Smiths Island is a 61 acre island situated in St Georges harbor, Bermuda. It became home to the first settlement in Bermuda and is separated from the St Davids mainland by the narrows which are some quarter mile wide.
It was my wife who first found the house to rent on Smiths. A single floor, two bedroom house overlooking the narrows. It had its own dock along with being close to the main public dock. I say the main public dock very tongue in cheek as there were only three houses on the island when we moved there.
There used to be a banana plantation the island but that had been abandoned leaving the residents with more than enough bananas and Pawpaws to provide enough fresh fruit for the three families living there. Because of the bananas it was a good place to grow weed as the banana leaves would hide the growing weed plants from the occasional overpass by the police helicopters. The bananas also provided plenty of food for for the islands water rats.
Fortunately the place came furnished so, after purchasing a small 10 foot rowing boat, my wife, dog and I moved into our new island home. One of the first things we did was to modify the back screen door. It was solid mesh at the top but the bottom half of the door was split into two halves. We removed one of the halves of screen to make easy passage for the dog, a full grown German Sheppard.
As we never closed the back door this made a perfect entry/exit for the dog. We also inherited a tom cat that came to live with us when he wasn’t away on the mainland.
My favorite pastime soon became wandering over the island with the dog and coming home with a whole stalk of bananas and, after I had fashioned a forked stick, bringing home Pawpaws. It was great fun to flick the ripe pawpaws from the branches and the dog soon learn t to catch them as they fell and bring them to me.
On our arrival we placed the dogs food and water dishes close to the back door. We had trained the dog to graze so her food bowl was always kept full of food which looking back was our first mistake. Our second mistake was when the fridge broke down and we had to have a repair guy out to fix it.
On opening the back of the fridge a full grown rat ran out, and, jumping the hole in the screen door disappeared into the underbrush. The repair man didn’t seem moved by this and we thought it was just one of those things that happen on an island.
How wrong we were. About two weeks later I closed the bedroom door to prevent the dog joining us and was lying asleep in bed when my wife woke me up.
“Keith.” she said. “something just ran over me.”
“I think you must be dreaming” I said half asleep. “go back to sleep.”
To this I received an elbow in the ribs. “I am not dreaming.” Get up and check.”
“Oh ok.” I said and reaching over turned on the bedside light before relaxing back in bed.
My wife leaned over and whispered. “There’s a rat sat on the top of the light.”
I looked over and sure enough there was a large rat sat on top of the lampshade.
“Do something.” She said “Get rid of it.”
“No problem” I said . “It won’t stay there very long ‘cos it will burn it’s ass when the bulb gets hot.”
“Screw that” she said getting out of bed and walking to the door
I sat bolt upright in bed and said” Don’t open the door. Don’t open” was as far as I got as she opened the door and 80 lbs of German Sheppard came racing into the room.
Taking one look at the rat she bounded onto the bed and , climbing over me went for the rat.
My wife and I decided pretty quickly that discretion was the better part of valor and sat on the bed as all mayhem erupted around us.
The rat want under the bed, the dog went over the bed. The rat went into the open closet, the dog went into the closet and clothes cane out. Round they went for a good minute before the rat finally ran out the door with the dog close behind. We were looking at each other when we heard a loud screeching.
Getting up I walked to the kitchen to find the dog with a rat firmly held in her mouth and violently shaking it. As I reached her the rat fell limp and when the dog dropped it it was obviously dead.
I wandered back to the bedroom and looked over the shambles. Clothes all over the floor, The bedside table and lamp overturned and the bedding all over the place.
“Well that got rid of the rat.” I said
I got a dirty look and spent the rest of that night in bed with the dog sleeping between us.
It took me two weeks to reduce the rat population to a point where they stayed out of the house. The dog and I would lay by the breakfast bar looking into the kitchen waiting for some poor rat to appear. When they did I would let the dog go. Away like a rocket she usually caught the rat and would hold it until I gave it the Coup de grace with my butchers knife.
One time the cat came home and was sat on the breakfast bar when a rat came in. I looked at the cat, who was watching the rat and told him to go get. After ignoring me I pushed him onto the floor but he just jumped back up with an expression on his face which clearly said “Bugger you sunshine. You want it gone then go to it” Three seconds later the dog had it.
I noticed that we had the rat problem several times a year when the population grew larger than the food supply could support. I guess we could have put the screen back into the door to keep them out but then again, what would the dog and I have done for entertainment.
