Mice and cats living in perfect harmony (From Salisbury Journal)

Mice and cats living in perfect harmony

3:00pm Thursday 6th September 2012 in Bate in the 'Wood By Karen Bate

TWO years ago I discovered that I was sharing my home with mice.

The problem coincided with the death of my big, fat cat George.

I found out, after he had gone, that despite eating me out of house and home and generally getting under my feet, he was far from useless and was clearly snaffling up the odd rodent as well. Poor George – I got you all wrong.

Anyway to cut a very long story short, LOML, who I had just started seeing at that time, was horrified to hear the little pitter patter of tiny furry feet in the kitchen roof.

And he was even more horrified when he saw a dark brown creature, which was as fast as a panther and of monstrous girth, dart through a hole in the skirting board.

The thing was, you see, when George was alive, we never heard or saw anything that would make you shudder.

Disgusted, LOML planned an attack of extermination, called in a couple of rodent killers and within a month the problem had disappeared.

We then bought two kittens, believing that the scent of cat, especially two, would be enough to keep the mightiest mouse away.

WRONG!

A deafening din stirred me from my sleep at 5.30am last Sunday morning.

At first I thought it was the cats downstairs having the early morning crazies, which is commonplace since I started locking them in at night.

But as I became more alert I could hear the noise was coming from underneath my bedroom floor. It wasn’t the cats – unless they had become as agile as Houdini, which they haven’t.

LOML stirred, listened and shot out of bed.

“Oh my God,” he shrieked (like a girl). “We have rodents again.”

On further investigation, we could hear creatures in the wall cavity downstairs. And they sounded a lot more like rats than fluffy little mice.

And where were the cats? Our own crack team of cleaners? Nowhere to be seen.

They react soon enough when I open a pouch of Whiskas, but actually attempting their natural prey? No, apparently not.

LOML, who is now convinced he has Weil’s disease, has rung the exterminator.

Meanwhile, the dog, the cats and the rodents appear to be living in happy harmony.

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