Caught in a trap!

by Jennifer Harnden October 2023

I hadn’t expected to write a blog quite as soon after the previous one, however, we’ve had an unwanted wildlife encounter last night, the kind that can make a grown human being scream in horror when caught by surprise! (and believe it or not, even make an elephant stand on a stool! I can't remember which film that was from now, one of the Disney films?)

Yes, you guessed it, a mouse!

So a rather unusual night for me and my husband, am pretty tired as I write this, but here’s a brief summary of how it went in the early hours last night whilst many were sound asleep...

A Mouse in the House

It’s 1.15am and I hear a click! ‘Gotcha’ I thought as I lay in bed awake. Thank goodness for that!

We knew that we had a mouse in the house, it is a prime time of year that one or two may try their luck and venture somewhere warm, be it my little cottage this time! Field mice are an incredibly common species in the UK, and is considered a major pest in commercial and domestic properties, so a 'Pest Solutions' company advise! They find a hole somewhere and the wild field mouse is in like a shot, enjoying the warmth and creature comforts! The roof is desperate to be replaced due to having more holes than a teabag (slight exaggeration but it is old and has a few holes) so pretty sure it found a way in that way, a costly job that is on the list to do one day.

So what do you do when you know you have an unwanted guest of this nature?

Not wanting to harm it, and wanting to release this little animal back into it’s natural habitat we bought a couple of humane traps! Some of the traps you see we feel are horrible as they can be killed in an instant. We certainly didn’t want to do that. We also didn’t want to buy poison. So a humane trap it was.

We set the traps the previous night due to our suspicions (scratching sounds were a good enough clue). We couldn’t believe when we checked in the morning that the cheeky little rascal had walked right into the trap, stopped to enjoy a feast of cheese and biscuits and walked right back out, without setting off the trap door. How he did it was a mystery.

So my wonderful husband then decided the fix the trap door issue, by fixing a coin or two, on the trap door itself to make it heavier, and more likely to release once the mouse was in position. It did the trick. Scuttling in to have his early morning food, the trap door snapped shut behind the mouse at last. It is a horrible feeling knowing there is a mouse running about your house, be it in the loft, inside the walls or worse around the home.

At 4.10am we were both wide awake so decided we may as well jump in our campervan and find some woods, which has access to a stream in case it needed a drink of water. Tentatively the device, with the mouse inside, was placed inside a bag, then carried carefully into the van and we then drove in the pitch blackness of the night to a suitable spot about three or four miles away from home.

Released safely back into its natural habitat

It was about 4.30am or so, and the somewhat scared little mouse, couldn’t believe his luck when the door was opened, it took a few moments for it to realise he was back in the wild, and then he was gone like a flash! We left a sprinkling of food for it, just in case it needed it. I did try my best (considering I was still very sleepy) to get a photograph of this wild 'pest', but it was certainly not the right conditions and he was as fast as lightning when he took off.

The mouse was now able to create a different home for itself, back in mother nature, where it belongs! Field mice are said to thrive in woodland, grasslands and gardens, living on a diet of seeds, snails, insects, fruit, berries, nuts and fungi, and hopefully he won’t be back for more crackers and cheese in the trap!

Ready to catch up on our sleep and we were both very relieved the mouse had now vacated our home. We felt it had been a good deed done, fingers crossed, a positive outcome for all! After a thorough clean, so that the area was squeeky clean again (excuse the pun) where we found it), it was time for us to finally go back to bed!

"I spotted a mouse in the house and tried to take it's photo, even though it didn't say cheese, I knew he was thinking it!" Joke - source unknown