« Back to 2005 News Archive

Rodent Reports!

STAFF at Stranraer Academy thought they smelled a rat this week - but it ended up a case of mistaken identity.

Reports of rodents getting under teacher's feet were doing the rounds. And this time it wasn't the pupils who were being blamed.

Staff thought they had a rat in their midst after three reported sightings, most recently on Tuesday. One home economics tutor even took her pupils out of class after seeing something scurrying around the floor.

However the little offender turned out not to be a rat but a field mouse with a nose for the home economics department and a brave fixation for the biology unit.

Environmental health officers were called in to catch the little pest on Tuesday. Head teacher Jimmy Higgins said:

"There have been three reported sightings in the last three weeks and one teacher chose to take her class out of the classroom.

"She thought on first glance that it was a rat but environmental health came in and confirmed it was a mouse.

"As is automatic procedure we brought in environmental health officers and they set traps and hopefully that is the end of the problem."