STORE-CLOSETS FOR WINTER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 12, 25 March 1893, Page 285

STORE-CLOSETS FOR WINTER.

At this season of the year, when the provident rat and mouse are looking out for snug quarters, it is a good idea for the equally provident housewife to give some attention to her store-closets and pantries, lest some fine day she may discover, to her inconvenience and disgust, that the rat ami mouse are wiser than she is.

It only takes a tiny bit of a hole to let either of these intruders through, and many a family who has kept a number of troops of these regular boarders, has found them not au inconsiderable addition to the expenses of the household. And the little they take every day is scarcely missed at the time. It is only when, perchance, an entire pot of preserves or some equally cherished dainty has not been examined for weeks, that they do their best work ; then, when the housewife has need of the sweets and when she goes where they are, lo ! they are not. It is well worth while to take off the plaster from the store closet, cover the lath with wire which conies for this purpose, then re-plaster and thus make everything secuie.

A wire over the floor, if it cannot be put underneath, and a very thin upper floor, which may be of clap-boarding, will answer every purpose. If the joints are carefully matched or lapped and the door kept closed, everything eatable may be kept in perfect safety as far as these forages are concerned. In building a new- house, it is quite w-orth while to use wire lath and wire undeineath the floors for the kitchen pantries and store-rooms. If cellar walls are laid in Portland cement thick and strong, they may be made almost, if not altogether, ratproof, although these tireless and voracions creatures seem to have the faculty of gnawing through almost everything short of cast-iron, but wire lath is quite certain to turn them, and one or two houses have been built in such a way, that if the doors were kept properly dosed it would be ini possible for even a mouse to get in. The cost of this is quite an item ; bnt when one takes into consideration the yearly depredations of these thieves and the number that every family harbours, their board would, in a very short time, foot up to much more than the cost of keeping them out. Traps, cats and terriers are like many other remedies for evils. Like the hare in the old recipe, they must first be caught. And pussy, Fido, and the trap are to an extent stationary, and, in order to be of service, the rats and mice must come to them.