VANCOUVER -- Need to file a noise complaint? Notice a broken street light? Wondering if you can have a pet camel?
Information lines like 311 in Vancouver receive thousands of valid calls a year, but others – not so much.
The city outlined some of the more "unique" reasons for calling its contact centre over the last year in a news release Friday.
Staff received a wide range of questions in 2020, the city said in a statement, "from the mundane to the weird and the wonderful."
One of the most memorable calls to the non-emergency line, the city said, was about a type of livestock not common in the area.
"Can you keep a camel in Vancouver, if only for its milk?" the city says someone enquired. (The answer is no, by the way. The city does not allow livestock to be kept in backyards, with the exception of a maximum of four hens.)
Other strange calls included, as quoted by the city, "Can you remove a dog from my bedroom? A friend left it, but I don't know who."
Someone else called to report some trees listed in a city data set were incorrectly labelled as apple.
"I've been eating the fruit and they are definitely not apples," the caller said.
City staff members were not able to determine exactly what that person was eating.
And someone else said they'd heard residents of the city are allowed to dump one mattress and one other piece of furniture in a back alley each year.
"Can we?" the caller tried to confirm. (This answer is also no.)
The city said 311 fielded 505,307 calls over the last year. The contact centre is open between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. every day, and interpretation services are available in 240 languages.
