View report page

LICENSING OF PET SHOPS
During the year 13 inspections were carried out, 6 by the Veterinary
Inspector and 7 by the Public Health Inspectors.
Five existing licences were renewed at the beginning of the year.
INSPECTION OF SHOPS
280 visits were paid to shops and, apart from a number of minor infringements,
which were dealt with, the provisions of the Shops Act have been
well observed.
Only one written notice was served during the year as, generally
speaking, the proprietors of shops remedied defects as the result of informal
notices.
A note on the inspection of food shops under the Food and Drugs Act and
the Food Hygiene Regulations appears on page 39.
ABATEMENT NOTICES
The Notices served during the year were as follows:-
Verbal Preliminary Statutory
Public Health and Housing Acts 130 312 15
Shops Act . 1 .
Food and Drugs Act 18 7 .
Factories Act 4 12 .
Prevention of Damage by Pests Act, 1949 1
Middlesex County Council Act, 1950 . 2 2
Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Act, 1952 2 . .
Pet Animals Act, 1951 1 . .
RODENT CONTROL
The number of infestations by rats reported in the Borough during 1959
was 207. During the last four to six months of the year at least eighty per cent
of these related to single rat infestations.
It appears that normally rats live and feed in colonies but occasionally
one or two rats of a colony seem to disassociate themselves from the rest.
These rats, if in the sewers, appear to be reluctant to eat at any collective
feeding points and have been observed under laboratory conditions to feed off
the food dropped by other rats in the latter's passage from one feeding point
to the next. Treatments with "Warfarin" are designed to encourage feeding
and destruction over a period, and therefore scavenging by the stray rat is still
possible but the use of sodium fluoroacetate is fatal in such minute doses that
21