On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 19:00:04 +0100, Perry O'Dontal-Surgery
wrote:

... what am I going to do?

I disturbed a small one a few weeks ago - it was sat atop the pile when I
removed the lid from our green compost bin. I kept quiet about it, knowing
the furore it would cause amongst the female members of the household, and
the near-futility of trying to get rid of them (rats, not FMOH). However,
now that one of said female members has lifted the lid and had the same
experience, Action is going to Have to be Taken.

Mr Death of Rats from the council has been today, and put down poison. He
has advised us not to put any fruit or veg trimmings in the bin. Seems to
me we might as well not bother with a compost bin in that case.

Hmm. It'd really frustrate me. Especially when the councils are
pushing us to recycle and compost. Although we will soon be getting
food bags and boxes to send our food scraps off for recycling - which
we could use for veg waste but seems far too silly to have to do that
when there are perfectly good compost bins out there.

Have you been putting anything other than veg and fruit waste from the
kitchen in it? Or feeding the birds and having pigeons visit?

You could try one of those sealed one that you spin round.




I'm more inclined to resite the bin atop a rubble foundation, to make it
hard if not impossible to burrow into. What is exercising me most at the
moment is this: if rats have been living in my compost heap for a while
now, and adding their own potentially Weyl-laden excreta to it, is the
existing compost still fit to be spread upon the garden at all?

Andy


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