Tuesday, August 01, 2006

There's a rat in mi kitchen (2)

Unlike the last rat which expired tidily in the dustbin [There's a rat in mi kitchen (1)] this rat is very much alive and living under my floor boards. I spotted him last week scuttling in through a broken airbrick giving access to the sub-floor void at the front of the house. This would explain the damp, musty smell we had noticed in the cellar.

Fortunately Wandsworth provide a free pest control service for rats in private dwellings. The Rat Catcher Vermin Control Officer was of the opinion that there was a whole family of them judging by the patter of tiny footprints in the dust. So he laid a bait box down and stuffed a heap of bait sticks through the airbrick using his bare hands.

He did mention that he tended to bleed profusely if cut but what can he expect if he handles anti-coagulants without gloves - silly man!

3 comments:

Rosa said...

Will he reach his hand back down to get the dead vermin? Ew. And just what is Miss Kitty English doing? Is this not her job to chase them out?

Mark McLellan said...

I believe he will empty the bait box but any rodents that breath their last under the floorboards will just have to lie there. He did intimate that it might get a bit smelly for a while.

As for Cleo (short for Cleopatra) she is far too old a lady to be running about after mice and such. She is 16 now and still perky but not hunting like she used to. In the recent heat she has spent most of the last month snoozing under the bushes.

Ballpoint Wren said...

16! She deserves her retirement!

Be careful that Cleo doesn't get ahold of a dead or sickly rat. My niece's cat was poisoned this way. (The cat survived but it was very expensive to save her.)