Rats

I was chatting to my neighbour this afternoon over the wall. He's helpful and I ignore that he raises red partridges for his dogs to hunt. After discussing the renovations to the house and the bee colony in the chimney that hampered the work, I asked if he knew of anyone in the neighbourhood who had problems with mice.

"No" he said. Then I said that someone had climbed up the laundry room roof while I was away and put a pile of mouse bait just inside the main roof. "I did that" he said, without missing a beat. "The neighbour over there" he said, pointing, "has rats running all over his roof. Big ones like this." His hands were almost a foot apart. "They live off his garbage." I thanked my thoughtful friend.