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RODENT CONTROL.
In May, 1955, the Council agreed to a request by the Ministry
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to conduct an experiment by
using Warfarin blocks for rodent control in a section of the
Council's sewers for a period of 12 months. At the end of this
period a letter was received from the Ministry stating that this
preliminary trial had shown some promise and that it might be
an advantage if the Council would agree to a further trial of the
material to enable a comparable assessment of the two treatments
to be made. It was suggested that 500 selected manholes
should be treated at three-monthly intervals during the ensuing
12 months using one block per manhole for the first treatment
and thereafter half a block per manhole. The Council agreed
to this suggestion and the trial was still in progress at the end
of the year.
Since these trials began the number of complaints of rat
infestations in the Northern Part of the Borough where they were
conducted has shown a reduction of more than 50 per cent, and
since the larger scale trial was put into operation the reduction
in the number of complaints has been even more marked.
In the remainder of the Council's sewers the usual twiceyearly
maintenance treatment was carried out with the normal
poison baits in May/June and November/December. In addition,
vertical block maintenance treatment was carried out throughout
the year.
Treatment for all surface infestations was carried out with
Warfarin baits which expedited the work very considerably and
enabled many more infestations to be treated each week with
less staff.
Particulars of the work of the Rodent Control Staff appear
on page 45.