First Person Global.(Brief Article)

He crawled in, looked around, ran across the room--and made himself at home in my kitchen. My friend walked in as he was sniffing around. She screamed (I cowered), and the intruder stood his ground. London's rat problem had finally become mine.

It is said that Londoners are never more than 40 feet away from a rat or a mouse. Rodents cavort in parks, on the Underground, in the busy streets... even my rat catcher bore an uncanny resemblance to the vermin. But despite living opposite the houses of Parliament, I never truly expected to encounter one in my home.

It's not just the rats--London's mice are getting worse, too. In the dark depths of London's Underground lurks a highly evolved breed of rodent, the so-called supermouse. Over the past hundred years, these tiny supermice have developed smaller ears, making them less sensitive to train whistles. No specific research has been done on them, a fact which has only served to heighten my fears.

Supermouse or no supermouse, the sheer number of "normal" rodents is enough to spook me. There are tens of millions of rats in London, according to the British Pest Control Association. And the pest population is on the rise, a BPCA spokesperson told me. But why? "Milder winters and increased sources of food," he suggested, with ...