Objection duly submitted. As a North Devon resident this sort of thing makes my pee boil. I do however think that as Croyde, Braunton and Saunton become ever more popular as second home areas that some form of creeping commercialism of the very natural amenities that attract people to the area in the first place will always seep through.

Good to see that there are already a lot of objections logged with the North Devon planning portal.

Since going self employed last summer my earnings have taken a nose dive and my disposable income has also decreased massively. Strangely it is rather liberating; I’m no longer in a stressful but well paid job where I feel the need to compensate and define myself by always buying new stuff. Instead I’m doing something I enjoy and getting by on what I earn. For sure I would like to grow the business and earn more but only so I can have a bit of extra financial security, not to buy lots of shiny new things (I’ve realised I really don’t need them). I may be skint but my stress levels have decreased, and when I do get stressed its over stuff that truly matters not b8llsh*t conference calls and quarterly meetings.

Mice can squeeze through all manner of small holes. Older properties do seem to have large holes in the air bricks and so covering them over with a fine steel mesh can help to rule out that possibility.

Other areas to look at are anywhere that pipes and cables enter a property. These are always weak spots in a homes defenses. It can be hard to pin down exactly where mice are getting in some times but I would advise checking under the kitchen cupboards, in the loft and looking around the outside of the house for any small holes that look like they have been the site of some recent activity (ie small bits of mortar or soil splayed out from them and evidence of things being chewed). The droppings mice leave behind will help identify the most frequently used areas.

Also, don’t catch mice in non-lethal traps and then set them free. They will only come back. Get some lethal traps and kill them. Only way to get rid in my experience (and I deal with rats and mice for a living).

Titanic; its too long and I know how it ends.

He won’t miss a toe.

This.

A couple of years ago my cocker spaniel needed to have a toe amputated because of cancer. The biggest challenge post amputation was stopping him from running about and jumping on the sofa while everything healed. He hasn’t missed his toe in the slightest.

I however miss the money that it cost to have the damn thing amputated. Just as well I love him.

I’ve got a 1.6 Partner of a similar age. For me it was the battery that was the problem.

I own a van and a car based on a van (Fiat Qubo). As I’m self employed keeping the car is a bit of an extravagance but I simply couldn’t bear the thought of long journeys and doing private mileage in a van. I know vans are viewed with reverence by many on this forum but I think they are crap and simply tools for a job, not a vehicle to aspire to. My Qubo may be based on a van but it is quiet, well equipped and fun to drive. My van is a noisy steel box on wheels.

OP, I’d recommend a decent sized car and a tarpaulin to keep the boot clean.

Self employed pest controller. I like the practical aspects of the job and helping people to solve problems. Would be nice for the money side of things to be more stable which has made me consider taking on another salaried position if the right one comes along; enjoying your work is no good if you can’t make it pay. Being self employed also has the downside of work swallowing up all of your spare time including weekends. I can only just remember what my bike looks like…

I love mine. Built it up from a frame in 2009 and its had all manner of set up changes over the years. Its being rebuilt as a comfortable road and mixed surface bike at the moment.

I think its probably the most comfy bike I’ve ever had I also think its a pretty tidy handling bike as well. It isn’t the lightest or the stiffest frame in the world but it just works which is what a bike should be about really.

There is about a million ways to build one and you’ll never get bored trying out all of the different options.

I’m still not sure what wasps are for.

They perform a sort of pest control role in most gardens by grabbing things like aphids etc to feed to the larval stage. By moving from plant to plant to search for prey they do perform a small role in polination.

Wasps are eating our garden table

Which means you will have a nest nearby made largely of chewed up bits from your garden table.

I only know about wasps because I have to kill them on a regular basis. Got two nests to deal with tomorrow already.

Wasps don’t actually eat solid food as their waists are too narrow. Instead they grab insects, and I guess cod, and feed it to the larval stages in the nest. These in turn excrete a sugary energy rich liquid which the adult wasps eat. They basically spend their whole lives in the grip of a massive sugar rush which no doubt explains their aggressive and jumpy behaviour.

Not heard of them grabbing bits of fish before.

In my experience it will be at least a couple of weeks, more likely 3 at the very least. Got to remember that they are very popular and well known and they only work out of what is quite a small industrial unit.

It’ll be worth the wait.

Get proper company in to spray

If it is a really bad and well established infestation this is the only way to go. Some of the aerosol sprays you can buy from a vets are very powerful and will kill a lot of fleas but they have no residual action whereas a proper spray treatment carried out by a pest controller will remain active for at least a couple of weeks and will kill any newly hatched flea larvae which will help to break the life cycle. Even then you occasionally need two treatments with severe infestations. I get very few treatment failures but they do happen from time to time.

I seem to remember the treatment was ficam d with 5% bendiocarb

Well remembered. Its actually Ficam W you would use for a spray treatment and its about 80% bendiocarb. As a bonus for all you cat haters out there cats are eight times more sensitive to bendiocarb than other mammals and can on occasion be killed by it.

several versions that all contain the same active ingredient fiprinol at various price points.

I’ve heard lots of things to suggest that fiprinol is loosing favour as a flea control active ingredient. If you are going to buy any flea spray aerosols look for ones that contain a mixture of Permethrin and Tetramethrin, its the nuclear option. D-phenothrin is also pretty good.

If you do get a pro in to carry out a treatment expect to pay between £80 and £150 at todays prices. They should be prepared to provide a free follow up if the treatment isn’t 100% successful first time around.

10 years ago I was stuck in a job I hated. I had a week off to mull things over and on my first day back my manager had arranged a meeting to discuss the best ‘way forward’ as they were aware that things weren’t working out. Being able to stop my manager mid flow and say that I didn’t give a monkeys what they had to say because I’d decided to leave was a very good feeling. You only get one life, now you have the chance to shape what comes next.

We all go through dark periods during our lives. Had a long and frustrating and ultimately rubbish week myself this week. Sadly it has been one of many recently.

I’m off for a bike ride at dawn tomorrow. Its a small thing but I can spend the rest of the day knowing I was up early on my bike before the roads got too busy and when everything was lovely and quiet. Its the small things that matter in life.

No, because they’ll do that without screaming like a banshee.

Maybe, but a diesel won’t rev to 9000 rpm so you have far less fun getting to 100mph in the first place.

Besides, in all seriousness, a well maintained variable valve petrol engine car is what most people actually need for most of their driving, especially if it is mostly local with only the odd longer journey. Some of the small capacity turbo charged engines are astonishing. If I could afford a new Ford Courier van with the Ecoboost petrol engine I’d ditch my diesel fueled slug of a van in a heartbeat. Sadly most van makers are slow to switch to more novel engines and most people still believe that diesel is the holy grail for economical motoring.

I take it your spine has a big hinge in the middle? Even in my flexible salad days that would have looked uncomfortable…

I’ve never once bought a diesel car. A carefully driven modern petrol car can be extremely efficient and when you don’t want to drive it carefully its nice to have an engine with a high rev limit. My dad once had a Civic with a 1.5 vetec lump under the bonnet. Hugely efficient and it screamed like a banshee at full revs in top gear at 100 mph+. You don’t get that with a car run on loser juice*

*My company van however is a diesel and for the mileage that does a diesel engine is crucial. It is very slow though and just won’t rev.

It’s in soft wood. I’m guessing if I paint something on myself, I’ll have to strip back the varnish first so it soaks in?

It may help. I only tend to get asked to deal with very old, very dry bits of wood when doing treatments and the stuff I use just sinks right in. I use a chemical that you can’t buy in the shops but it works on similar lines to the DIY grade stuff.

Most of the smaller wood boring beetles make holes up to about 2mm in diameter. The House Longhorn Beetle can leave oval shaped holes up to 5 – 9mm in size. If you’re getting holes that big I would suggest getting a specialist in to take a look as it could be a sign than the entire beam is borked internally.

It all kind of depends on what sort of ‘woodworm’ you have and how extensive the infestation is. You don’t mention whether it is a soft or hard wood beam in the roof support. If is is fairly modern is likely to be a softwood which means it could be one of a couple of different species of wood boring beetle doing the damage. It is only with really old timbers that you need to worry about the species that can be associated with mould and rot.

If the damage is only in a few timbers it may be worth trying to deal with it yourself using something like Barrattine Woodworm Killer. You can paint it on and it should do the job for a good few years. It can be sprayed but makes a hell of a mess and it stinks like hell.

If you’re getting a man in to do it you have two choices. A local pest controller will be able to do it but not technically to a standard that a surveyor would be happy with. For that you need to look at somebody who is a member of the Property Care Association (PCA).

As a non-member of the PCA I painted a similar product onto a few beams for a regular customer earlier today and it only cost them £40. Sadly my entire van now smells of woodworm killer as something must have leaked :(

Just make sure you buy decent quality loft boards. Many is the time I’m been in a customers ‘boarded’ loft to find its been boarded out with really cheap boards with all the strength and rigidity of weetabix. I put my foot through some poor buggers ceiling the other day because of crap/ weak boards. Not a nice experience :oops:

Next question for Big Dave, compact.?

It depends on the sort of riding you’re intending to do. I’m sure plenty of the local club riders use standard doubles but if you want to take to the quiet little back lanes and get away from the main roads the lower gearing of a compact and a wide range rear cassette will make things a lot more bearable.

I ride a triple but then I’m old and knackered and like my beer.

As already said above, Exmoor and Dartmoor aren’t that far away. There’s also Haldon near Exeter and I think a new trail centre has opened up near Ilfracombe.

Southfork bikes in Braunton should be one of your first ports of call for offroad contacts. There is also a beach race taking place on the 12th July on Braunton Burrows which could be a laugh to watch.

As a North Devon resident myself I tend to ride on the road more, but then I like spinning my way up impossibly steep back roads. If you have a road bike get used to going up hill a lot. There is an excellent road focused bike shop in Bideford although they will happily repair all sorts of bike. In fact over the years I’ve seen road biking really get popular in North Devon.

£40 is a pretty reasonable price depending on where you are. One of my local competitors has been quoting customers over a hundred.

Wasps nests aren’t at their largest at this time of year but they can still be a bit ‘fighty’ when you get up close and personal. If you are unsure of what you’re doing get a professional in to do it. Its quicker and much much safer.

I tried a 31.6 seat post in my frame last night (thought I’d better bite the bullet and give it a go) and whilst not super snug it seems OK. Its actually a similar fit to my Uncle John and I’ve never had any problems with that frame either. In fact once a bit of grit and road crap gets worked in there over several rides I’m sure it will be an even tighter fit. :D

Big Dave, now I’m going to say they aren’t all that bad!

The problem will come from when they do arrive here and people think that they can treat them like wasps and try to deal with a nest with over the counter stuff. Like all wasp species they are fine if left alone but if you annoy them to the point of them swarming the sheer number of stings you would receive can quickly lead to death by toxic shock. The Asian hornet is generally considered much more aggressive than the European one, plus its nests can contain thousands of them whereas a normal UK hornets nest will contain at most 500.

All I know is that if I find a nest I’ll be straight on the phone to Defra as they will need to know if there are any fertilised queen stages present.

So they’re not actually here yet then?

No they aren’t. In fact even us professional pest controllers have been advised to leave any Asian hornets we come across alone and to call Defra. In France they get dealt with by firefighters who wear far more protective equipment that a standard bee suit and even then four of them died last year. Its more than likely they will end up here eventually, perhaps even this year. I attended a talk about them given by an expert earlier in the year. The audience was all pest controllers and at the end of the talk there was total silence in the room. Asian hornets are scary.

The European hornet is a beautiful creature and really rather docile. Just don’t upset them.

Whenever I drive at over 100mph I always get a police escort. It still counts as an escort even if they’re behind you and trying to catch up doesn’t it?

We contacted a Bee Keeper last year and he was reluctant to go up as it would mean removing the roofing, to get at the beam where they were living. They can obviously not be killed and we do want them to go to a good home.

I get a lot of calls about bees at this time of year. It sounds like the ones you have in your roof space are in too awkward a location for a bee keeper to reach without needing to use access equipment and taking your roof apart. Not all swarms can be saved and relocated. Saving the swarm may end up costing you a lot of money. The British Bee keepers Association may be able to recommend a bee keeper who is more willing to try and retrieve the swarm. Most bee keepers aren’t professionals however and so are quite obviously unwilling and ill equipped to go taking your roof apart.

Bees can be killed by a professional pest controller if all other options have been explored and they are causing a nuisance. Honey bees are not protected despite what many people may think (they are in some European countries). However, if the nest is well established it will have a fair amount of honey in it which will attract flies etc once the bees have been killed. Also the pest controller will need to ensure that all potential entry points to the nest are blocked up after the bees have been killed to ensure bees from other nests don’t enter into it to steal the honey. These new bees will be contaminated with the insecticide and may well kill off their own nests. Pest controllers have been taken to court over this secondary poisoning in the past.

I tend to avoid dealing with bee extermination jobs where possible because in the majority of cases ensuring the dead nest is either removed or properly sealed is too much hassle.

Having had to work in places where there was a ‘work for free’ culture the one thing I love about now working for myself is that I’m able to work until I’m happy I’ve done the job to the best possible standard. If that means I work a bit longer fair enough, I’m still satisfied with what I’ve done and the customer is happy. Much better way to work.

I have just such a set up on my Uncle John. The rear mech (Deore) works fine with the shifters although the front mech (also Deore and a MTB chainset) never really shifts cleanly onto the big ring; the shifter just can’t seem to pull enough cable.

Crossbows are Humane right?

Not according to the law. If you want to dispatch rats at a distance you need to use a gun. If you’re dealing with rats up close a hammer is the best option. A note on sticky boards; as a pest controller I avoid using them. They need to be checked every 12 hours to be considered even vaguely humane and the rats and mice found on them need to be dispatched quickly and humanely. Humane doesn’t include drowning, burning or suffocating. You’ll need to finish off the captured rodents with a blunt instrument. If you are happy with the idea of having to deal with several glue boards with distressed, aggressive and very much alive rats attached to them go for it.

You will also need to be careful with where glue boards are placed as there is the potential to catch non-target species.

If the OP is seeing a lot of bait being consumed but rats are still present I would suspect they are coming from a nearby burrow. Finding the burrow holes and baiting them directly will prove more effective than baiting the composter, plus they will die in the burrow out of reach of animals such as cats. Break back traps can be effective against rats but with an attractive food source nearby in the composter it would take time to make a meaningful impact on the population.

Of course you could just employ the services of somebody qualified to do the job :wink:

Sole trader here. Started working for myself last year. The accounting side is pretty straight forward as long as you keep your spreadsheets up to date.

Do you need to buy a van straight away? I used my car for the first six months (a Fiat Qubo with the rear seats taken out) before taking the plunge and buying a cheap van at auction.I spent £1600 on a 2008 Peugeot Partner with 102,000 on the clock. I will concede that I’ve been very lucky with the purchase as it hasn’t needed to have much spent on it (so far). A Vivaro on the sort of budget you are looking at may well be just rolling scrap and at auctions you don’t get a chance to test drive them.

I’m in a very different industry (pest control) and the first six months saw me spending a lot of cash on new kit and so I was glad I put off buying the van until I was a little more established. Focus on the best tools you can afford which will allow you to do a good job. Your customers will care far more about that than the vehicle you arrive in.

Still couldn’t do it rats scare the bejeebus out of me

Funnily enough once you start dealing with the various pests you very quickly get used to being around them. Plus I have a large hammer for dealing with rats.

It took me a while to settle on pest control if I’m honest. It has some links to my previous life in the waste management industry which helped.

I think whatever direction the OP decides to go in the thing to remember is that you need to be able to start making money from day one without huge amounts of outlay up front. A mate of mine has become an auto locksmith and has had to spend over £30k on equipment and training. He enjoys the work but is constantly worrying about the money his business is bringing in. He got into it purely to make as much cash as possible and is finding it hard. I want to make money, obviously, but the real enjoyment for me comes from being my own boss and looking after my customers. Whatever motivates you will influence which trade is the right one to move into.

The only one I’d rate as a guest/third presenter is Ben Collins

The stuff has done for the Telegraph recently and his spot on the Classic Car Show have been pretty good. He has become a half decent presenter and by god can he drive.

I was in a similar position a while ago. I knew that I wanted to change direction and move into a career where the longer I did it the more experienced I would become and more in demand (hopefully). I also wanted to become self employed. I dismissed most trades (not the most practical of people) and eventually settled on Pest Control as my new career. The following factors swung it for me:

1 – I find it genuinely fascinating and enjoy the variety and working with customers directly

2 – The training is accessible and not stupidly expensive. Plus, once qualified you can start trading straight away. In some trades this isn’t necessarily the case and you will need to start on the bottom rung to build up your skills base further.

3 – Start up costs as a sole trader are actually quite small (about £4k for me including training and I had my first customer within a few days of my website going live)

4 – It is a developing industry with lots of changes to come in the future

5 – I have local competition but as long as I’m better than them in the quality of service I provide I will get customers and I know how to be better (I like to think)

6 – The earning potential is decent (apparently, I’ve been going less than a year so still growing the business)

7 – There is the potential to add on other things to my business such as site clearances and rubbish removal services (again quite cheap to set up)

8 – The margins for a lot of the work I do can be very very attractive

These factors are obviously quite specific to me and my situation at the time I decided to retrain but you may want to think along similar lines. Oh yes, I was on the wrong side of 30 when I made the jump to a new job :-)

Find something you really enjoy and can see yourself doing and wanting to get better at.

I can’t imagine Guy Martin being happy as a Top Gear presenter. I get the impression he would rather strip a supercar down to its component parts to see how it works than drive it which may upset Ferrari. Especially as he would probably criticise the quality of their work. Plus he would probably take the ‘build a silly vehicle’ challenges a bit too seriously and actually produce something that works.

I live in North Devon and I have yet to see one of his lorries obeying the speed limit on the North Devon link road in my ten years of living here. In fact all of the locally based hauliers are guilty of bad driving and driving with excessive speed. The only lorries that obey the speed limits these days are operated by the supermarkets or big national firms, and for the record I hold an HGV licence although it has been a few years since I last drove a truck.

That said, there are some right cockwombles tooling around on road bikes in the area these days. It saddens me to say this but I do get the impression that some of the local MAMILs do truly believe that they own the road and ride with a sense of entitlement which does get up the noses of some of the simpler North Devon residents who have only just adjusted to the fact that a horse and cart is no longer considered high tech.

Oh yes, another thing; if you look at the official government statistics the two groups of road users most likely to be involved in fatal incidents are car drivers and pedestrians and I don’t see anybody lobbying for all pedestrians to be issued with licence plates

I’d normally use traps for around a week and after taking out as many mice as possible it is then time to start blocking the access points. It can sometimes take a while after this to eliminate them all, but as they start appearing in new areas that will highlight any holes you may have missed. Best to view is as a job that will get results over a couple of different stages of action.

Current pest controller for my sins.

I’ve always found with mice that a load of traps set in the areas where they are most active is always really effective at cutting their numbers back. If you bait the traps with chocolate spread or peanut butter they will find the traps if they are placed close enough to their runs. For some reasons new infestations never seem to consist of many more than 5 – 7 mice.

Once you’ve started knocking their numbers down it would then be a good time to start adding some poison bait into the mix. Use lots of small bait points spaced a couple of metres apart to exploit the feeding patterns that mice tend to stick to.

The other problem with poison is the harm to animals that find the dead mice and eat them

This is always a concern but having seen one small mouse do more than a thousand pounds worth of damage in a customers house by chewing through a plastic water pipe it is a risk worth mitigating by checking thoroughly for dead rodents once you have started using bait. You must always check regularly for dead mice or rats when baiting.

As plenty have said above it is essential to back this up by blocking as many holes as you can. If they are more active in certain areas then is likely to mean that there is an access point close by. Also, if you can hear them in certain locations try to figure out how that noise may be related to potential entry holes on the outside of the building. On a recent job a tiny piece of missing mortar was allowing the mice into the wall cavity and then over the lounge of the house and into the loft. Blocking that one hole sorted the issue. You might want to block the holes with just wire wool to start with rather than sealing it in place; if the wire wool is disturbed in only one or two places they will be the areas to focus on.

Glue boards are barbaric and I generally try to avoid them. They need to be checked every 12 hours if they are to be considered even vaguely humane. Those electronic trinkets that are meant to scare mice off don’t work. They may make good paperweights but they are naff all use for anything else.