“We didn’t realise we had a rat problem… until we did something about it.”
When Ross and Jo moved into the new waterside housing development, it seemed like a place where people and nature could coexist responsibly.
“It turned out we weren’t the only ones who thought so. The council’s planning permission includes a requirement for an active pest control plan, a responsibility that lies with the residents. We had no experience with pest control, but proposed the idea of a community-funded trapping network as part of our residents’ association. Once we got the go-ahead, we got straight to work. ”
Ross had heard about the self-resetting A24s, and they seemed the right choice, as the terrain is steep in places and there are no official paths, meaning that maintaining manually resettable traps was not an option for them. Furthermore, they did not want to use poison that would cause suffering or could come into contact with coastal wildlife or water sources.
They ordered four A24 Smart Traps and, whilst waiting for delivery, put up some location maps. Within a single night, they had been torn to shreds. They hadn’t even realised they had a pest problem. No one had ever seen a live rat.
The traps arrived and they got to work. By the next day, they’d already caught something. It was a bit of a shock, but also quite satisfying. By the following week, they were already in double figures.
They now think more carefully about where to place them. Currently, they’ve caught 606 animals, mainly rats and a few mice, and that number is still rising.
They keep the trapping system operational all year round, even in the off-season, for continuous protection.