[size=150:3cdu1ptt]Livestock in the House!

Our house is built of stone with thick double walls nearing two feet deep on three rooms, however the traditional manner of building these dry walls was to take up the slack where necessary with mud, thereby the wall could be made to look even on all sides. I have had a small try to rebuild a piece of wall on the outskirts of the field and it was far from easy, all dry wall builders have learnt their craft from experienced people with years of skill behind them. However, when originally built they were basically perfect, but over the years the mud within the rocks can move or become eroded for various reasons, thereby small holes appear between the rocks and at times these holes can line up with holes on the second row of inner stones.

This now means that draughts start to blow through the holes and the rooms within can become cold in the winter especially, it also means that any insect or animal small enough can creep in through the holes and find itself in a lovely heated room that the owner has supplied at his own expense. This is what has happened to our house, albeit, our renovator come builder in his infinite wisdom had lined all of our walls with plasterboard to make the job of running new electric cables and also central heating pipes for radiators behind the plasterboard much easier to install. So at the beginning of the Winter we started to hear movement behind the plasterboards and the dogs didn't like the intrusion into their home and became aggitated and barked a lot at any movement they heard. It sounded like a mouse or even more horrific it could be a rat of course, but I sincerely hoped it wouldn't be because of the damage they can inflict on anything that comes into contact with their teeth.

And so last week Louie made a rush for the utility room where I had put a rat trap, not that a mouse or indeed a rat had managed to put it's neck under the strong spring of the trap. I went into the utility room and told Louie to go into the kitchen, then I leant forward to inspect the trap and nothing was in it, I then noticed what looked like a thick worm very near the trap and to my horror it moved 12 inches into the utility room and guess what . . . it was attached to a rat!!!!!!! It was his tail!!

That's fine I thought, get the dogs in here and they will deal with it, so first of all Louie was introduced to the situation and was not interested at all, next, was Sofie, in she came in looked around and walked out into the kitchen, so now they are both in the kitchen eyeing up what we just cooked for lunch and hadn't started to eat because of the incident in the utility room. All they wanted to do was have some of our food and totally uninterested in our rat. So I went out into the garden and fetched Ayla into the utility room and she was confused why she was there, but I believed if I left her in there on her own she would soon work out the situation and so I closed the door whilst Annette and I attempted to eat our lunch.

A thump was heard from the utility room and we went to investigate the source of the noise, the door creaked open to reveal Ayla sat on the floor looking non-plussed and no more than 2 feet away an ex rat was laid on the floor. So a thumping hooray to Ayla for her victory over our rodent stowaway, she had done her bit and put the two big dogs to shame, one being a German Shepherd Dog and one being an Anatolian Shepherd Dog, both of which should have had no trouble in dealing with the situation if they had been interested of course!

Oh Itchyfeet I can totally relate to that story. We too have plasterboarding upstairs which is not totally finished. Good job too because we recently heard scurrying and even gnawing noises from within the plasterboard. My Hero made several attempts at removing the boarding but could see nothing bar a hole in the original mud wall! Our house was being eaten away! I'm sad to say we put down poison in several places because we had seen nothing so far. Finally, he once more removed the boarding having no luck with the poison and came face to face with a large rodent. Quite cute really. Well the poison finally did its job and we have had no more problems but it must have been a slow death for the poor thing. Normally our cats solve the problem and I have a couple of wonderful shots of one of our cats with a large rat in its mouth outside one of our barns but our new home is much older and more entrances for a rat to enter after a warm place to have its babies. I think the cats we have now are too well fed! We must get those upstairs walls plastered up next Spring!

I hate to sound boring but your cure for any holes and draughts and even the ingress of damp is Fribran.This will insulate your house from the outside and as the Fribran is sealed with cement it will prevent any rodents from getting into the house.I still suffer from time to time with a mouse or two but Alfie our big Ginger tom takes care of them in a couple of days.Fribran is a bit expensive but well worth it as it keeps the heat in and the cold out and works in reverse in the hot Summer, but be sure to use the 4cm. As a yard stick it will cost 10 Leva per sq mtr for labour and about the same for materials.Last Winter I had your problem and as you know life can be uncomfortable waking up to a cold house but not any more as the Fribran retains the heat to a certain degree. If you can afford it have flat quarried stone put around the base of your house at about a meter high and have it varnished this will act as a snow barrier.

speedgunner wrote:

I hate to sound boring but your cure for any holes and draughts and even the ingress of damp is Fribran.This will insulate your house from the outside and as the Fribran is sealed with cement it will prevent any rodents from getting into the house.I still suffer from time to time with a mouse or two but Alfie our big Ginger tom takes care of them in a couple of days.Fribran is a bit expensive but well worth it as it keeps the heat in and the cold out and works in reverse in the hot Summer, but be sure to use the 4cm. As a yard stick it will cost 10 Leva per sq mtr for labour and about the same for materials.Last Winter I had your problem and as you know life can be uncomfortable waking up to a cold house but not any more as the Fribran retains the heat to a certain degree. If you can afford it have flat quarried stone put around the base of your house at about a meter high and have it varnished this will act as a snow barrier.

Thanks for your advice speedgunner - our neighbour Bernard looked at our walls and said basically the same thing. Unfortunately this will be a challenge and conquest item for next year when the weather is friendlier so that we can do the job properly.

Speedgunner our builders heat-proofed our house and put the flat stone around the base so no complaints and we are warm and snug. However, we decided to retain our original roof because not only is it attractive, it served the owners all those years and the loft also helps keep the heat in and any drips are easily dealt with by our local man who knows how to replace offending tiles which sometimes slip. This decision also means that occasionally a rodent can find a nice cosy home in the roof in the autumn. This will not happen when we finish the inside plastering to cover any holes in the wattle and daub outer walls and flooring. I can certainly live with it as the Bulgarians do. Just watch the amount of repairing that goes on on various roofs after the snow has melted and they are not always old roofs either. Being warm and dry in the living area using the cheapest option, is the main priority for me and mine. Maybe I am now more Bulgarian than Brit or just eccentric!