Rats!’ was not the four-letter word I uttered when I saw the oily rodent scuttle across the kitchen floor and disappear into a hole the size of a champagne cork under the fridge.
For the first time since moving to London in 1980, I had encountered a sewer rat – perhaps not surprising given the estimated UK rat population of around 150 million.
I have drawn many cartoons about the old adage – ‘You’re never more than six feet away from a rat’ – but now the cliché had become a grisly reality. And the distance was considerably less than six feet.
Once my wife had bravely blocked the hole (with a champagne cork) and I had climbed down from the kitchen chair, we called in the experts.
Where had ratty come from? Why now, after 44 years of rodent-free London living? And how could he afford to live in Wandsworth?
The first pest-control firm we contacted promised ‘100-per-cent success’, which more than justified the £350 fee, for three visits.
Step one was to tackle the ‘ingress points’ – blocking off obvious holes by stuffing them with wire wool, which disagrees with ratty digestive systems. Step two was laying down poison. If our visitor negotiated the wire wool, the poison would finish him off.
This might take several days. He might return to wherever he had come from to end his days, or – more likely – expire somewhere in the kitchen. The smell would tell us he’d snuffed it, followed by the flies. We had much to look forward to.
Our hopes were shattered when we found, the next morning, that our visitor had pushed the wire wool out of the hole and spent the night exploring the kitchen. Rat poison was scattered everywhere, along with droppings and a puddle of urine in a saucepan.
The rat-catcher returned the next day, replaced the poison and shoved more wire wool into the tiny hole. Two days later, my daughter and granddaughter were more than surprised to see another rat sauntering across the kitchen floor.
With the rat-catchers came lurid tales of ratty encounters – like the rat in the care-home bathroom, ‘stabbed to death’ with a screwdriver by the pest-controller, only to be found moments later sitting happily on the side of the bath. Or the lady who complained of a rat in her lavatory. It had negotiated the U-bend (rats can tread water for 72 hours) and emerged in the toilet bowl.
Then there are the millions of super rats, which have developed a resistance to anticoagulant rodenticides and actually thrive on poison pellets.
We were advised to have our drains inspected for cracks. Construction work had begun on a site nearby – and may have disturbed a nest. Our neighbours too had problems. A drain video camera would cost £200 – worth it if it established where the rats were coming from. It didn’t.
A month of quiet ensued, before fetid whiffs began to emanate from behind the skirting board. Our ‘guarantee period’ had expired – so another visit cost another £60 plus VAT. The pest-controller removed a large decomposing rat, groaning, ‘Have you got a carrier bag? God, I hate having to remove these things!’
We rather hated the bluebottles that buzzed mercilessly around our kitchen for a week.
Happy months passed until late summer, when the sound of more scratching announced that the ‘100-per-cent-success’ promise was more of a government-style pledge.
A new pest company (‘eradication guaranteed’) removed an 18-inch-long dead rat under the kitchen units. This and two rat traps cost a further £300.
The new rat-catcher managed to photograph a larger hole behind the fridge – progress at last! Said hole also contained another (live) rat, beady eyes twinkling in the gloom. We were reassured that this chap was unlikely to hang around, as rats are neophobic – disliking anything new. The site had been disturbed, and this would scare him off. For now.
The company advised us to employ their drainage team to excavate ten feet down outside our kitchen wall, accompanied by a structural engineer to ensure the house’s foundations were not compromised. Estimated cost: upwards of £1,000 plus VAT.
In desperation we asked our own builders to remove our integrated fridge freezer. This revealed a football-sized hole stretching back about three feet, leading who knows where.
The drain team was unwilling to investigate the hole from inside the house. So our builders returned and bricked it up. Since then, no more rats (touch wood).
We feel sceptical about pest-control companies (UK market: around £1 billion annually). They put down poison and traps, and insert wire wool into visible orifices, but in our experience are reluctant to get their hands too dirty.
Still, we have learned many interesting rat facts. The collective noun for rats is ‘a mischief’, they can chew through metal, terracotta, concrete and brick – and just one pair of brown rats can produce as many as 2,000 descendants in a year.
We have also developed a sneaking admiration for these clever survival experts, who invaded our lives and caused much merry ratty mayhem.
Nick Newman is a cartoonist and writer who works for Private Eye and the Sunday Times
