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VANCOUVER — Over the past few years, as Vancouverites dramatically ramped up their urban composting, some doomsayers predicted that putting out thousands of bins of rotting food would bring a reckoning of vermin upon the city.

Last Friday, their worst fears appeared to be confirmed when children at a downtown daycare showed up to find their playground overrun by compost-eating rats.

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As of Wednesday, children at Beach YMCA Child Care were still being kept indoors for fear of them encountering one of several dozen rodents still darting around the area.

“It will remain closed until we are confident the pests have been dealt with,” said Kelly Walker, spokeswoman for the Greater Vancouver YMCA, in an email to the National Post.

The culprit was the privately operated community garden next door. For months, food and plant waste had accumulated in a bank of six large plastic composters set up only a few metres from a chain link fence surrounding the daycare. On Thursday evening, a rat tipping point was apparently reached, prompting YMCA officials to alert the City of Vancouver.