shed issues

I have been having a massive declutter at our house, kind of inspired by Jenny, and I decided to start in the shed.  I have an old cupboard that is full of boxes with toys and craft supplies.  I had carefully put in a drawer some rolls of paper  that I thought would come in handy for RE one day.  When I was pulling boxes out of the cupboard I opened the the drawer and found this.

Although I also saw a fat rat bottom and seven baby rats.

I quickly closed the drawer and hoped the problem would go away.

It didn't.

Our house is a bit of a rat party frat house, with chicken scraps freely available and beautiful drawers filled with paper to nest in.  There is even a macadamia tree next door to collect the tasty tasty nuts.

But I didn't want to live with what was potentially a dozen healthy huge rats in the shed.  So we put out rat poison.  And then some young male friends 'disposed' of the baby rats quickly and humanely (using such tools as a shovel).

But I had to gird my loins and still clean out the cupboard from the rat infestation.  So last weekend I spent five hours de-constructing rat nests, vacuuming up rat poo and cleaning our toy boxes.  As I pulled down a suitcase from the top of the cupboard, a rat that had chosen the top of the suitcase as it's final resting place decided to fall on my head.  A dead rat shower.  I screeched and leapt around the backyard.

I could not shower enough that afternoon.

Our shed is now much cleaner, and I am eagerly awaiting council pickup to throw the cupboard out onto the street.

What we need is a ratting terrior.

I will continue the de-cluttering inside for a while I think.