Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The Rodent Filter

My current house is a delapidated mobile home I bought for $800, gutted, and am completely re-doing the inside using lumber from the old house and other scrounged and beautiful materials. 

I'm only at the land three days a week and was having terrible problems with rats and mice getting between the walls, chewing up wiring and generally making a mess and even getting into the house and chewing up rugs and so forth. Very destructive little creatures. I didn't want to poison them, and I hate traps that sometimes maim but don't kill. So I built a pole barn around the mobile home. 

The pole barn
provides shade so the mobile home stays relatively cool in summer; it provides a roof to catch rainwater; I can put greenhouse plastic on the north side in winter to keep out the cold wind. But the best thing is that I put wire on the outside of the pole barn and keep cats inside it, half of whom are polydactyl which (I believe, having watched them in action) makes them better at catching rodents. Many dung beetles moved in to take care of the cat poop, and I've seen no sign of rodents in or near my home, or for that matter unpleasant bugs. Fortunately, I am also very fond of cats and very much like to sit in front of a fire with a purring cat on my lap. I'm going to try to attach a photo of the rodent filter.