A cautonary tale for storing apples

I have just come home after a one week Xmas holiday. For several years i have been storing my annual apple crop in my detached garage and the fruit has kept perfectly for several months. I had a bumper crop this year and checked the individual fruits for defects before going away. I checked yesterday morning and it looked like a hand grenade had detonated amongst the fruit which was totallydecimated .In a nutshell , rats have gnawed their way in through in the corner where the roof meets the walls and have had a whale of a time i spent yesterday tidying and at the tip.
I shall no longer store fruit here.
My purpose in posting this is to highlight this for the benefit of anyone else in a similar position , i feel it likely that the mild weather and bumper harvest has meant the smell of fruit has been picked up outside by rats who have the intelligence to burgle the garage and messily enjoy a banquet which i have unwittingly provided.
Hopefully nobody else will have a similar experience.

 

What a shame. That happened to me once, except it was mice and dahlia tubers.

 

Oh what a shame, especially after taking such care.
I had hardly any usable Apples this year. Mostly due to bacterial and fungal rots. I'm finding this an increasingly difficult situation I wonder how commercial organic growers manage to keep their crops so clean.

 

We store our apples in our porch which is unheated. Every few weeks I go through them and remove any damaged ones which go out into the orchard for the birds to feed on.

 

@On the Levels . Our unheated porch is south west facing so temperature fluctauations are great all year but thanks for the suggestion.

 

Been there, had that. The rats gnawed through 4 inches of concrete floor to get into our apple store. Now we don't have apple trees and the ones our neighbour brings are non-keepers so the spare ones are microwaved as pulp and frozen. No rats in the freezer.......yet!

 

@Palustris Thank you for that input , thankfully my visitors came and left and now there is no payload for them they have not returned. At least i havent needed to repair the floor. Like you it will be frozen down now with the luxury of a few fresh from the trees.