OUR first squeaking guest showed up last weekend. My housemate Sue spotted him checking out a bit of Strictly Come Dancing by the TV set.
I caught the lightning-quick rodent using a tea towel and a measuring jug. Admittedly, I nearly took out the coffee table and the standard lamp in the process.
We told our landlord Phil, who was keen to stem the problem. With the look of a Disney villain he offered to ‘bring up the traps’.
“Slam!” he said, slapping his hands together and grinning at us both. “Mousey won’t feel a thing.” I wasn’t up for that.
I’m supposed to be vegetarian – it looks a bit two-faced if I avoid ham while he goes about setting tiny spring-loaded guillotines all over the living room.
Anyway, just a day later we discovered Mouse Two, chilling under the sink, trying his best to look innocent.
I started to worry we might end up with a mouse version of the Occupy London camp in the front room.
Sue baited two what we thought were ‘humane’ traps with uneaten Thorntons chocolates – the coffee ones, the fudge ones and the ones that taste a bit like children’s cough mixture.
The word got round in Mouseville. Before we knew it we had caught the fifth mouse, and then the sixth.
Thankfully, our invasion seemed to come to a halt two days ago, and there are two possible reasons why.
It might be because we’ve blocked up the Tom and Jerry- style hole at the back of the sink.
Or perhaps mice are avoiding the flat because of the new Nicola Roberts album, which I have been playing on repeat.
To a mouse the size of your thumb I imagine it’s the equivalent of the apocalypse.
Either way, no blood has been spilled and the mice have all gone. It’s a victory for the vegetarians.
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