The Rat in the Loft
Last Christmas, hubby and the kids were getting the boxes of Christmas decorations out of the loft, when I heard hubby shout in alarm, I came out of the kitchen to see the kids scrambling and hubby shouting 'mouse'. It ran down the stairs and past me into the lounge. We cornered it and I said 'that's a big damn mouse'. We opened the doors and it ran out. That was that... so we thought.
The little fella had chewed all our decorations up, made a nest in the Christmas Tree box, and pretty much destroyed it all.
A few days later we started to hear it in the loft, and we realised it's returned (hubby did warn me it would). So off we went and bought some humane traps .. which didn't work .. the little fella was eating the goods but not getting trapped.
Then one night we heard it in the floor boards and that is when we started to worry.
And, we were right to worry, as shortly after, the middle of the night hubby woke me up (3am), to tell me in panic 'there's water leaking'. I followed him downstairs into the living room and heard gushing water. Hubby quickly turned the water off and we went back to bed. I got up in the morning to see the damage and spotted something, something I thought only existed in cartoons, a goddamn mouse hole in our skirting board / wall.
Panic ensued and I finally made the call I'd been putting off.. and called the home insurance company. They sent the exterminator round.
Whilst I was describing to the lovely exterminator what we'd seen, he interrupted me to tell me 'that ain't no mouse'. He showed me a picture on his mobile and I confirmed that is what it was, to which he confirmed it's a RAT. Holy ****.
He laid the poison in the walls and in the loft and left. We had a couple more nights of scurrying in the floor boards, until silence... that's when we knew the rat was dead. .. but never to be found.. the exterminator matter factly informed us, we will smell it first and then we will be able to find the body.
Roll on a few months..... still no bad smell .. nothing! And so, with the extension building work going on, with walls and ceiling being pulled down I thought we would finally find his little body ... but no nothing.. so god knows where he is?!