When Mickey moves in…

So picture the scene. It’s just after midnight on the night of Halloween (no really it was) and you awake to hear a rustling in your office. Odd, you think. Perhaps it’s a spider. Then you realise how big the spider would have to be to make that amount of noise and you seriously hope it isn’t a spider! So out of bed you trot, and into your office. On goes the light, and there’s a furry grey blur goes running across your office floor. A tad annoying but never mind, back to bed. Move forward 48 hours and said furry grey blur appears again, heading from the office into your bedroom. Again an annoyance, but you’re a lot bigger than he is, and he seems to be more scared of you than you are of him. Fast-forward another 24 hours and in the middle of the night there is the sound of papers moving and something trying frantically to get past things under your bed in the middle of the night.

So as you can probably guess, Chez Monkey currently has a visitor in the form of a mouse. Quite cute little grey fellow, who is becoming annoying because he keeps waking me up! So cue the construction of a humane mouse trap involving a broken match, a small piece of chocolate, and an OXO tin (other brands of stock are available!). The tin has fallen twice now, both onto nothing (this mouse is good!) and so we’re hoping for third time lucky. And boy is this guy quick. My eyes could barely keep up with him last time I saw him. I guess him appearing is a side-effect of the time of year in that mice are looking for somewhere to bed down for the winter, but I just wish they’d do it more quietly!

So my plea to you, dear Monkey fans is this. Can you design me a better form of mouse-trap to catch the little guy without hurting him (any pain caused to the mouse would result in pain caused to me by Mrs. Monkey, and that is not a good thing!). Leave your ideas below. The more Heath Robinson, the better…