IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:They are big, hairy and plural – our uninvited guests better hope the kids catch them first, writes ADAM BROPHY.
THE FIRST weeks of January and I expect the dark mood to descend. It’s there at the edges, pulling at my frayed strings. It gets a foothold but then it slips.
I don’t know if I’d claim Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or just accept that I’m usually slightly crankier in January and February than the rest of the year. It seems a bit indulgent to claim the former when what’s getting you down, if you’re being honest, is post-Christmas insolvency and a new (or renewed) monkey on your back in the form of a Ferrero Rocher habit.
But, for whatever reason, these months are tricky. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find the moodometer balancing itself reasonably well. Until the scratching got out of hand.
Weeks before Christmas we figured we had a mouse problem. Nothing major, we took it in our stride with a valiant, fist-in-air determination that this was all part of moving to rural climes. But “mouse” proved to be wishful thinking. Over the intervening few weeks it has become apparent that our problem is bigger and hairier than that. And it’s plural.
Scratching in the attic, scurrying behind skirting boards, scrabbling inside walls. We have squatters and they’re taking over. As we realised the extent of the problem our skin crawled but we hit the traps and the poisons and the disinfectant with a vengeance. Not much luck. Scratch, scratch, they mocked us.
A full sliced pan disappeared one night. We wondered did we have bears, but the droppings our visitors left us said rat. Common or garden rat. Our new best friends.
One of the upsides of renting is you can hand such a problem over to your landlord. Or you would think you could. Instead we have found ourselves having to prove the severity of the problem.
We employed an exterminator at our own expense and now have enough poison to sort out anyone who dares to question our pain.
Nothing prepares you for the presence of vermin where you live. This story belongs in 1809, not now. You can imagine Bill Sykes swatting vermin with nonchalance, Fagin stroking a rat as he conspired on his next caper, but we are the Oliver of this story. All delicate and hurt in the eye of the storm, hoping someone will come to give us back our old, rodent-free lives.
Having these beasts in your house requires you to adopt a brittle exterior of grit. You tough it out but shriek if anything glances by your ankle. Your body is perpetually tense, permanently engaged in fight or flight mode. This is not good for one’s mood which, as I said earlier, is already prone to lapses at this time of year. And it is certainly not good for familial relations.
Scratch, scratch, scratch. They’re above my head as I write. Dying I hope, but having the manners to vacate the premises before releasing that last little rodent breath. Scratch, scrabble, scurry. I detect some panic in their movements; we have them on the run.
Their panic (perceived or real, we are not to know just yet) is some recompense to the disgust and sickness we have felt. Or at least, the disgust wife and I have felt. Kids, it seems, like the idea of uninvited guests.
In a bid to quell any possible fear or the possibility of phobias developing we have, around the children, kept mentions of our furry buddies to “mouse”.
The kids tilt their heads at a particularly noisome rumble in the attic and smile.
Our fridge is adorned with a typical seven year old’s work of art, all stick limbed and primary colours. Except this one depicts a blonde scarecrow psychotically assaulting a startled rodent with a shovel. It is called “Mummy and the Mouse”.
Our grown-up bodies ache with the tension that accompanies the knowledge that a rat is in the vicinity.
The kids’ physicality is untouched, their moods unaltered, ranging, as usual, from loved up to deranged with anger in the blink of an eye.
They don’t feel any unconscious terror at this particular brand of furry animal, which makes me wonder when it comes and where from.
Our job is to exterminate them and I have never before approached a task with such determination and blood lust.
The anger this infestation has generated, and subsequent lack of support in dealing with it, is somewhat worrying. In this mood, the rats better hope the kids catch them first.