Week Sunday 5 to Saturday 11 June
How hard can it be, just to build an open cube and wrap it in netting? How long does it take? I was convinced it would only be a couple of days, but as ever, things conspired to get in the way of my plans.
On Monday, we thought we heard a mouse in the cab. On Tuesday, sitting quietly, I saw a large grey shape moving around in the cluttered cab. The cab of the camper truck had gone from tool store to general dumping ground. It had not yet been properly cleaned out since we bought it, and was a tangled jumble of garden tools, bits of rope, foam cushions, and who knew what else.
We put down some glue traps and that night we caught the first rat.
We put down more traps and caught a mouse. Then another rat. We set aside a day to strip out the cab, binning what we could and relocating everything else. We bleached and cleaned and set more traps. We caught another one.
On Thursday, convinced they must have a nest somewhere, I worked out how to get the glove compartment moulding out of the dashboard, and found a load of leaves and chewed foam and chewed wires in the space behind it. We cleaned that out. Luckily we're not using the truck electrics, or we'd be in big trouble. None of our wiring was touched, so far. We set more traps and caught another one.
In amongst all this, the rats had been getting into the main part of the camper - we found droppings on the cooker top, among the dishes, and bite marks in all the fruit and veg. Everything compromised was binned, everything else was laboriously bleach-cleaned, then washed, dried and put somewhere hopefully they couldn't reach. All the floor and linen got washed. Dave had one run over his foot in bed, so it all got a bit squeamish and grim.
We kept catching them. It was all out war by now. They'd avoided the humane traps, and we weren't prepared to go soft on them. Anything caught in a glue trap would get a swift death, although Dave hated it. 'I'm not a killer', he fretted. I would've drowned them, but Dave believed that was more cruel than a swift blow to the head.
I got some wire mesh and used it to block up all the holes I could find, but the dashboard of the truck is riddled with ventilation shafts and gaps in the moulding, so I couldn't be sure.
And in between all this unforeseen extra work, my little writing box came on oh, so slowly ...
And the land threw out these mega-thistles everywhere you go. But at least the seedlings seemed well established.
How hard can it be, just to build an open cube and wrap it in netting? How long does it take? I was convinced it would only be a couple of days, but as ever, things conspired to get in the way of my plans.
On Monday, we thought we heard a mouse in the cab. On Tuesday, sitting quietly, I saw a large grey shape moving around in the cluttered cab. The cab of the camper truck had gone from tool store to general dumping ground. It had not yet been properly cleaned out since we bought it, and was a tangled jumble of garden tools, bits of rope, foam cushions, and who knew what else.
We put down some glue traps and that night we caught the first rat.
We put down more traps and caught a mouse. Then another rat. We set aside a day to strip out the cab, binning what we could and relocating everything else. We bleached and cleaned and set more traps. We caught another one.
On Thursday, convinced they must have a nest somewhere, I worked out how to get the glove compartment moulding out of the dashboard, and found a load of leaves and chewed foam and chewed wires in the space behind it. We cleaned that out. Luckily we're not using the truck electrics, or we'd be in big trouble. None of our wiring was touched, so far. We set more traps and caught another one.In amongst all this, the rats had been getting into the main part of the camper - we found droppings on the cooker top, among the dishes, and bite marks in all the fruit and veg. Everything compromised was binned, everything else was laboriously bleach-cleaned, then washed, dried and put somewhere hopefully they couldn't reach. All the floor and linen got washed. Dave had one run over his foot in bed, so it all got a bit squeamish and grim.
We kept catching them. It was all out war by now. They'd avoided the humane traps, and we weren't prepared to go soft on them. Anything caught in a glue trap would get a swift death, although Dave hated it. 'I'm not a killer', he fretted. I would've drowned them, but Dave believed that was more cruel than a swift blow to the head.
I got some wire mesh and used it to block up all the holes I could find, but the dashboard of the truck is riddled with ventilation shafts and gaps in the moulding, so I couldn't be sure.
And in between all this unforeseen extra work, my little writing box came on oh, so slowly ...
And the land threw out these mega-thistles everywhere you go. But at least the seedlings seemed well established.
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