THE first confirmed kill of the day was in Padgate Lane. The victim had been tricked into gorging itself on poison.

Agile and clever, the rat had been caught by someone with more cunning, pest controller Graham Egerton.

"To kill them, you have to get into the mind of a rat a little bit. I will never be beaten," said the 58-year-old from Appleton.

He took me around town in his van when I visited the Environmental Health Department at Warrington Borough Council.

Graham, who featured in the ITV series Dirtbusters, said most of his work was routine - but he did have some horror stories.

A social worker called Graham to a house covered in ants, occupied by an elderly, wheelchair user.

"They were crawling all over her," said Graham.

"That was horrendous. She was a lovely old lady but she didn't know what was going on."

Another time, Graham had to treat the home of a blind man with a biscuit beetle infestation.

"He didn't realize but his house was full of them. He was preparing meals in his microwave but there were loads of beetles in his microwave."

Graham and his four colleagues get an average of more than 14 requests for help a day.

They tackle pests that threaten public hygiene: mostly rats, mice, wasps and fleas, with a few cockroaches and bedbugs thrown in.

There are an estimated 10-20 million rats in Britain, so a crude estimate for Warrington, based on population size, is 50,000.

Graham almost delighted in explaining how the rats are able to jump three feet in the air, clmb up metal poles and even chew all the way through steel He said: "They are so agile it's unbelievable. I think they are underestimated. I have respect for them."

But he said if there was one pest he could get rid of permanently, it was bedbugs. They appear resistant to some sprays. It recently took Graham weeks to remove some from a smart house in Woolston.

Graham once had a flea infestation himself, so he knows the feeling of helplessness and invaded privacy that pests cause.

"It was a horrible feeling - things are out of your control.

"With rats, people can hear them at night in the walls but they can't see them or do anything about them.

"I have even had people crying at the front door when I arrive."