August.
We have a rat.
Two previous sightings in the kitchen (both by me) have led to poison (rodent pic 'n' mix more like) being put down. In an effort to humanize the creature I name it Minty.
One Saturday morning whilst home visiting the parents I get a text from my housemate K to say that after stumbling home drunk, she'd been woken up at 5am by a 'small thud' only to find Minty the rat (snaggle-toothed denizen of the gutters) on the pillow next to her. Did you know rats can climb brick walls? Neither did we. It had scaled the outside of the house and climbed through her window. K did what any sensible, professional grown up would do. She shrieked, leapt out of bed (still pissed) and spent a good ten minutes crouched, gibbering on a chair outside her room, eventually deciding to wake up A and cower in her room for the remainder of the night. Much later that morning, with the comforting light of day upon them, they ventured back to K's room to verify the presence (or lack thereof) of Minty. As they were shaking out the covers and laughing about the whole thing as only the mildly hysteric can, Minty shot out from the bed where he had evidently spent the night, scaring the bejesus out of A and K and A's stepsister who was visiting for the first time (welcome to London).
Our landlady and the pest people were summoned and Tone The Rat Guy arrived in a van discreetly marked 'Bird Control'. Tone, full sized air rifle casually propped on his hip, asked for a bin bag to clear up the utterly ineffectual old poison we'd had down so K opened the bin bag drawer and guess who was skulking inside? Yep - you have to hand it to Minty, he really has...sorry, had a sense of humour. Well K lost it at this point and spent the rest of the time shaking outside in my landlady's Volvo. Tone couldn't get to Minty because he had taken refuge behind our sink which is apparently where he had been living (shudder). So the only option was to leave the area surrounded with a veritable battalion of traps - electronic, snapper, glue, plus proper, 'can't buy it in the shops' poison which Tone referred to as 'the kill-a-dog stuff' (luckily we don't have a dog).
They shut the kitchen door at 12pm that Saturday and we didn't venture back in until 9 the following morning by which time I had bravely returned home. K, A and the stepsister helpfully stood guard near the front door at the other end of the hallway while I (how did that happen?) gingerly opened the kitchen door. There was Minty. Stuck to a glue trap; alive and very, very angry. It was like watching some sort of ratty epileptic fit as he hurled himself around the kitchen floor in a vain attempt to break free. Tone The Rat Guy was there within half an hour. He unsheathed his massive weapon in our hallway (snigger) and shot the poor blighter twice. We all felt the 'One for luck!' comment, made whilst he reloaded with all the zeal of Dirty Harry about to bust a drugs ring was somewhat unnecessary but then he looked like a man who got his pleasure wherever he could.
So Minty is no more. Our kitchen was bleached beyond the reach of any germ on earth and the holes have since been blocked up. K is twitching constantly, refusing to cook in the kitchen and can't sleep without self-medicating so we're keeping her away from sugar and forks. A found droppings behind a cupboard in her room a couple of nights later. We're keeping our fingers crossed and our mouths shut.
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