No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 197 



Destroying Rat Habitations and Harboring Places. 



Outdoor rubbish and woodpiles give rats the best possible 

 protection by hiding and covering the entrances to their bur- 

 rows or nests, so that nothing larger than a rat can get at them. 

 Any hole in which quantities of tin cans and rubbish have been 

 dumped is almost sure to be frequented by rats. Public dumps 

 and the neighborhood of such places are certain to be infested 

 by them. A general clearing up, which is sanitary and com- 

 mendable for many reasons, is a necessary preparation for a 

 rat campaign. Rubbish, garbage, etc., should be burned. 

 Wood should not be piled on the ground in or near buildings. 

 All rat holes in cellar or foundation walls should be treated 

 with unslaked lime or chloride of lime and then stopped with 

 a mixture of cement, sand and broken glass, in which glass 

 predominates. 



Rat-proofing Buildings. 



Improved building construction is most important; it is 

 expensive, but will pay in the end by doing away with most of 

 the annual loss due to the depredations of rats in buildings. 



A grocer in a Massachusetts town complained to his landlord 

 of the injury to his stock caused by rats, and asked to have the 

 building rat-proofed. The landlord replied that he could not 

 afford it, but would pay the cost of the stock destroyed by rats 

 in the store each month. At the end of the first month the 

 grocer presented a bill for $25. The landlord made some 

 forcible remarks and doubted the loss. He was shown the 

 ruined goods, and decided that it would pay to rat-proof the 

 building. When this had been done the rats remaining in 

 the building were destroyed by phosphorus, and the grocer has 

 had little trouble from rats for years. 



Stone or brick walls as underpinning will shut out rats if all 

 crevices can be stopped with good cement mortar, but concrete 

 or reinforced concrete is the best material for rat-proof con- 

 struction. City ordinances everywhere should require such 

 construction in the cellars and foundations of all dwelling 

 houses and business blocks, and tenants should everywhere 

 demand it as a protection against disease and the destruction 

 of property. When buildings are under construction the addi- 



