Cactus Annie
Refugee
On Friday night the gentlemen upstairs came down to tell us that the night before he had seen a rat on his stair case. He discribed as being a foot long with a tail about 4 inches long. He came in just after midnight after doing a night shift and when he put the light on he saw the rat run down the stairs and scurry in between the wooden plyths on his staircase that lead up to his flat. Separating his stairs from our flat is a wall and on our side we have a hallway as well as a safe that we've never been able to open and a storage cupboard that will be under his stairs. Because the building used to be all one house there's only a thin partition that's separating our flats at the bottom of his stair case, whereby a rat will easy be able to bite it's way though. However I think it's managed to get in the floorboards under the stairs and climbed up to his flat, under his floorboards. Sunday night I could hear something scurrying around upstairs for a few hours. This would be where his kitchen and bathroom would be. I heard it again last night and this morning I heard it whilst I was in bed, which would be where his sitting room is situated.
I went down to my local council office yesterday to see what they could advice and the lady said that they could send someone out, but they won't be able to do it right away. She said that it could've climbed through an air vent, through drainpipes and up through an open toilet seat. If we want to get rid of it ourselves then we've got two options: traps or poison. Barring in mind that if we use poison we'll be liable if a child consumes it and it will leave a smell. With a trap we have to get rid of the rat afterwards whilst it's inside the trap whilst with the poison it will just wonder off and die. I settled for the poison. I took it around to my nieghbour with a pair of old gloves and showed him it. He's Polish and although he speaks excellent English mum said that it's best to show him it and ask whether he has any friends that visit with children or dogs, he said no. He put the poison at the bottom of the stairs. I don't think he liked having to put it down, neither did we, but then we hate rats in the building.
I went down to my local council office yesterday to see what they could advice and the lady said that they could send someone out, but they won't be able to do it right away. She said that it could've climbed through an air vent, through drainpipes and up through an open toilet seat. If we want to get rid of it ourselves then we've got two options: traps or poison. Barring in mind that if we use poison we'll be liable if a child consumes it and it will leave a smell. With a trap we have to get rid of the rat afterwards whilst it's inside the trap whilst with the poison it will just wonder off and die. I settled for the poison. I took it around to my nieghbour with a pair of old gloves and showed him it. He's Polish and although he speaks excellent English mum said that it's best to show him it and ask whether he has any friends that visit with children or dogs, he said no. He put the poison at the bottom of the stairs. I don't think he liked having to put it down, neither did we, but then we hate rats in the building.