cutgrass

Are you sure that the house prices were in sterling? I could have sworn that they were dollars.

Land price aside - if they want £70k to build that house then I think that's expensive.

OzTennis

Definitely stg and it was £90K for the house and £70K for the land. Why do you think £90K is expensive for a double storey house with what was it - 4 or 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a couple of living areas etc. You would hear them say that £160K for the house and land package was less than the house they sold in Swansea which was less than half the size?

OzTennis

bundy

It did make a change this week, didn't it? But no doubt people switched over because there were none of the fireworks of the previous week.

One thing on the possum problem...Mr Bundy and I were watching the 'Wild DOwn Under' dvd the other night and there is a short feature on possums at the end, bit of a David Attenborough thing. He suggested the 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em method' - instead of chasing the little blighters away, you attach a possum box to the side of your house (he suggested against a window) so that they have somewhere to live that isn't in your roof space, and you can watch them going about their possum business. Great for kids.

We had a possum in our roof in Oz. If you think a mouse is noisy, imagine a possum thundering up and down! He didn't do much damage, just made a real noise and fell of the electricity cable of a few times

OzTennis

Good idea with the possum box Bundy. My parents have fruit trees in their Melbourne garden. The possums don't run over the roof but my father is always cursing because they take one bite out of a peach or an apricot and drop it on the ground. They don't like CD's on a string (reflected light, they see themself or whatever) - my father tried this and they moved on.

OzTennis

WBB

i'll second that, great idea, they are not likely to cause any harm are they ?

and like you say the kids will love watching them run around.

bundy

Never had any trouble with our possum, who was pretty shy. He did a great act in pretending not to move when you spotted him, when really he was wobbling about all over the place.

I suppose it is better to have them where you can see them than up i the roof chewing through all your wires

WBB

and keeping you awake at night, they can be noisy little buggers.

bundy

Oh yes. Thundering up and down inside the roof space was bad enough, but when he got up on the roof itself it was even worse - tin roof, echoes nicely.

helinuk

The last time we were in NZ the farmers were going mad because the possums were stripping the leaves off the trees . The people we stayed with were out at night trying to catch the culprits!
I didn't know until I saw the prog. last night that they were a protected species! why are they when they appear to do so much damage??
Helinuk

MrsDagboy

Dunno about protected species, the damn things need shooting, they carry paralysis tick.

Poor Dagdog almost died from one when we were away over xmas .

MrsDagboy

Oooooooops, sorry podgy, you're exempt from that comment of course .

Amazulu

In NZ they are considered vermin & can be destroyed. They were introduced from Australia & are not indigenous. They are a real problem. When I was in NZ, a farmer came into the backpackers where I was staying & asked if any of us wanted to go possum hunting. So a load of us went out with him that night armed with .22 rifles & shot a sh*t load of them on his farm. It was really easy to shoot them as they made no attempt to get away. Great fun.

OzTennis

Native fauna and all that me thinks. They won't necessarily be protected in NZ because they are in Australia though. Williamstown council have a possum collector. My father made enquiries and he got the bit about not allowed to re-locate them more than a certain distance away. To show how specific their territory is, my parents didn't have any possums for the first 15 years they lived in their current house. Three doors down knocked down some trees to build a swimming pool and that is when the possums appeared at their house. The biggest threat to wildlife in Australia (apart from humans) is the 'friendly neighbourhood cat'. A possum is a bit too big for 'moggy' so they concentrate on smaller marsupials and birds.

OzTennis

OzTennis

I can just picture you on your anti foxhunting crusades.

No debate on this please!!!

OzTennis

bundy

When I was in NZ, touring around on one of the backpacker networks, we spent most days working on our possum count - the number we could mow down. Did the same in Oz with cane toads.