I can’t help it. When I look through my front window and see two super-cool-looking young black guys dressed from head to foot in Nike screaming obscenities, it quickens my pulse.
I can’t help it. When I look through my front window and see two super-cool- looking young black guys dressed from head to foot in Nike screaming obscenities, it quickens my pulse. I’m sorry, it just does. No doubt I will be taken to the Equality and Human Rights Commission just for admitting that I find such a sight interesting and exciting. Maybe I need to get out more. In any case, on this occasion, I came out of my house to see what the commotion was.
It turned out the pair were jumping up and down and screaming: ‘Rat! There’s a rat! It’s massive! Aaagh!’ And one of the men all but leapt into the other’s arms. I told them to pull themselves together. ‘It’s just a rat. There are loads of them in London.’ ‘You don’t understand,’ said one of them, pulling the tracksuit jacket off his friend’s back as he clung to him. ‘It’s massive …oh god …there it is again! Aaaagh!’
I told them not to panic, I would see to it. ‘Now calm down and tell me where it is.’ ‘There! It just went under that car!’ ‘OK, it will come out in a minute. It will just be a common or garden r…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!’
This rat was the size of a dog. And not even that small a dog. A Sloane would consider it too big to put on a lead and walk around Knightsbridge, and there was certainly no way it would fit in an Hermès Birkin bag. It took me minutes to get my head round the fact that it really was a rat. I had to go through about 12 other species possibilities before I came to the conclusion that this monstrous creature was indeed some sort of mutant, sewer-dwelling, science-fiction- sized rodent.
‘I think it might be a weasel,’ I said in a daze, ‘or some kind of otter…’ But of course it couldn’t be an otter. Even with my limited knowledge of semi-aquatic mammals, I know that an otter could not cruise along the gutters of Balham even if it wanted to. No, this was a rat. A rat so hideous and scary that two six-foot men in hooded leisurewear who had set out to look rough, wicked and clever that evening were now begging me to call the police in case it came after them. The worst part about it was that it was sauntering down the street, mooching casually about as if it owned the place. It was probably too fat to move much faster. It looked like it had just swallowed a couple of cats.
Great, I thought. We are now not only overrun by foxes, we’re being taken over by rats as well.
You know what’s coming. ‘Welcome to Lambeth Council. Please say the name of the person you wish to contact…’ I said ‘mutant ninja rat-killer’ but that just produced ‘I didn’t catch that, please repeat the name or say operator’ so I said ‘operator’….
‘Welcome to Lambeth Council, your call may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes…’ Eventually, I got an operator and asked for pest control, which produced: ‘Thank you for calling Lambeth public-health and pest-control services, please hold while your call is transferred …All our customer service advisers are currently busy…’
After ten minutes I got through to a woman who sounded as though she had just been wandering past with a mop when the phone rang and decided to answer it for a laugh. I told her there was a huge rat in my street. ‘Rats in the street? That’s Streetcare innit? Not pest control.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘Yeah, you need to ring…’ And she gave me another number, which I dialled: ‘Thank you for calling Lambeth environment, your call may be recorded …For recycling inquiries press one. For parking and bus lane inquiries press two. For business invoices press three. For street lighting press four. For building regulations press five…’ I felt I was drifting very far from rats until I heard, ‘For bereavement services press eight.’
That could work, I thought. If I said the rats had killed someone, I might get a bit of traction there. In the end I pressed one. ‘Streetcare!’ squawked another woman passing the phone by chance. I explained the rat situation and she literally screamed at me: ‘Why would it be us? Streetcare wouldn’t deal with that!’ I apologised profusely and explained that her colleague in pest control had insisted I ring. ‘Why? What’s it got to do with me?’ she screeched. ‘Right, I’m putting put you back to pest control.’
I’ve now been reholding for pest control for quite some time. Maybe while I’m waiting the mutant rats will eat some of the foxes. Or the other way round.
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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