FERRETING.
Ferreting is a very good plan for destroying Rats in cottage houses, stables, hotels, etc., as it can be done in the day, but in buildings, say five or six storeys high you cannot ferret very well as you cannot tell where to set your nets. The only way to ferret a large building is to ferret one floor at once, and always start at the
top storey first. The majority of floors are laths and plaster. This is what the Rat likes, especially the Brown Rat, and there are more nests found in these places than anywhere else. To ferret thoroughly in such places you will require to have a board up at each end of the floor: the two end boards that run crossways with the joist; then you must have a man to put the ferret in at one end, and ferret one joist at a time; have a net set at the other end. The best way at the catching end is to have a long sheet net about a yard wide, and the full length of the boards that are up, for sometimes under the boards the Rats can get out of one joist into another, and if you use the long net you can catch them whichever joist they bolt at.
Now we will suppose you are ferreting a seven-storey building, which might occupy three or four days. If you have ferreted two stories the first day, during the night the Rats that have not been ferreted on the lower stories may get back again to the top storey.
How to prevent this happening I will give you a plan of my own, which I don’t think any Rat-catcher but myself has ever employed. The course of action—a rather expensive one I admit—is the following: While you have the boards up you must go to the druggist and get two shillings’ worth of cayenne pepper, and put
it into a pepper duster. Scatter the cayenne along the boards and joist where you have had the long sheet net, and also along the other end of the joist where you put the ferrets in, and you will find that under no consideration will Rats face the cayenne pepper. Cayenne is alright for any dry place and will last a long time, but it will not do in any water closets or any damp places, as dampness takes all the nature out of the cayenne.
After ferreting in any kind of building, always go carefully round the outside, and see that there are no broken air grids, or broken cellar windows, as these are likely ways that the Rats get into the building at first. When ferreting always be careful how you set your nets, and be extremely quick on the Rats when they bolt, for sometimes if they get back they will face the ferret before they will bolt again; then the ferrets kill them under the floors, and this as in the case of poisoning them is liable to cause an abominable smell, more especially where heat is near.
In the whole of my experience of Rat-catching, which is a lengthy one, I never gave a guarantee to clear a place completely, in Manchester or any other town where so many large buildings are so close together. And let me show the reason for this. Take Cannon
Street, Manchester, as an illustration. Here are six or eight different firms in one block of buildings. Now, suppose four of these firms are suffering from the damage the Rats are doing. Well, one or two of these firms may go to the expense of having the Rats cleared away. But between the two buildings there may be a hardware business or ironmonger’s shop, where Rats cannot do any harm to their goods. The owners of these shops will not go to the expense of having Rats caught, nor will they let us go into their shops at midnight; therefore the result is the Rat-catcher in his trapping and ferreting is limited to these two places, and all he can do is to catch some and drive the rest into the hardware shop. When under the floors in such places one finds there has been so many alterations made at different times that one joist may be a foot or six inches below the other, and when the Rats are completely driven out of these places it would require joiners and bricksetters to work for weeks under the floors to stop the Rats returning. And most firms will not go to this expense. I only give my readers this as an illustration of what has often happened with me, and to show why I never guarantee to clear Rats completely in large towns. If they are in a private house, stable, greenhouse, or any block
of houses, of say five or six, I might then, after looking through, give a guarantee to clear them completely.
These are the fullest details I can give you, and if you will put any of the ways I have mentioned into practice you will find that they are all successful, especially the covering of traps. I can give you just one more instance in Manchester, where I was engaged. The workpeople had been tormenting the Rats with traps, not knowing how to set them. They sent for me, and on my looking round the place I knew there was a lot of Rats. I submitted my price to do the job, and when I went down one night with 40 traps, dog, and two ferrets I thought I should catch 20 or 30 Rats, but I found that they had plagued them so much with their attempted trapping that I only caught three in the whole night. This place belonged to a limited company, and when I went before the committee the next morning they were not satisfied. I told them that their own workpeople had tormented the Rats so much with traps that the Rats would not go near one. I then told the committee that I would still stick to my terms, but I would leave the job over for a fortnight. Now during that fortnight I went down a good many times, and laid the sawdust as I have
already described, and thus got the Rats used to it. The first night that I went catching I took with me 33 traps. I had them all set by 8-30 p.m., and by 12-30 a.m. I had trapped 45 Rats; the next night 31 Rats; and before I completed the job, with the trapping and the other ways that I have mentioned, I caught 183 Rats! This I give merely as an illustration to show the necessity of engaging an experienced man to catch Rats—that is, if you want them caught. And to confirm the statements above, I shall be most happy to supply privately the name and place of the firm, and also to give a personal interview if necessary.
And now a word or two respecting the different ways in which Rat-catchers are treated. Many people think that a Rat-catcher is favoured if they give him permission to catch Rats on their farms or round the banks of their corn or wheat fields. Well, on some occasions I grant this may be a favour, for I have seen when I have had an order in hand for about 10 dozen Rats, and have had only a day or two in which to get them. Such are the only times and circumstances when a Rat-catcher gives his services gratis, and simply because he wants the live Rats. Most farmers will send you word when they are
threshing their corn, and then the value of the Rats are worth the day’s work to the Rat-catcher.
This is all right as far as it goes, but when one comes to consider the yearly expenses of the Rat-catcher it will be found that they are very heavy. Now, first of all it will cost, at the least, £5 annually for the wear and tear of traps alone, then there is the wear and tear of nets; two dog licences; always three or four ferrets to keep (and ferrets are often lost down drains or killed by Rats); also sundry other expenses, such as store cages, etc. Then, again, the Rat-catcher always has to pay a man to help him.
I don’t call Rat-catching a trade only: I maintain that it is a profession, and one that requires much learning and courage. I have found this out when I have been under a warehouse floor, where a lot of Rats were in the traps, and I could not get one man out of 50 to come under the floor and hold the candle for me, not to mention helping me to take the live Rats out of the traps. I just relate this because at some places where we go and where we catch perhaps 30 Rats, the first thing they say when the bill is presented is “Why, you have got 15s. worth of live Rats!” They don’t think of the damage 30 Rats can do
to fancy goods, nor do they consider the evil smells that men have to tolerate under the floors or from the bad drains.
I could relate many interesting anecdotes of what I have seen and heard about Rats, but I fear its perusal might take up too much of my readers’ time. There is, however, one thing I will mention. I dare say you have heard of Rats running about in “swarms” in the night. Do not believe it. In my whole experience I have never been so fortunate as to meet a “swarm” of these, when I have had an empty cage on my back, and an order for 12 dozen live Rats at 5s. per dozen. When trapping at farms on a moonlight night I have seen a train of Rats almost in single file going from a barn to a pit or brook to drink, and then I have simply run a long net all along the barn very quickly, sent my dog round the pit and caught all the Rats in the net when they ran back to get in the barn. For in these places you must be as cunning as the Rats to catch them. The quickest way for a farmer to get rid of Rats is to run a long trail of good oatmeal outside his barn doors, and shoot them on a moonlight night. I have seen 11 killed at a shot in this way. They will stay eating the oatmeal because they cannot carry it away. At farms or out-houses you might
poison Rats round a pit or along brook sides where they go to drink, although I don’t believe in poisoning, as one never knows where it ends—the Rats being likely to carry the poisoned food about, and then dogs, hens, pigs, pigeons, etc., may pick it up.
There may be a few more ways of catching Rats than I have enumerated, but I think I have given the best ways in detail. Some people think that to use