They arrive a couple of times a year, make a few noises, then go away again. We've tried all sorts of things: poison, newspaper soaked in dog pee. They all work for a while, but not long. The walls are full of poison, but I have no idea if the rats have ever eaten any of it...

Until today.

Today as I let the dog out in the morning I found a dead rat next to the compost bin. It definitely wasn't there in the previous afternoon so it had turned up and died during the night. This afternoon Katie found one on our driveway, still breathing and bleeding from its nose. Horrible.

Rat poison causes internal haemorrhaging. It really is a horrible way to go. Poor little guys.

Of course I'm only thinking that now because I've seen what it has done. I've known how they die, I was just happy they'd gone somewhere else to do it.

I'm stressing about the dog eating a poisoned rat, but she doesn't seem that interested as far as I can tell. Fingers crossed.

I had heard rats in the walls for the first time in a few days. I put some poison up as we'd had them for a few weeks and they were not going away. I checked the poison yesterday and it doesn't seem to have been touched. My suburb is apparently having a bit of a plague so they really could have come from anywhere.

Meanwhile, on Thursday we discovered we had a mouse in our kitchen bin cupboard. We cleaned it out and put down some mouse traps with peanut butter bait. The next day we had a dead mouse.

I don't really know which is crueller? Instant snapping death to the head, or slow painful internal bleeding. I think the snapping is better, except it has the potential to miss and just maim the animal.

I'm not sure I could get a snapper big enough for a rat.

If only they'd just stay out of my house.