Rats, dogs and scabs

My random whinges for this week. Warning, it's not pretty.

1. Rats. Like any old house in any old suburb, we have them. Thankfully only in the garden, but they seem quite at home and are not at all shy. Some evenings I could swear they are shifting furniture out there. I am not a squeamish person but rats give me the heebie jeebies. It's something about their tails....shudder. Mr Calamity has had enough and put out baits last weekend. Which leads us to...

2. Dogs. Mr Calamity was very careful to put the baits out in areas the dogs do not have access too. In my paranoia, I insisted that the dogs sleep inside for a couple of weeks and each morning we do a patrol of the yard to ensure there are no dead rats. Saturday evening Big Stupid Dog had a hurl after dinner. This in itself is not that uncommon as he has a tendency to eat too fast and occasionally he will bring it all back up again for a second attempt (I told you it wasn't pretty, and it gets worse...). Out of the corner of my eye I saw his efforts, and they didn't look like dinner. On closer inspection - you guessed it - rat body parts (*gag*). The shed door was open, and he'd got in there. Luckily he is a big dog, and a frantic call to the vet revealed that he wouldn't have ingested enough of the poison to be an issue. Awesome way to spend a Saturday night, checking the dog every half hour for a blood nose (a sign that he had been poisoned). Thankfully he was fine. Stupid, but fine.

3. Scabs. A totally different subject. This week there is a verge collection in our street. Some places call it "hard rubbish collection" - where you put out all the crap you've accumulated over the last year that won't fit in your bin. Stuff you've had lying around intended to put in a garage sale but never got around to. Mr Calamity and I cleaned out our study and put most of it on the verge. Not 2 minutes later and the neighbourhood are going through our stuff. Don't get me wrong, there was some stuff there that was worth pilfering and they're more than welcome to it but here are my tips:

• If you would like our ancient telly, help yourself, but don't have the cheek to come and ask if there's a remote to go with it or if we can help you carry it home.
• Similarly, pinching a trolley from the local supermarket to wheel the telly home is just, well, a bit feral.
• If you must pick over the pile, leave it stacked in reasonable order rather than tossing it all around the verge. If it's a mess, the council won't pick it up and I'm stuck with all of this crap for another year. If I see you doing it, I will channel my mother and come out in my PJs and give you a lecture about cleaning up after yourself, and possibly about self respect.

And my final whinge for this week is I am off to Canberra this afternoon. And I don't own thermal underwear.