‘Luddite attitude’ won’t frighten off the rats

IN response to Micheal Job’s letter on non-poisonous ways of dealing with rats and mice (May 24), I was reminded of the famous scene in Fawlty Towers where Manuel has a “Siberian hamster” for a pet and Basil is trying to tell him it is a rat: “Ever hear of the Black Death, Manuel?

It is when a load of Siberian hamsters got on ships and came to Europe.”

It springs to mind here. If Mr Job would care to check out how harmless rats and mice are he might find the diseases transmittable to humans from rats include: rat bite fever, murine typhus, salmonellosis (bacterial food poisoning), leptospirosis (Weils Disease), trichinosis, rickettsial disease, melioidosid, pasteurellosis and brucellosis, typhus, bubonic plague and hantavirus.