In a former life I used to be a civil engineer and I was working on a new shopping centre (Orchard Square, for those who know Sheffield) The area was old shops with huge basements.

In the intial survey we could hear a sort of low rumbling sound coming from the cellar so we opened a trap door and shone a torch down there.

The entire floor was under a sea of rats.

We closed the door sharpish and called the man from rentokill.

I'm sure you've seen the old films where the villan has a huge round bomb with a fuse in the top, well the guy had something that looked like that. He lit the fuse, opened the trap door, threw it in and taped the trap shut.

"come back tomorrow morning" he says, so we did.

He arrived in massive yellow waders and a padded yellow coat, huge gauntlets and a helmet with a visor on it.

He took the tape off the trap and opened it - the smell was incredible.

"Stand back" he says, disapearing down the hole.

He started to bring the rats up - dead - holding them by the tail in groups of about 6.

They just kept coming, for over an hour and three quarters.

In the end there were over 800 rats, 300 mice and, bizarely 12 squirrels!!!!

So I'm not a big fan of rodents

Cheers

Chris