Fuming!

[Veggielot]

No, they haven't said. I do know who reported it though - not the most reliable person.

Was just wondering if it was near you or not, would be good if it was on tbe other side of town.

[Bill HH]

It occurs to me that if your organised a lot of friends to help it would be a good idea to send in bogus reports of rats in different parts of the village, or even other livestock, Black panthers, 30ft Anacondas etc. The council guy will be so overworked he will forget all about one rat.

[julesapple]

Bill, this rat was reported in by our local stoner (so he tells me) it could've been ten foot long with psychedelic fur for all Christian would know. This is someone who's smoked tarragon before now

[SarzWix]

Smoking weed doesn't lead to hallucinations. Relaxed, sleepy, uncontrollably hungry, yes. Hallucinating, no.

Still incredibly mean, and stupid, that the rat-man is focusing on your chickens, and not the people leaving out bird food all over the place, which is well known to attract them. He'd be better off putting notices up in public places telling everyone to keep available food sources to a minimum, including litter.

[julesapple]

Dear Ms -----,

Thank you for your letter dated --/--/---- and the very useful leaflet you included.

Since receiving the letter and leaflet, I have spoken to all 27 fellow poultry keepers in the village. They are very disappointed not to have received the forewarning that there is a rat in our village, and even more disappointed that they have not received a very useful leaflet like mine. I hope you don't mind, but I have reassured them that you will, indeed, be writing to them all and including the useful leaflet in with their letters, very shortly. I have also passed on your details to them, should they want to contact you or drop in to your office for further information.

May I take this opportunity to say that I agree, wholeheartedly, with your incessant campaign against rats and other pests. This is important, never ending work and must be a constant challenge to people such as yourself. The fact that we, in this village, only have a singular rat must surely be a sign of your success. I cannot but admire your dedication and hard work. The hours of your time that it must have taken to eradicate every other rat (bar this last persistent rodent) must be immense. I am quite surprised that I have never seen you in the village, whilst on my daily walks. Possibly you only work nocturnal hours to mimic rat behaviour.

We have taken the advice in your very useful leaflet, and lifted our chicken feeder exactly 20cm off the ground. I'd like to see that rat help itself to our chicken feed now! And, of course, as per the incredibly sensible DEFRA regulations, we don't put out any scraps of food for our chickens. I'm sure that you will be ceaseless in your persecution of those miscreants who flout these regulations, and those people who feed the wild birds regularly. That must be a particularly unremitting task, as I have noticed that just about every house in the village still has wild bird food readily available in their gardens, thus ignoring the advice in your very useful leaflet.

Thank you once again for your untiring and indefatigable work in keeping our village (very nearly) rat free. I expect I shall bump into in the village one day, especially if that last persistent pest happened to be female.

Yours Sincerely,






The rat man is a bloke, but I noticed that the letter's typist (or whomever) has made a mistake and written Ms and not Mr. This is the actual letter that I posted this morning, apart from the identifying names, of course.

[alldigging]

Oh yes! I think you captured the perfect tone there! )

[julesapple]

I did. I was polite and everything. Sycophantic even

[KittyColdNose]

Fantastic!

[Snadger]

I hate to say it but the 'Dalek' type composting bins are the ratcatchers first port of call.

[julesapple]

Maybe the council shouldn't sell them then. Seems a bit stupid that one department actively promotes sales of an item that makes another department's life harder. Or maybe they plan it that way

According to the letter we received, if rats are found on your property, the ratman will charge £45 to exterminate them - whether you want them exterminated, or not - and yet the council here actively promote the sale of plastic dalek composters (we bought ours from them) and they also tell you to put food waste into them if you don't want to put it in your food waste box for recycling. Also, food collected every week by the recycle wagon goes into compost made and sold by the council.

Seems a bit odd to me, but sounds just right for the council!

[Tripmeup]

Jules.
You forgot to tell him you were thinking of getting a cat, oh wait a minute

[julesapple]

Trip, I took out the paragraph about our cats. It made me sound far too intelligent

Actually, it made the mogs sound intelligent - and that really is pushing it!!

[ancee]

Jules, please let us know if and when you get a reply! I can't wait to read it, your letter made me laugh hahaha

[Glutton4...]

Jules - you are a star! Absolutely brilliant!

[Snadger]

Don't get me wrong, I think daleks are great, in fact any kind of composting is great.
Its just I know an aquaintance who has his own business doing vermin control (used to be a council ratcatcher)
He told me that when he arrives at a job where rats have been seen,the first thing he does is kick the dalek over and the second is to uproot the bird table!

I think your letter was great btw and I hope you get a satisfactory conclusion.