Jaques d'Alltrades6/3/04 3:05

The message
from FF contains these words:

Twice this week, the husband has seen a rat in the compost bin. When I
checked there
was no sign, no holes in or around the bin, the lid's on, the little
slidy door's
closed.

What should I do? Turn the compost and turf ratty out? Get rid of the
compost? How
did he get in there in the first place! We've never put any of the
banned things in
there, just peelings and garden waste really.

Find someone with ferrets.

Either get the owner to drop one in the bin, or if you just want to
deter Ratty, put a bag of ferret litter in there....

There could be a nest. Happened to me once - I thought there was one rat
which one of my dachshunds despatched quickly, much to his surprise and mine
- but it turned out there were several. Nice warm place to raise a family,
perhaps? And rats could tunnel up from underneath - we've stopped up a hole
in the duck's run which suddenly appeared in the middle of their coop where
the feeder was.
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds to email me)