First real evidence that this is a rat and not just a mouse – I came down this morning and towards the end of the kitchen is an area with a sheet of plastic over it to stop the rain which comes through the roof wetting everything under it. At this particular time there were a few (six size) multipacks of crisps under this sheet on the table. I heard rustling, looked over there, and under the plastic I could see a rat crawling over the crisps. It was about the size of a computer mouse. I banged about a bit and it ran away. Later I gingerly lifted the plastic to discover that it really liked cheese and onion crisps. There’s a possibility that one pack had already been removed, but there were definitely four packs which had been ripped open and their contents had completely disappeared. There was one other pack which was untouched, and then one pack was already accounted for – or had been dragged off for a secret snack elsewhere. I have yet to find any debris. Curiously the roast chicken flavour crisps were completely untouched.

So now we know the reason why it’s ignoring the mousetrap – its head’s too big to get in there! Straight down to hardware store for a rat trap.

Do I want to catch it dead or alive? No question, surely, DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! As the guy says, what’re you going to do with a live rat? Where will you release that? He demonstrates how to set the trap and how little pressure is needed to fire it. He uses a biro which is well and truly snapped in half, that’s one hell of a snap. That will surely do the trick.

Set trap, go to bed.