GumTree to the rescue

My lovely friend Judi, from Hasland Pet Supplies, considers the big Pets at Home chain to be - in effect - a pet supermarket. So she will be delighted to hear that I avoided going to it yesterday by doing a crafty bit of GumTreeing - and saved myself a nice £50 into the process.

I mentioned yesterday that I’m on the move, and I’ll be taking my girls (Beans bunny and Pepper cat) to Lovely Long-Suffering Anna’s house with me.

Beans bunny currently lives in my utility room. But unfortunately, because Anna’s house is a little smaller, she will also be required to downsize and needs a proper rabbit cage to call home.

I went for a mooch round Pets at Home at the weekend and spotted something perfect, but at £65 it seemed a bit much alongside all the other moving expenses right now. Plus Beans bunny is a little furry rebel and will only trash the damn thing anyway. So yesterday I popped my Gumtree virginity (my god, I had no idea what I was missing - it was awesome!) and found the exact same cage, complete with all the add-ons, going for just £15 at a house in Sheffield.

However, in order to gazump another interested buyer, I had to go and collect it last night - cue an emergency drive north after work.

Being a journo, going into strange houses doesn’t bother me at all. I reckon I’ve pretty much seen it all - hoarders, filth, drugs dens, families with 15 kids and on one memorable occasion a little old man with rice pudding tins stacked floor-to-ceiling all along the wall of his kitchen. Either he was trying to make a post-modern artistic statement or the dementia had well and truly kicked in.

So predictably the GumTree seller’s house was a little smelly and full of animals, including a crying Doberman in the corner. At one point this dog actually came over to me and produced what can only be described as a loud wailing sound.

“Oh he got bitten in the park yesterday,” said the woman. “Keeps making that noise now.”

Maybe time for a trip to the vet then?

Anyway, the rabbit cage turned out to be in good working order, if a little filthy, so for £15 I considered it money well spent, loaded it into the back of the car, then spent the drive back home trying not to gip at the smell.

And because the weather was so nice, it was no problem that I then spent 45 minutes on my hands and knees in the middle of my back lawn, in a pair of ripped jeans and old t-shirt, scrubbing. I broke every single nail (not a great loss - I’m not particularly well-groomed anyway) and felt like sodding Orphan Annie, but I got the damn thing as squeaky clean as new by the end of it all.

Bean’s bunny officially moved into her new home later last night. So far she’s not impressed, but she’ll get used to it. At least I’m not sending her to the RSPCA, which is pretty much what she deserves every time she chews the hell out of one of my phone chargers. She’s lucky I’m a vegetarian.... that’s all I’m saying....