Sorry Tootles I was teasing! Rats sometimes think about moving into compost bins, but they will only live itheir if they are dry and undisturbed. Keep banging the bin and stirring the compost and the rats won't want to live there
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
...also in my experience as a Compost Master (no sniggering at the back there!) when we do Compost Events, 99% of the people who say they get rats sometimes in the compost, keep chickens, so it is largely the chickens that attract them.
Tootles, the fact that you have loads of little wriggly critters in your compost just shows how good you are at making it
I have always been freaked out by spiders but can now cope with them up to medium size and as a child (well till I was about 40) I couldn't cope with wriggly things either, but as a gardener it became tiring to shriek everytime I saw an earthworm
Dove, it was an Asp viper, I'd never heard of them at the time. He was allergic. But his leg swelled and was black and blue as well. He's OK now, has 2 daughters and plays rugby! It was very scarey though. The children's hospital in Bordeaux said there are about 25 deaths a year in France from Asp viper bites.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
All's well that ends well BL I didn't think it sounded like a Common Adder - please keep your Asp Vipers over there on mainland Europe I found one once while swimming in a river in Italy - ours was dead - phew!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I've got to agree with Nut - you get to know "your" creepy crawlies in your compost and once you think of them fondly as "your" compost workers, you can cope with them better. That said, whilst I am quite fond of the spiders in my garden (though not so fond of their habit of building webs at face level over paths, steps etc) and find the bugs in my garden fascinating, I hate them in the house.
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RATS?! No one mentioned rats!! Might there be rats in there too? Flipping heck! This composting malarkey needs danger money! Eeeekkkkk!!
Sorry Tootles
I was teasing! Rats sometimes think about moving into compost bins, but they will only live itheir if they are dry and undisturbed. Keep banging the bin and stirring the compost and the rats won't want to live there 
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
...also in my experience as a Compost Master (no sniggering at the back there!) when we do Compost Events, 99% of the people who say they get rats sometimes in the compost, keep chickens, so it is largely the chickens that attract them.
Tootles, the fact that you have loads of little wriggly critters in your compost just shows how good you are at making it
I have always been freaked out by spiders but can now cope with them up to medium size
and as a child (well till I was about 40) I couldn't cope with wriggly things either, but as a gardener it became tiring to shriek everytime I saw an earthworm
What a cute rat on previous page!
Dove, it was an Asp viper, I'd never heard of them at the time. He was allergic. But his leg swelled and was black and blue as well. He's OK now, has 2 daughters and plays rugby! It was very scarey though. The children's hospital in Bordeaux said there are about 25 deaths a year in France from Asp viper bites.
All's well that ends well BL
I didn't think it sounded like a Common Adder - please keep your Asp Vipers over there on mainland Europe 
I found one once while swimming in a river in Italy - ours was dead - phew!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
art - is it wrong that I did snigger? ....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Smack your wrist FG
I've got to agree with Nut - you get to know "your" creepy crawlies in your compost and once you think of them fondly as "your" compost workers, you can cope with them better. That said, whilst I am quite fond of the spiders in my garden (though not so fond of their habit of building webs at face level over paths, steps etc) and find the bugs in my garden fascinating, I hate them in the house.