There's a rat in the kitchen, what you gonna do...?

...I tell you what I'm going to do...kill it and laugh hysterically.

We moved into our new seaside home over a year ago now. It quickly became apparent that there was something else that had moved in too. A rat in the kitchen roof and under the floor. It was a pleasant experience eating your tea the odd night hearing a scratching or a pitter-patter of feet wondering if it was going to eat its way through the roof onto your lap. We poisoned that rat last year and it was found under the neighbour's floorboards. I like the fact that I poisoned it, but it didn't die in our home.

Now the environment council (the rat-man to me and you) visited us a few times last year and offered advice, poison and some incredible rat stories to keep you awake at night. Infact Andrea had a dream that a rat jumped onto the bed and wee-wee'd in her face. Pleasant.

We thought the saga was over. I'd blocked all known holes. Surveyed the whole house. Bought electronic deterrents, peppermint oil and a nice big rat cage. The winter came again. The day Andrea muttered the words: "Looks like the rat problem has gone", minutes later, as if the rat had been waiting for a dramatic cue, we heard scratching under the floor. The horrified soap-opera look to each other, followed by anger, confusion and rage against the rat was back.

Russell-the-rat-man was invited into our rat house again. It's not just dog-owners who look like their dogs by the way. This time he informed us that 98% of rats come through drains and man-holes. We are not sure why such a statistic wasn't mentioned a year ago to us. Anyway, the cameras were put down our main drains. In the process we found out that when our extension was built, they just covered the kitchen manhole with concrete - nice. We needed to get into this to complete the camera survey. So I took up 6 tiles without breaking them, removed a kitchen cupboard and smashed through 4 inches of concrete to reveal the manhole and a nice little rat route into our home and neighbours home. They get in from the main sewers via the drain into your home when builders do not block up the rodding pipe outlet properly. 


The manhole has been dealt with now. There is still a trapped rat on the loose though. We heard commotion next door in the night, lots of banging and a couple of screams. We are too embarrassed to ask if it was rat related incase it was just a noisy-bonk.

Today, we are sure the rat is dying after taking large amounts of poison and a lot of verbal abuse. We've nicknamed it "the love-rat". Why? Because the little dirty goofy rodent spoilt my yearly Valentine home-cooked meal as I had to smash up the floor that day.