9am. Southcote Road Depot. I join Pest Control Officer Nic Wedge in the ratmobile (an innocuous white van). A call has come in from an elderly gentleman in the north of the town whose loft is infested with pigeons and it sounds as if the entry hole was created by a cowboy builder. Nic explains that it’s illegal to trap pigeons but not to destroy them. Welcome to the weird world of pest control.

9.20am. Westbourne. En-circuitous-route to the pigeon man we visit an innocent-looking glade where Nic shows me the rat burrows. “We tend to leave the burrows because you know where to find them if they return,” he says.

Rats are no respecters of respectability; they inhabit the gardens of dustmen and dukes and are the one creature Nic has little compunction about destroying. He reckons snap traps are the kindest kill but they cannot be used unmonitored. He’s no fan of so-called humane traps.

“The person who put it down frequently forgets about it,” he says.

“I’ve seen many an emaciated mouse and it’s just cruel.”

9.30am. A Westbourne car park. Nic gently checks on a bumble-bee nest he rescued a few weeks ago. Ungratefully, one flies out and stings him on the eye. Stoically he treats himself with Piriton from the van’s veritable cornucopia of medicaments.

“You do get stung in this job,” he warns.

9.40am. Westbourne. A hostel. The local rat population has become interested in their chicken run. Nic checks the traps and re-baits with the bright blue poison. “It’ll soon be gone,” he assures the warden.

9.45am. A call comes in from a landlord querying the law on mice and airbricks. Nic quotes him the relevant legislation and offers advice.

10am. Depot. We grab a coffee while Nic signs various papers. The landlord calls again. Nic explains the Act and the suggested remedy. Again.

10.45 am. Driving to North Bournemouth and... it’s that (landlord) man again. Nic goes through it all a third time. He also explains to me that they leave at least 30 minutes for most home visits because; “Many of the clients are lonely or afraid and want to chat.” One of his saddest cases was a gentleman in Southbourne who was in his 90s. “He started talking about the war and revealed he’d been one of those working the bulldozers at Auschwitz after the liberation. He never got over it.”

11am. Northbourne. Nic inspects the pigeon house attic and emerges covered in cobwebs and fibre-glass. He agrees with the grateful client that if they can block the hole with industrial foam when the birds are out, they can arrest the problem. If pigeons really are impossible to move (and he will try everything) Nic is licensed to kill. This usually works a treat but not on the day he shot some pigeons that had got into Bournemouth court complex and they flapped blood all over the room before a hearing was about to start.

11.30am. Town centre flats. We rustle about in the inevitable bushes, re-filling poison trays. It’s all been peaceful so far, so do they ever do emergency call-outs? “If there’s a rat in the house, yes, within 30 minutes,” says Nic. “It’s terrifying for people. I was called to some old ladies a year ago who had a rat in their sitting room and when I arrived they were shaking with fear.”

12 noon. Town centre estate agent. The premises has suffered rat incursions. We creep through the basement and out to one of the most disgusting places I’ve ever seen; riddled with headless pigeon corpses, rubbish, and drink cans left by homeless people who some-times stay there.

12.15pm. Ye Olde Alleyways of Bournemouth. Nic checks a number of lockable traps; I try not to vomit at the stench of urine and the grot. Despite the cleansing department’s best efforts, these benighted areas are treated like a rubbish tip. Untreated they would be vermin city.

1pm. Southbourne. We inspect a private alleyway with a rat problem. I don’t see them (I don’t see one all day) but the place is encrusted with pigeon droppings which are a health hazard.

1.30pm. Lunch. Over a sandwich from Idah’s, Nic tells me about the day a trapped squirrel broke out of its cage and ran riot in his van, leaping from side to side on the dashboard. Then there was the day a squirrel ran up his trouser leg and wouldn’t come down. And the day he got a call about a ‘rat’ on a mannequin in a Westover Road shop but it turned out to be a squirrel which had run in from the park.

2pm. Horseshoe Common. Nic checks the shrubs but it looks like the rats have gone. Hurrah!

3pm. Student house, Bournemouth town centre. For people who’ve had a rat in their sitting room, the students look remarkably composed. We stick our heads in the attic which is dotted with rat poo. I cannot wait to get home and submerge myself in a bath but Nic and his team – there are just the three of them – will be called out to 400 rat jobs per year. And then there are the fleas, wasps, cockroaches, bedbugs and the fascinating – and occasionally infuriating – clients.

“This job sounds like it’s about pests,” says Nic.

“But really, it’s about people.”