A few of you know from a conversation we had in the chat room I have at the moment a plague of rat, (no it's not a typo' so far as I can tell at the moment there is only one of them).
The area I live in (just off Blackburn Road), is going through alot of re-developement at the moment (empty houses and lots of construction work), because of this according The 'Environmental Health Operative',(known from now on as 'the rat man for short), the rats are very big problem at the moment.
There used to be two of them and it was the death of the first that lead me to discovering the existence of the second.
One Friday afternoon I noticed a different, strange smell in my kitchen, and started to investigate, the smell was strongest in the area of my sink unit, while looking at the side of this where my water pipes go into it what did I see looking out but my friend ratty. I made a mental note that first thing Monday I would get the rat man out to sort it.
On the Saturday the smell in my kitchen was worse, all windows throughout the house open and still the smell gets stronger, by Sunday, I had to take drastic action to try and get rid of this terrible smell.
So with a few carpentry tools out came the shelves and off came the back panel of the sink unit. All this succeeded to do was allow an even stronger rotting smell to permeate my house and allow easier access for the living rat and I still couldn't find the source of the smell.
Monday the Rat man is called with a promise to get here Tuesday, he arrived Wednesday, walked into my kitchen and said, "you've got a dead rat". I also informed him that I had a live one, I'll put some poison down was his reply. What about the smell I asked him, he told me that they had a spray that could be used for that but in his opinion I would be better with the smell of the rat, because the spray was alot worse and penetrated the actual fabric of the house making it impossible to get rid of. It will fade in a couple of days he added.
Within a day of the poison being put down it had all gone been eaten or taken down the hole between the floor and the wall behind the unit.
For several days no sign of the rat and the smell was starting to fade, my life was starting to get back to abnormal.
One night I woke up and decided to make myself a brew, went to the kitchen, turned on the light and there was ratty scampering around the side of my cooker. so You're still here then you b*gger I shouted throwing the nearest thing to hand at it, (exit one full jar of coffee, MMMMM, smell the beans! as the glass shattered everywhere), Cool as a cucumber the rat just sort of strolled back into my sink unit and down it's hole not in the slightest disturbed by my presence.
This Wednesday the rat man arrived, How's the rat he asked I told him it's fine and sends him it's regards, we went through to the kitchen where much to my horror we saw that my kitchen window was absolutely covered in house flies, (it was like that scene from nightmare on Elm st where the priest went into that room full of flies), the rat man took this in his stride, ah good the flies are getting rid of the dead rat for you that will have helped stop the smell.
The rat man put down some more poison and said he would call next week,
at least he says it's poison, because whatever it is the rat doesn't look ill, it is high as a kite, absolutly stoned out of it's head, it has no fear in it at all, it just sort of sits there looking out from the sink unit and waves to me whenever I go past.
Excuse me is there anyone out there that could lend me an air-rifle?
I live in fear that it might somehow break into my fridge and attack my beer!
