Who's The Daddy: Unwanted visitors now seem to have disappeared

At first I thought it was seagulls, who often perform dance routines up there for their own amusement. Then, like all good horror films, it turned out that the call was coming from inside the house.

Mice? Rats? Squirrels? Birds? No idea. But I know a man who does. And after a quick online chat with a bot from a well-known pest control company, the man with a plan was at our door the very next day.

These people have seen everything, but he was a little taken aback by the fact he could hear whatever it was doing its thing in our house from the street.

He asked us to clear our loft hatches (no mean feat in itself, there are artefacts in there so old that they’d be of interest to the British Museum) and a member of his team would be back to lay bait traps. Oh, and don’t touch anything with exposed skin. You don’t want to catch anything nasty.

So that night me and the boss went out to buy face masks, thick rubber gloves and full hazmat suits from our friendly, local DIY store. And the next morning Operation Clearout began.

It was like the Covid days of 2020 all over again, what with the masks steaming up our glasses, and our full body suits looking like some sort of niche role play that’s gone too far after the mutually agreed safe word has long been forgotten.

So there we were. Me grabbing suitcases, boxes of football programmes and fanzines from the 1980s, some Paul Ince fan art a then girlfriend painted for my 21st in 1991 and The Boss’ A-level artwork from 1987, with her at my shoulder armed with a long-handled broom to thwack anything that jumped out at us that may be lurking behind the hatch door.

It was quite cathartic, actually. And if nothing else we had a fantastic clearout.

The pest controller arrived the following morning, laid bait traps all over the place, inspected the storage areas under the loft and said, whatever it is, it’s not rats. Because there’d be an overpowering smell of what they’d left behind.

But like when you eventually get a doctor’s appointment and you’ve recovered from what was making you ill, there was no sign of our house guest(s). Not a peep. And, at the time of writing, we haven’t heard anything for six days.

This bit is a little grim. The pest controller said that if it was a bird, it would die within a day or so because even though it got in, it probably wouldn’t know how to get out and would quickly dehydrate.

Anyway, our house is currently set up like a deadly game show for house invaders. A cross between Big Brother and The Running Man. The pest controller’s next visit is on Tuesday. All in all, it’s been a pretty trying week.

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