There are two types of cities in the world: those of mice and those of rats. I had always thought that the Belgians, and Brussels in particular, were more of the first, but I may have been wrong. I myself have had small rodents on two occasions and I thought that any method of expelling them was acceptable, but the trauma of the skinning and the screams of pain inoculated us forever against the temptation of aggressive measures.. Since then, peace and love, patience, slow captures and release in the forest miles from home. And even name the creatures if necessary.

I think I have more friends and acquaintances who have gone through or suffered the experience than those who have escaped it.. They are cities full of green, with small gardens everywhere, in the most noble areas, the middle class and even in the working-class areas.. And they are cities without garbage cans, in which hundreds of thousands of smelly and appetizing bags are thrown onto the bare streets, at the doors of old buildings and houses, full of cracks.. The strange thing is not that there are mice, but that they are not everywhere. Paraphrasing the idea that in the EU there are only small countries and small countries that don't know they are small, one could say that in our neighborhoods there are only houses with bugs and houses that have not yet found the excrement.

But that is one thing and the rat issue is another.. From time to time I saw one, of course, but although estimates circulate in the millions, in general I have not detected an invasion on the streets, nor in the subway.. That's why when two friends recently told us about the shock of discovering an army of them climbing up and down their newly opened house, after a year of construction, my eyes opened.. And now I only read, see and find stories of similar cases. The fixation is so great that I have not been able to forgive a visit to the Sewer Museum (yes, it exists) which has a permanent exhibition titled Rattus until the summer. An interactive visit to get to know better, empathize?, with them and think, they say, about sustainable management of the situation. The Belgian has so internalized that pactism and dialogue that even with plagues he seeks a consensus.

The commune of Etterbeek has been using an innovative technique instead of poison against rats for a decade: ferrets. Everything revolves around a fascinating character, Jean De Marcken, the lord of the ferrets. A coach, with a great uniform, by the way, who is in charge of the entire process. He goes with his dog Theo, a fierce hunter with the face of an angel, who locates the locations where there may be a colony and they find the entrance or exit. The officials cover the surroundings with nets and release one or two ferrets, but no more. So that they scare, put the rat to flight and corner it, but with room for it to escape and fall into the nets. The objective is not extermination, they always insist, but to close their galleries, which allow them to move for kilometers without being detected and jump from garbage to garbage. And block access to homes and shops forever. A little rustic, slow, but very organic and inclusive, except when Theo decides to finish the work on his own and his little white hair is dyed red. Never has such a ruthless killer looked sweeter.