Life Style Or Life Sentence: It must be winter

Lifestyle block owner and Hawke's Bay community newspaper editor Rachel Wise explores the myths of animal attraction.

The annual cupboard-mouse made its return, eating the corners off loaves of bread and ensuring the cupboard gets a good scrub out and a baited mousetrap set in the corner behind the jam and peanut butter.

Each winter one comes in out of the cold and I have to go through the horrible process of trapping it.

This year's mouse was taking some catching though.

It kept bypassing the trap and heading for the bread and rolls. I tested the trap - yes, ouch, it's still working just fine. I refreshed the peanut butter I use as bait.

No mouse.

Well, yes, a mouse in my cupboard but no mouse in the trap.

Dave was starting to get cross. Each morning he'd grimly point to yet another discarded loaf of bread, ruined by mouse nibbles (Dave won't share with a mouse).

Now I'm not quite sure how these mice come to be my responsibility. I am the resident animal-lover, adopter and rescuer of all things furry and some things that aren't - like frogs and lizards.

Dave, on the other hand, wanders about in the bush shooting Bambi's friends and relations. Stands to reason he should kill the mice.

He doesn't though.

So last night when I got home I checked my trap. Nothing. Then I saw why.

The offender was sitting in the back of the cupboard and it was obvious why I hadn't caught him. There was no way a great, big, hairy-arsed rat was going to fit in a mousetrap.

Now, much as I can wax lyrical about the cuteness and snuggliness of the average pet rat, I have a problem with rats of the un-caged variety.

They are altogether too fast and agile for my liking. And they are sneaky-looking.

This one was looking right at me. I was looking right back. Neither of us was prepared to make the first move.

Backing away a bit, I took out my cellphone and rang Dave.

``There's-a-rat-in-the-cupboard'' I screamed. He said he couldn't help.

Okay, so he was more than three hours' drive from home, but I was still expecting a bit more than ``try poking it with a broom''.

Telling the rat to stay right where it was, I rushed and got the cage trap that has been gathering cobwebs in the shed.

The rat was waiting when I got back. I opened the cage trap and shoved it at him, hoping he'd leap into it. Wishful thinking. He scrabbled about a bit, I poked the cage at him a bit more then suddenly he leaped forwards _ right past me and onto the kitchen floor, then went left through the dining room and into the lounge.

So did I. So did four dogs.

In the ensuing melee I clambered onto the coffee table as dogs ran and rat ran and small items of furniture went flying.

There was a scrum and a squeak and I cringed and looked away. When I looked back Fly Dog was proudly depositing the deceased rodent on the floor in front of my perch.

I didn't want it.

It took me a good five minutes to uncurl my toes enough that I could go and get the brush and shovel and remove the victim. Poor rat. I had to tell Fly Dog she'd done a good job (would have been a better job if she'd included removal and burial).

I'm abdicating now. No more rodent disposal for me, it's Dave's turn. Next time we're invaded and he wants the culprit poked with a broom - he can do it himself. I never liked bread anyway