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Castle Gardens, Leicester


MrsM

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4 hours ago, MrsM said:

Thanks so much - that is really helpful. Think I might drop the Council a line.

Having seen the number of rats in Castle Gardens, I'm not sure you are going to interest the Council. When walking through during the daytime the rats are everywhere if you look. People come into Castle Gardens to eat and drink and rats are the natural consequence. The only additional suggestion I'd make is that there is no real reason for the bins to be on the pontoon, they could just as easily be at the bottom of the steps on the other side of the locked gate which would make them easier for the Council's own workers to empty them (and boaters wouldn't get disturbed by rats partying in them). 

1 hour ago, rusty69 said:

TL;DR

 

Give me a rat over a mouse, at least I keep my house

 

Give me a rat,  a badger or a squirrel any day over a pesky mouse. 

 

We had a mouse wreak havoc for a week (or it may have week'd havoc for a wreak) in our boat a few years back, and it didn't even have a blow torch or an angle grinder, let alone a portable gas soldering iron. 

 

The little sod got in through a very small hole somewhere and commenced eating his way through the entire boat and our belongings. He got behind the plywood lining  by chewing his way through, and nesting in the rock wool. He chewed through the washing machine hose,causing a leak, the oven insulation and the contents of my pant drawer (brave little fella).

 

It would have been a bit easier to accept, had we not had two bloomin cats onboard at the time,who were both outsmarted by the thing at every turn. 

 

I got many traps and poison, which I'm pretty sure he never touched.

 

It just disappeared one night, after a very frustrating week (as we could hear it in the night). 

 

I fear if we had a wooden boat, he wood have eaten the whole damn thing and made us homeless from the inside out. 

 

So, give me a badger, a squirrel or a rat any day. They are too big to get inside, and cute enough to write a 'wind in the willows'  squeekel about.  

 

What good is a damn mouse unless you like beer tricks Potter. 

Never underestimate a rat! Our workplace near Teignmouth Docks had a rat problem as they used to land animal feed there. We could deal with by putting poison down since no other animals were in the building. The result? the rats died after crawling into the ventilation system, the resultant smell inside the building made even those with a strong stomach, gag for months:sick::sick::sick:.

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What poison bait did you use? We used to use grain-based bait, in addition to conventional wooden traps, to deal with the field mice that we often get in the garden shed, but when "The Big Cheese" bait we used to get from Dyas's, changed from wheat grain to "new improved" corn,  the rodents just turned up their noses at it. I managed  to get wheat-based bait of a different brand on-line, they take that and are seen no more.  

 

I understand that lead-based pigments are used to colour the insulation of electric cables to ensure flexibility.

 

Lead-based compounds are often sweet to taste, which might be why rodents like to chew them. When I was  a first  aider, there was an item in our regular newsletter about an electrician who had managed to give himself lead poisoning by chewing pieces of stripped-off insulation to help reduce his need for a fag when trying to give up smoking. 

 

Some 30 years ago we had a mouse stowaway in our hired boat, coincidentally after having spent the night moored against a heavily-overgrown tow path. I found it in the larder, happily  chewing its way into a packet of instant mash, and dispatched it with a handy tin of baked beans.  It must have started making itself a nest in the expanded polystyrene insulation, as granules had started to appear on the worktop the day before I saw and killed it.

Edited by Ronaldo47
typos
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We once had a rat on Fulbourne, which gnawed its way through various cupboards,  lockers and the fridge, nested in a sleeping bag and ate its way through all the non-tinned contents of the food cupboard, and most of the drawer containing sun cream and the first aid kit. We never saw it, but you could hear it scuttling about during the night. I bought a large old fashioned trap and put it down behind the kitchen units. I heard it go off in the night, but next morning all I found in the trap was the end of its tail, so I guess it must have gnawed its own tail to achieve freedom. We resorted to leaving poison out when the boat was unoccupied. It all got taken, and we never saw or heard the rat again, or smelled its decaying corpse, so maybe in its death throws it abandoned ship.

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The place I've seen most rats in Leicester is by the bins at Lime Kiln lock - there is always plenty of food for them around the lock. I've yet to hit one with a thrown windlass.

One of the worst places I've been for rats was the waste transfer station at Polmadie in Glasgow. A group of us were there one day and went down a badly lit stair and one of our party trod on a dead one and got its guts sprayed over his boot and trouser leg! The other issue was that there was also problems with leachate which was really noxious and gulls which dive bombed you so it was toss up look down to avoid the leachate or up for the gulls. I have been to some very unpleasant places to earn my living!!

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On 18/08/2022 at 18:37, IanD said:

 

I think you're confusing Walsall with Ankh-Morpork. Though there do seem to be certain similarities... 😉

 

I had a guinea pig (shaved before cooking) on a stick in Ecuador and a giant frog on a stick in Thailand. Like giant meat lollies, both delicious if fiddly to eat. I'd draw the line at a sewer rat though...

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1 hour ago, Crewcut said:

 

I had a guinea pig (shaved before cooking) on a stick in Ecuador and a giant frog on a stick in Thailand. Like giant meat lollies, both delicious if fiddly to eat. I'd draw the line at a sewer rat though...

Only if they told you what it was before serving, after all you only have their word for it that it was a guinea pig, could've been a huge rat;)

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