Well, luckily we don't have a pipe organ to worry about but we do live
in a rural area and have rodents.  Boy, do we have rodents!  The bush
rats are as big as small cats.  They will eat through wood and plaster
panels to get inside the house, and they love to nest in pianolas,
Polyphon cabinets, etc.

Unfortunately, if I bait them the darn things die under the house and
smell bad for a week.  If we put rat traps out, they drag them off as a
minor inconvenience.  Who would have thought that collecting mechanical
music devices would turn into a battle against the local wildlife?

However, we seem to have a solution, as a lace monitor has moved into
the roof.  A lace monitor is a very large lizard, like a goanna, about
3 feet long.  (Do you all watch "Steve the Crocodile Hunter" on TV?
If so, you may see these on his show).  The lizard goes out and hunts
at night and mostly sleeps during the day so doesn't bother us, but we
no longer have a rodent problem!

A while ago we had a problem with our phone lines and the technician
showed us where the rats were biting through the cable insulation.
They would then get a minor shock from the voltage on the line, like
the tingle, and chew some more.  We had to replace all the underfloor
and in-wall phone cables.

Colin MacKinnon (hoping the lizard doesn't grow too big)

 [ You can give him a nice Scots family name like "Merry MacMonitor"!
 [ (No, not a Macintosh computer display, but recalling the 1862 battle
 [ between the iron-clad warships.)  -- Robbie