Rat trap...

Living in the countryside, I'm sort of OK with sharing parts of my address with critters.  Almost every year, we have to invite Andrew the Rat Man over to sort out the mice in the loft (who like to do a version of Riverdance across my bedroom ceiling...wearing clogs).  I hate the thought of killing any animal, but having tried catching them alive and driving them ten miles down the road to release them, only to find that more have taken their place, I finally relented and agreed that bumping them off was the only option.  

We did try Little Nippers in the loft (had to check I'd spelt that right) but they don't half make you jump when they go off at three in the morning, so Andrew now does things which I really don't want to know about.  All I do know is that he follows up whatever he does with three visits involving a large stick and blue shoe covers.

Anyway, I digress...

Some weeks ago, one of my neighbours sent a round-robin email to say that he'd noticed some ratty activity in his compost heap (far, far away from his house, but very close to mine) and we were to be prepared. He didn't do anything about the rats in his garden, choosing instead to let the problem go a little further afield.  I am now the proud owner of at least three large rats in my back garden.  They like to reside on the bird table (no more food for the birds for the time being) and have also been caught hanging from my fat balls. Ahem ahem...

So their days are numbered.  Andrew came to the house yesterday leaving equipment dotted around the garden with flower pots and brooms handles balanced precariously on them to disguise the rats' pending doom, and as long as they don't twig what's going on, they should be gone within a couple of weeks.

Either that or I'm going to throw a load of ripe bacon over my fence and wait for Ratty and friends to go back through the hole in the fence to my neighbour's garden.  Once they were all through, I could very quickly block up the hole, ensuring no return.

Tempting...