.
She first sees about twenty droppings on the way to the warehouse, then a good hundred once she gets inside.
A hundred mouse droppings accompany an empty trapdoor.
Photo provided by MAPAQ
“In a cart placed near the waste compactor, I observed several bags of bread, including one from the St-Méthode brand with several holes on the surface of the bag,” notes the inspector.
One of the many bags of nibbled bread.
Photo provided by MAPAQ
In the bakery section, feces line one wall, and a bag of pizza crusts is eaten “in a place where a piece of dough equivalent to approximately the size of a $2 is missing,” it says.
Bag of gnawed pizza crusts, with part of the contents, the size of a $2, eaten.
Photo provided by MAPAQ
And that’s not all
It continues in the sales area, with excrement around bags of chips and another fifty near bags of peanuts, five of which are ripped open.
One of five bags of peanuts eaten away by vermin.
Photo provided by MAPAQ
The food was destroyed, the cleaning began and the exterminator was called in again.
On January 7, the business was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 for its negligence.
A year earlier, the Walmart on rue Gappe, in Gatineau, was also caught, twice rather than once, for rodent infestations. In 2024 and 2025, he was also ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 each time.
You have to wait several months after an offense for a judge to hear the case and render a sentence. Details of these judgments were obtained following a freedom of information request.
Extract from the report
“In the warehouse where various boxes and bags containing food are present, I observed a large quantity of rodent excrement (around a hundred) on the floor. »
