A man found a huge chunk bitten out of the sweet potato in his kitchen, and was horrified to discover that the offending nibbler was in fact a giant rat.
Jacob Cummings, who is a 29-year-old computer engineer who lives in Hull in the north of England, had taken out his bins last week, but had grown worried about a mysterious rustling noise in his bin, which continued for a period of around three days.
During that time, Cummings noticed that someone had been taking bites out of his vegetables, and it wasn't himself or his girlfriend, 34-year-old Cindy Hewitt. This included a sweet potato, which was ravaged by something that definitely wasn't human.
Even more worryingly, garbage had been strewn across his kitchen.
Enlisting the help of a friend, Cummings laid down a few rat poison traps, and waited. Then, last Friday, Cummings went to do his laundry, and found a huge dead rat in his laundry basket, hidden in the folds of his clothing. The engineer could not believe his eyes.
"I was oblivious when I put the bin out on Wednesday and that's when the rat must have got in. I didn't put the washing on because there wasn't enough. I left it a few days, put some bait down which I got from my mate. I got home on Friday evening and it was there curled up in the wash basket. I've actually had nightmares about it, it's not even funny."
It's quite the rodent, but luckily, Cummings had help in getting rid of it; from not only his partner Cindy but also their landlord, who was understanding in helping out Cummings with his giant rodent problem. The man himself still can't believe what he saw.
He admitted he'd spied the creature scuttling around his kitchen before, but thought he "had been seeing things", and when he found the massive rat later on, Cummings was still mystified. "I couldn't honestly believe it - I thought it could have been a large squirrel or a badger," he said. "I thought no way could a rat have done that to a sweet potato - but the rat was huge."
As a general rule, rats and food do not mix, but unfortunately, Jacob Cummings' story of rodent infiltrating food is far from a rare one. Late last November, a pair of teenagers were fired in a Hawaiian burger chain after viral footage emerged of them cooking a rat on one of the restaurant's grills, causing the restaurant to shut down for cleaning purposes.
"We are horrified that a former teenage employee would conduct themselves in that way and make such a video of which we are investigating its authenticity," said Richard Stula, President of Teddy's Bigger Burgers, the restaurant chain in which the video was recorded.
The restaurant in question is also considering taking legal action against the teenagers.
