I Committed a Murder in the Kitchen Today
The victim didn’t suffer too much
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How the rat got into the kitchen I don’t really know.
We’ve been leaving doors and windows open in the hot weather. We feed the birds quite near the house, and they are messy eaters. Plenty of seed and scrapings from the fat balls on the ground.
There’s a canal not far away. A takeaway not far away. An allotment nearby with chickens and doves. But there hasn’t ever been any serious issues with rats, even though I hear often we are never far away from one.
The theory that you are never more than 6 feet away from a rat is a myth based on a mathematical calculation that doesn’t really hold up.
But there is a balance between people and rats. We dance to the same music. We eat from the top table, they eat what we throw away.
And now more than ever we throw plenty away.
Rats congregate round food supplies. They like farms and industrial buildings where food is produced or stored.
And certainly in urban areas there is now plenty of food, and rats are now very much in abundance.
Our pubs, restaurants, cafes, and takeaways are all breeding grounds and nurseries for rats.
Our bins overflow. We throw flimsy black bin bags filled with trash anywhere we like. We hurl takeaway scraps out of car windows to keep the cars smelling nice.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the rat problem is escalating.
I was fortunate that I found evidence of my four-legged burglar early. He was helping himself to a bag of porridge oats.
He got himself trapped, and I removed his oats and substituted some poison instead.
And waited.
The Dirty Deed
Next morning I was disappointed to find him still alive, but not in good shape. I had to finish him off, which is not a pleasant job.
He wasn’t a bad looking little fellow. Quite young I think. All alone in a big world. Perhaps he had rejected his parents, or they had thrown him out. In other circumstances I might have made friends with him. He was only going about his business.
