game on

I don't think I mentioned our flat's mouse adventure about a month ago. A little guy (I'm assuming, I called him Stuart anyway, I mean what else you are going to call a mouse?) appeared in our living room/kitchen (it's open-plan) and it took me and Sean about half an hour to get him out. Well we put him outside and I foolishly thought that that was the end of it. Little did I know...

Last Friday night I heard a scratching noise inside the wall under my window and thought, "Hmm.... I bet that's Stuart." so I got up, thumped on the wall and said, "I'm trying to sleep here!" and the noise stopped. On Saturday, I came home, laden with groceries and as I stepped into the living room, this little furry bundle came streaking out from under the sofa and made a mad dash to squeeze himself under the washing machine. I couldn't help it, I literally did scream like a girl. Well more of a short, sharp shriek but it was far girlier than most noises I make and had me yelling, "Oh for the love of God! Stuart! You can't live here!"

Now killing Stuart is not an option. As far as I'm concerned, it's not his fault that our house is warm and dry and has potentially unlimited food sources but the reality is that we cannot live together. If nothing else, I'm very possessive about my food and I suspect it's not entirely hygienic. So I bought 2 very expensive sonic rodent repellent things which you plug in to the wall and are meant to emit a sound that humans can't here but is bad for rodents. I also got 2 humane catch-them-alive traps. And for a while everything seemed okay until last night I came home from climbing, walked into the kitchen and turned on the light and ZOOM Stuart legs it out from under the washing machine and dashes up into some hole i never knew existed underneath our cupboards. In fact I thought he had disappeared into thin air so I dropped to the ground and had my face pressed against the floor trying to find him when I see two little paws appear over an edge and a little nose stick its way out and start sniffing. It would seem that me post-climbing was far too easy to smell as he retreated.

He's just way too cute though, I'm an incurable softy but cute will not save him. This has now become a battle of the wits. Clearly these sonic things aren't worth sh*t so it's game-on with the live traps. Where can I place them to catch him best? What does he want to eat? Dried apricots seems a no-go and so far choccie hasn't worked so I think I'm going to have to go for the cheesey cliché.

However the day he makes it up to the cupboard above the extractor fan and starts in on my baking ingredients it will be game over. Nobody messes with my baking ingredients.