Sunday September 10, 2017 Guerneville CA.
Something’s landing on my roof
Occasionally around 7 in the evening I’ve been hearing what sounds like something landing on my roof over the kitchen area. The other day I noticed this tree had grown over the roof in that spot so I thought it would be a good idea to cut the tree back so the the rat I think has been jumping onto my roof this way can’t do it any more.
Here’s the tree as it leans over the house on the left which I think a rat is using to get into my attic.
Whacked the tree back
I got out a small hand operated tree saw and cut the trees back. I still have to remove the brush I cut, but not today.
Tree is cut back from the roof and is on the ground in front.
Puttered around until evening
Most of the day I just puttered in the yard as it was hot. But when it started to cool in the evening I decided to tackle another problem I have. The back of the van’s roof was leaking. I noticed it on my last trip when it rained. Not good as my bed goes back there and a wet bed isn’t fun.
It’s leaking somewhere across the back above the doors.
Couldn’t detect any leaky areas
I had a look but couldn’t see any leaky places in the gutter.
The water test
So I got out the water and sure enough, the gutter was leaking in several places across the back of the van.
Cleaning out the gutter
That meant I needed to clean out all the old sealer in the gutter all the way across the back.
I cleaned most of the old sealer out.
First pass done
I call this my first pass as I need to clean it up even more if I want the new sealer to stick and not leak. So I got it down to this clean so far and will continue another time as doing this kind of work when your fresh does a better job.
I put those tools away an spent the rest of the day chair hopping around the yard.
Nice day.
I noticed my dog was hanging out in the back yard after dark and paying close attention to the climbing vines on our fence, yes the rats are moving into the neighborhood from the park as as the nights get cooler. Those little devils have caused a lot of problems in our neighborhood over the years. I cut back the vines and some trees in our yard and set out my rat traps. The first night I had three traps sprung and one confirmed kill. It was a young adult roof rat. Its coat was a very dark gray and had some longer lighter hairs randomly growing. I use ultrasonic rat and mice repellent under my house, near my wood pile and in the garage, they have work well. When we had our cat Ziggy he was quite the rat killer never had any problems except when he brought one in the house alive one night and let it loose.