by Nicky W. Small

Created on: October 11, 2009   Last Updated: October 12, 2009

We have been living in a same, second floor flat in London for almost three years. It was one summer day; late evening when I went to the kitchen to get some drink when I saw a little grey creature with a long thin tale running with great speed on the kitchen counter, then disappeared behind the boiler. I grew up in a smaller town, and always lived in a flat; despite some spiders we never had any other uninvited living things inside the house. I couldn't believe that it was possible to have a mouse in the house in a big city.

We never left food out and the dry ingredients were in containers in the kitchen cupboard which was on the wall, so probably the tiny rodent couldn't find anything to eat. Next day my partner filled the gap between the wall and the boiler with small pieces of wood and old clothes. Unfortunately it didn't work, we saw his trail the following day as well; he left his droppings on the kitchen counter. That was the main problem with having a mouse in the house; we knew we had to get rid of him. I didn't want to have the traditional trap which kills the little rodent. This time my sister kept two pet mice in her flat I know there were cute little animals when they were not trying to rob your kitchen.

My partner built a mouse trap which he thought should have caught the mouse in a humane way leaving his life. He put a flower pot upside down supporting one side with a small stick which helped to leave a gap for the mouse to get inside where a peanut was hanging on a string. The idea was that when the mouse pulls the peanut the flower pot falls down capturing him. No need to say that we didn't catch him that way, he took the peanut from the trap but vanished once again. Probably he was sitting in the corner watching the scene from his hole and laughing at our tries with his friends.

The next step was to buy a mouse trap-a humane trap. Still it was probably terrifying for the mouse who would stick in the sticky trap. We put it near by the boiler and my partner was hoping that he will just jump on it. We caught the first one on Saturday night when we had some friends over for dinner. The mouse looked very scared but still tried to reach the peanut as my partner and his friend took him down to the nearby park. When he came back I wanted to know if the mouse was ok. My boyfriend told me that when he pulled the little creature of the sticky trap he ran away. When he got to a certain distance he looked back saying goodbye joked to our friends. After

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