I had a rather surreal experience the other night. There I was, comfortably ensconced on my couch, feet up, and watching a movie on my laptop, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Turning my head, I saw a rat.

It wasn’t the biggest rat I’d ever seen, but there was no mistaking it for just a large mouse. It was a rat. We looked at each other for a couple of seconds, then it scampered on its way into the kitchen. To say it was somewhat of a shock would be somewhat of an understatement. A colourful word or two escaped my lips, before I gingerly got up from the couch and crept into the kitchen in its wake to see if I could discover where it had gone.

It was nowhere to be seen, which was something of a mystery, as I don’t have a big kitchen. I know rats and mice are pretty darn clever at getting in and out of teeny-tiny gaps, and older houses generally provide more of those than modern ones. My flat was built in 1975, but I got it all renovated and spruced up four years ago, so I thought my kitchen was reasonably tightly sealed.

However, ratty appeared to have done a disappearing trick, or was hiding somewhere devilishly clever, which meant that there was only one course of action left to me – I messaged my nephew.

My nephew lives in the rear of three flats on the same property as me, and he has the same animal-whisperer gene as his mother, my sister. Sadly, I don’t have that. In fact, I don’t really have a natural-born confidence around animals, even though I love them in general, and became a vegan for that reason. In contrast to me, my nephew was fairly laid back about the fact I’d seen a rat scampering through my lounge and then seemingly disappear into the ether, which, as much as I dearly wanted to believe, couldn’t quite bring myself to.

He casually mentioned he’d ordered a live-capture trap himself, because he’d seen evidence of mice in his place. I responded that I might put down poison for my own rodent visitor, to which he questioned if it might not go against my vegan values. I agreed it would, but seeing I was just quietly freaking out a little bit right then, it was going through my mind. To be honest, in the cold light of day I probably would have balked at doing that, and gone and bought a live-trap as well. Nighttime can be strange territory, though, where our thoughts might venture into places they wouldn’t during daytime.

Anyway, that prompted my nephew to offer come to my place, to see if he could find and evict ratty. I accepted with an alacrity which betrayed any bravado I might have been portraying about this situation to be but a thin veneer. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t find ratty anywhere, and eventually had to concede defeat. That night, I slept with the sliding door in my lounge slightly ajar, but locked into place, as an invitation to ratty to leave civilly by the door, before other methods had to be resorted to.

The next morning, something caused me to get down on my hands and knees and look right under the bottom of the cupboards in my kitchen, and lo and behold, there was a perfect rat-sized gap there.

Had it always been there? I don’t know. I’d recently had asbestos removed from the floor of my kitchen, which necessitated a sizeable part of the cabinetry being taken apart for the job, and then put back after the asbestos had been removed, and new floor vinyl laid. Perhaps some of the cabinetry didn’t get re-fitted quite the same as it was before, but I’ll only ever be able to guess at that. Anyhow, it became clear that some gap-filling would have to be done, so I fossicked around in my garage and garden shed for some bits and pieces for a temporary measure until I can get it done properly, and have come up with this ‘art installation’.

Luckily, there seems to be a rat-exit somewhere under the kitchen cupboards, as I haven’t heard any scrabbling around which might sound like a rat under there looking for a way out after the gap being blocked. I’m not quite off tenterhooks yet about the possibility of another nocturnal visit by ratty, or a different ratty, but I’m stoically reminding myself that any ratty is likely to be more afraid of me, than me of it. So far, that’s working off and on.

I think it’s fair to say that a rat in my lounge is probably the last thing anyone, including me, would expect to see. It really was quite surreal, and the picture in my mind’s eye of us just looking at each other will stay with me for a while, I expect.

Header image by Евгения from Pixabay