Last week, there was a mouse in my house…

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I came home to find my housemate prowling the house in his dressing gown, armed with a saucepan and a bowl of carrots. He was on a mouse hunt, as he’d spotted one scampering across the living room, and this was his hunting equipment.

 

The late night mouse hunt was unsuccessful, but undeterred my housemate came home the next day brandishing a pack of poison. I wasn’t that keen on killing the mouse, but the other two were getting worryingly obsessed, so I let it go.

At this point, housemate no. 2 went a bit mouse-mad. He started checking the poison pots at hourly intervals and kept asking me if I thought the poison had been nibbled. He sat very still on the sofa, listening for the patter of mouse paws across the floor. He claimed to be able to hear them squeaking during the night…

A couple of days of poison and the mouse sightings were just as regular as ever. I still hadn’t seen the mouse by this point and was becoming suspicious that it was an elaborate ruse by the boys to con me into scrubbing the kitchen. Housemate no. 2 was starting to have sleepless nights (the patter of tiny mouse paws woke him up). The arsenal of mouse repelling toys increased, and a humane trap arrived in the hall way. We also now have two industrial strength electromagnetic mouse repellers which apparently emit a noise that will give the mouse such a blistering headache it will run away forever. Yet I still hadn’t seen the mouse – funny how it only ever hung out in the boys’ bedrooms…

The peak of activity took place the following weekend, when housemate no.2 texted me half hourly updates on the mouse activity in the house. At one point he claimed to be chasing the mouse round brandishing an iron bar. I came home to find him with his trousers tucked in socks - jokingly I asked if that was to stop the mouse running up his trousers. Yes, he replied, deadly serious. Oh.

Thankfully the mouse seems to have given up now, or the poison finally got to it. Another week later, and my housemate now texts me at least once a day - ‘24 mouse free hours!’; ‘Did you see the mouse today? No? That’s 48 mouse free hours!’. The poison is still out, the electromagnetic mouse scaring doodahs are still freaking out hamsters up and down the street, but at least my housemate has taken his socks out of his trousers. Was it a real mouse, or a figment of their imagination? Who knows… but at least I know what to do now to get them to clean the house!

Have you had any unwanted house guests, furry or otherwise?

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