legends · 4 min read ·
Pest Control Report
A pest controller records every living thing leaving a terrace, and the one tenant who chooses to stay.
**Crawley & Hough Pest Control — Inspection Report 26/0418**
**Property:** 7 Alder Terrace · **Client:** Mr. M. Verity · **Technician:** D. Hough · **Date:** 6 October
**Complaint:** "Droppings in the kitchen. Scratching in the walls."
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**Findings**
- Evidence of house mice (*Mus musculus*): droppings in kitchen cupboards, gnaw marks on flour sacks.
- Entry points: gap under back door, 8 mm; gap around waste pipe, 12 mm.
- Estimated population: 15–20.
- Recommended treatment: bait stations (tamper-proof), proofing of entry points. Re-visit in 14 days.
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**Treatment notes (D. Hough, 6 October)**
Laid 12 bait stations around the perimeter, in the kitchen, under the sink, in the loft hatch. Sealed the gap round the waste pipe with wire wool and mortar. Customer was courteous. He said he'd noticed the mice leaving the house.
I asked what he meant. He said: "Since Thursday. A lot of them. I saw them go out the back door in a line, as if they'd been told."
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**Re-visit report (D. Hough, 20 October)**
Bait stations: all untouched. No droppings, no gnawing, no fresh activity. Population: none. The house has been left alone by every mouse in the area.
I walked next door. The neighbour at No. 5 said her mice had also gone, and the ones at No. 3, 1, and the whole terrace. By the weekend there was not a mouse in the street. They were seen leaving in the night by their dozens, going down the road, over the wall of the cemetery, in a line.
I do not normally take an interest in the mouse's motives. But I have been in the trade for twenty-eight years and I have never known mice leave a warm house in October with a full larder.
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**Technician's note (D. Hough, 20 October)**
I walked the line with a torch and a thermal camera. The mice had gone through a hole in the cemetery wall. At the far end they had formed a crowd, a few hundred, in a patch of rough grass by the old chapel. They were not feeding. They stood on their hind legs in a circle, all facing the chapel door.
I checked the other animals in the neighbourhood. The foxes in the cemetery have gone. The pigeons are gone from the church roof. The rats from the canal. I counted forty cats in the street that morning, and none of them was on a doorstep. They were sitting in a row along the top of the cemetery wall, in the sun.
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**Follow-up report (D. Hough, 27 October)**
All animals above the size of a beetle have left Alder Terrace. The birds have left the gardens. The hedgehogs have left the hedges. In seven days I have not seen so much as a spider in any of the houses.
Customers have been told that this is good news. They are not pleased. The silence in the street is unusual. The cat flaps hang open and nothing comes in. Mr. Verity said he had put out a saucer of milk for a stray he'd been feeding for a year. It has gone untouched.
I asked him how he was sleeping. He said very well. He said he'd never slept so well in his life. He said he liked the quiet.
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**Recommendation (D. Hough, 28 October)**
Whatever the animals know, I do not. But I have written it down. They have gone. They went before the thing arrived, as the mice went before the flood in a barn I once cleared, and the rooks before the fire at the mill. They are not in the cemetery out of curiosity. They are as far from the street as they can be without leaving the parish.
I recommend that no occupier remain in Alder Terrace beyond the weekend.
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**Client's reply (M. Verity, 29 October)**
*Dear Mr. Hough, Thank you for the report and the recommendation. I have thought it over carefully. I am not going to leave.*
*I have lived in this house for forty years. I have never had such a peaceful autumn. There is nothing in the walls. There is nothing in the loft. There is nothing under the floor. The house is entirely my own.*
*I do notice, in the evenings, that the quiet is not empty. There is something in it that is very patient, and very large, and has no objection to my staying.*