RAT

A PEST control expert has revealed a simple way to keep rodents away from homes and gardens – and all it takes is a quick shake and sprinkle.

With rat season about to begin, the advice arrives just in time.

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The easy – and humane – method is unveiled in a social media post just weeks before cool weather arrives in the UK.

That is the end of the breeding season for rodents and signals their arrival around homes and in gardens.

This is when the little blighters are at their most active as they search for food and shelter ahead of winter

If hungry they will take more risks such as raiding bird tables and bins.

And they don’t move in at night – they often seek food during the day, particularly if other rats are congregating in the same garden or porch.

But fear not, help is at hand – literally.

In a video posted to his Facebook account, Ceith Griffith unveiled a simple and effective way to keep rats from the door.

“It’s that time of year again, guys … mice and rats are going to try and get inside your home but I’m going to show you how to keep them out by repelling them,” he said in the video, which has received more than 2,500 likes.

Ceith goes on to explain how attaching a spray nozzle to a vinegar, apple vinegar or pine salt bottle can turn into the ultimate repellent.

“Pine salt works the best but I know a lot of people are allergic to it,” he said. “Just take the spray and point it at your porch and anywhere you don’t want the rats to come near.

“You can use this around your garage or even inside your garage … and it’s going to keep all the mice and rats from coming around your home, or garage or RV.”

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Facebook users rushed to the post to comment and thank Ceith for his help.

One person said: “Love UR videos. I watch and write them down. Thank u.”

A second person said: “Definitely going to try this.”

A third person, however, said they were looking for advice after encountering another type of pest in their home.

They posted: “Hello, how do you get a raccoon or possum out of your loft? Please help.”

Other ways to repel rats

Rats are a nuisance and can be difficult to get rid of but by using the pickled onion hack you can deter them, but other methods can help too, one of which is planting certain plants in your garden that rats hate.

One home expert shared: “Plants such as lavender, mint, marigolds, daffodils, rosemary, sage and several others can be planted in your garden to disrupt the smell of a rat.  

“If a rat can’t smell inside of your home then it is far less likely to try.”

For best results, plant these plants along fences, around sheds, and near compost bins or generally anywhere that rodents might be tempted to settle.

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A mum-of-three from the US has opened up about the assumptions people have made since her family decided to move to Italy and start a new life without American coffee, a tumble dryer or a car

On a typical day, which may involve schedules, work stress, and other commitments, you may wonder what it would be like to give it all up to live a different, calmer life, even if just for a short while. You may pine to move to a new city, or swap the hustle and bustle for countryside. Others dream of studying or living abroad for a year or two.

One mum, named Erica Galbreath, was left fed up with the daily “hustle and bustle” and wanted more adventure for herself, her husband and their three children. She has opened up about her journey after moving her family to Tuscany in Italy from the US. On Instagram, she admitted: “There’s wasn’t one lightbulb moment. No dramatic epiphany, no perfect timing. Just a quiet knowing that we wanted more. And somehow, Italy felt like the place to find it.”

Erica has been sharing updates of her journey on her Instagram page @travelingmuggles. While she has been inundated with support and positivity from others, many people have shared their presumptions about the family’s choice to move.

Before moving, Erica shared the “actual unhinged things people have said to me when I tell them I’m moving to Italy”.

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One question Erica was asked stated: “Aren’t you worried about moving your kids there? Don’t you think this will be too hard on them!” Erica responded and candidly wrote: “Totally opposite. Say hello to never having active shooter drills again. The US isn’t exactly the poster child for safety.”

She also noted that when people say that they “can’t believe” she signed the children up for a traditional Italian school – and not an English speaking school in Italy – that it is “hands down the best way to learn the language and integrate”.

Erica further said people assume that the family is Catholic now, but they aren’t. She has also received wild assumptions that she “forced” her husband to move, as Erica said: “He’s been here less than a month and feels like this is the home he’s always been missing.”

The family are enjoying adjusting to their new life. Erica said they given up their car because they are happy to walk and the public transport is good. She noted she doesn’t miss the large American coffees and they do not have a tumble dryer – and dry their clothes outside like other Tuscany locals.

“This is something I’ve wanted since I was a child,” she admitted. Erica said her dad travelled for work when she was younger, and she felt inspired. One day she was on a hike and realised she had never fulfilled the dream of living abroad, so after speaking to her family and they decided to move to Italy 30 days later.

She said people have told her she looks happy since the move. Erica added: “I left everything behind, stopped chasing a dream that wasn’t mine, and moved my family to Tuscany.”

She noted: “We traded in the hustle for slow mornings, good wine and family time in Tuscany.”

The family don’t plan on moving back to the US any time soon either.

Would you ever more abroad? Comment below…

Few initiatives of the Trump administration more seriously undermine our understanding of the nation’s past than Executive Order 14023 from March 27, which promises “to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments.”

The order directs the Interior secretary to cleanse all National Park Service sites of any signage that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” and instead “emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” The Park Service staff was also instructed to purge gift shops of books that could be construed as critical of any American. In a similar vein, the Smithsonian Institution was ordered to remove “improper ideology” from its properties to assure they reflected “American greatness.”

Unwilling to depend on park personnel to enforce the patriotism mandate, the Trump administration is enlisting park visitors to report potentially offending displays and ranger talks that present an insufficiently sanitized account of American history. On June 9, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron instructed regional directors to “post signage that will encourage public feedback via QR code and other methods that are viable” concerning anything they encounter at a park site that they believe denigrates the nation’s history. (It is worth noting that when queried about the QR code directive, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum claimed to know nothing of the mandate, although he signed it on May 20.) How will the Trump administration respond if a visitor uses one of the mandatory QR codes to file a complaint?

And that is just the beginning. The Trump administration has also made clear it would like to eliminate entire sites that are not “National Parks, in the traditionally understood sense.” That means targeting those features that lack the grandeur of Yosemite and the Grand Tetons: smaller parks, sites and memorials, many of which honor women and minorities. Generally lacking soaring redwoods or massive gorges, these sites — many in urban areas where President Trump’s revisionist history has not caught on — would seem to describe places in California such as César Chavez National Monument outside Bakersfield, Manzanar National Historic Site and Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.

Trump and his ahistorical myrmidons — he just mused that the Civil War ended in 1869 — regularly display an abysmal ignorance of basic American history. In their view, such federal (and presumably state) sites should present only a simplistic view of our complex 249-year history, one that virtually ignores the contributions and struggles of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Even before we see how many “tips” the Park Service’s invitation elicits from visitors eager to rat on rangers, the wording of the executive order itself is chilling. Any signage or lecture that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” — and who is to say what constitutes disparagement? — must be replaced with rhetoric that emphasizes “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.” Needless to say, the many sites that tell the stories of civil rights and anti-slavery struggles, the Civil War, the role of immigrants, the battles for labor rights and the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people are going to have a challenging time ensuring they in no way offend those willing to acknowledge only uninterrupted “greatness” of the American story. Sometimes our greatness has been manifested by our progress toward a more perfect union — and that story cannot be told without mentioning imperfections.

One need not have a PhD in history to appreciate the dire threat presented by these efforts to replace historical scholarship with uncritical flag-waving. Historians have an obligation to challenge myth, to uncover obscured stories, to give voice to those who were unable to fully participate in earlier eras of the American story because of their race, ethnicity, gender or viewpoints. That is why our government has protected sites including Ellis Island (which President Lyndon B. Johnson added to Statue of Liberty National Monument), Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and Stonewall National Monument (both recognized by President Obama). Trump’s Orwellian orders seek to undo a half-century of scholarship that revealed a far more complex and nuanced history than the simplified versions taught to generations of schoolchildren.

Fortunately, professional historians have not been cowed like many university leaders, law firms and others who have shamefully capitulated to Trump’s assault on free speech and intellectual integrity. A March statement from more than 40 historical societies condemned recent efforts to “purge words, phrases, and content that some officials deem suspect on ideological grounds [and] to distort, manipulate, and erase significant parts of the historical record.”

The national parks consistently rate as one of the most popular features of American government. Neither their rangers nor their exhibits should be intimidated into parroting a sanitized and distorted version of the nation’s past. As the historians declared, “We can neither deny what happened nor invent things that did not happen.” Americans should use those QR codes to send a clear message rejecting efforts to manipulate our history to suit an extremist ideological and political agenda.

John Lawrence is a visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Center and a former staff director of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

The couple was horrified to stumble upon a mammoth rat had broken into their room in the dead of night with the man thinking his girlfriend was ‘just imagining things’

A British doctor on holiday in Sri Lanka was “horrified” when his girlfriend woke him in the middle of the night convinced something was inside their room.

When he turned on the lights to reality was disgusting – a rat the size of a small cat was in their luxury hotel room.

Kiran Morjaria, a doctor and Youtuber, shared a truly horrifying story with his 32,000 TikTok followers that will leave anyone wanting to sleep with the lights on during your next getaway.

Explaining his girlfriend is “terrified of insects” Kiran told his partner she was just imagining things when she woke him up in the middle of the night. However, what he later found was much worse than a noisy cricket or rogue mosquito.

He said: “When I was in Sri Lanka last year my girlfriend is terrified of insects and that sort of thing. She got me up and said ‘I can hear something’ in the middle of the night. I said ‘You are just imagining it – there is nothing here.’”

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However, 10 minutes later his girlfriend woke him up again – certain there was something in the suite with them. Kiran continued: “About ten minutes later she gets me up again and says ‘I can definitely hear something in the room so I get up and turn the light on.’”

It is at this point Kiran saw the enormous rat that has been with them all along. He said: “And there I see the biggest rat I have ever seen in my life. I’m talking literally the size of a small cat.”

What the mammoth rat was doing was even more “horrendous”. Kiran said the rodent was “nibbling on our clothes inside the room.”

Kiran asked his followers to share their own horror stories in the comments – and some of them were gruesome.

One described the severe embarrassment she experienced at the hands of her kids’ nappy mishap. She said: “We had the entire swimming pool closed off as our new-born baby pooped in his swim nappy and its was explosive upset tummy we was very embarrassed.”

Euan’s story was explosive in a different way. He shared: “At Nantes airport my T-shirt got swabbed for explosives multiple times and came back and cause I was playing with cap guns the day before.”

Meanwhile Katy barely made it out of the airport before her holiday was turned upside down – narrowly escaping death. She said: “Leaving JFK airport for Manhattan, Taxi speeding, 60mph head on collision, Police said we’re lucky not going home in a body bag, taken to Queens Hosp!”

One commenter chimed in regarding Kiran’s tale saying they would have struggled to get back to sleep. They said: “Arrrrrhhh (not even scared of rats normally but I’d have screamed and not slept.”