This time, it wasn't content with setting up a maisonette in my bedside diary cupboard - shredded notebook on the top shelf as a nest, with a larder down below containing lots of the wheat from one of those heated pad things you warm in the microwave (must have taken her dozens of trips upstairs). Inexplicably, that mouse also removed the earbud bits from some rather jolly turquoise headphones left dangling on the floor - which completely flummoxed me when I tried to wear them the next morning. Perhaps she wanted speakers for a sound system?
Anyway, this time the mouse discovered the pantry. When we found 'traces' on day 1, the Technomage reinforced the door with tape, bits of wood and wire mesh - but to no avail. By next day, it had bypassed the traps, nibbled more of the door frame, got in again...
...and stayed there, causing a certain amount of leaping-out-of-skins as we caught sight of a sudden movement.
A chance conversation with a pest controller at a car boot sale yesterday introduced us to the idea of honey as the most irresistible cuisine for mousies, so three traps were primed and left in the pantry, with the door blocked from the outside by a sheet of steel wedged in place by two heavy biscuit boxes full of piggy bank change.
Success! There was a very nervous looking little mouse in the smallest of the traps this morning.
We duly put the trap in a bucket and - mindful of warnings to avoid releasing it too close - set off across the border to the next county (actually only a few minutes walk but with the river as a useful extra barrier) where we opened the trap and admired its cuteness, with those lovely big eyes that wood mice have...
We watched as it then sized up the bucket walls...
...and to our amazement then jumped out and on to freedom.
The saga isn't quite over yet, as on Sunday we had to empty everything out of the pantry to dispose of or clean as appropriate - so the kitchen is still piled high, including many long-forgotten purchases. We had for the last few weeks been trying to run down supplies - cue old tins of mandarin oranges, strange flavours of cous-cous and rather odd curry sauces - but have found even more to use up now. Yesterday's Sainsbury's red pepper soup was still surprisingly edible despite being eight years out of date!
