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Original poster

Help Needed (bloomin' cat!)

70 replies

judegarland2512 · 09/12/2004 16:24

Last Thursday the cat bought in a live mouse (it was injured and had been playing dead) so the cat dropped it and couldn't be bothered to pick it up. By the time i tried to get it it scampered into the front room. I couldn't find it anywhere and i shut said cat (after a severe lecture) in the room in the hopes it would find it. No luck. Left the door shut all day and that evening DH and i moved all the furniture and searched everywhere - no luck. We left a trap down. No mouse.
Today i have started to notice a strange smell in the room - almost like rotting vegetables (ewww i hear you cry!). But i can't figure out where the smell is coming from. How am i going to find this mouse (if it is the mouse causing the smell!).

All help much appreciated!

OP posts:
OnZephyrstdayofXmas · 09/12/2004 16:27

have a look inside your sofa - they are quite good at nibbling their way in to them!
Dont you just hate cats?? Our two are always bringing in mice and birds, it drives me mad and makes me want to kill the cats!!!

Original poster
judegarland2512 · 09/12/2004 16:30

We don't have a sofa in there, but have 2 granny-style winged back chairs - suppose it could have climbed up the leg? Apart from that there's the speakers, or in the open fire somewhere or hidden around the sideboard etc - but we've moved all this stuff and no mouse :( And i'm sure we don't normally get mice at this time of year? aren't they asleep or something!?

OP posts:
saintlysecur · 09/12/2004 16:32

Grin clearly your lecture was too much for the cat and she did as she was told (ie left mouse alone) Wink

No helpful ideas though, try moving your furniture around and seeing if the smell moves-this may help you isolate it a bit?

Bear in mind it may have gone under the floorboards or into the furniture (underneath through the hesian stuff)

Original poster
judegarland2512 · 09/12/2004 16:33

If i don't find it, it may really put people off their Christmas dinner! Will try harder! Please not under the floorboards, that'll be major hassle!

OP posts:
Shimmy21 · 09/12/2004 16:37

Our lovely mog regularly brings mice in and lets them go still very much alive. We have had one under the children's bed, under the kitchen units (you have to take off the whole of the skirting bit, under the fridge-freezer (nightnare scenario) and up the curtains. Dh is now threatening to get rid of mog.

Good luck with your smell. I'm afraid it does sound like decomposing mouse!

OnZephyrstdayofXmas · 09/12/2004 16:38

if you've got an open fire i reckon it's quite likely to have climbed up it. have you had the fire going since the cat brought it in?

Original poster
judegarland2512 · 09/12/2004 16:42

Well i must admit this morning i had a feeling smell was coming from direction of fire. No, we haven't had it lit since mouse arrived. Unfortunately DH has no sense of smell so is of no use here! And the cat obviously only likes live ones as he's not sniffing around any area in particular. Thanks for your suggestions. If it wasn't for the fact that he was showing me how much he loves me, i think the cat would be in serious strife!

OP posts:
OnZephyrstdayofXmas · 09/12/2004 17:06

If the fire hasnt been lit might be worth checking all around - most likely to be in there somewhere!! Good luck!! :)

LAMBda · 09/12/2004 17:58

Our cat does this regularly and we've had some bad smells in our time - found a liquid mouse under ds1's wardrobe once - located it by smell - yuk - still love my cat though

Original poster
judegarland2512 · 09/12/2004 18:29

ewwww a liquid mouse? now i'm beginning to feel queasy at the prospect of actually looking for it! Told DH he has to be there so if I can pinpoint the location of the smell he can remove the object.

OP posts:
LAMBda · 09/12/2004 18:34

it was liquid because it had obviously been decomposing for ages - the quicker you find your corpse the better!

Original poster
judegarland2512 · 09/12/2004 20:53

Well we found it!

I kept going back in and sniffing and thought perhaps it came from chair nearest door or perhaps speaker. DH said no where for it to get into speaker, so i turned over chair to see if there was some hole underneath and it had perhaps gone inside. At which point DH shouts "it was in the chair!".

Noooooooooo! Shock

I'd been sitting on that chair this afternoon and this morning!! No wonder i could smell it! So there was this flat as a pancake mouse - it must have climbed up the "skirt" of the chair cover and got in there under the cushion. Ooops! Still, no nasty stain on the cover and not obviously "leaking". Just off with the covers and in the wash with them and a good scrub and febreeze of the fabric underneath.

And definitely didn't give my naughty cat any milk tonight - just another lecture on the subject of bringing live ones in and letting them go!

OP posts:
Willowmum · 09/12/2004 20:58

When we bought a new fridge freezer, moved the old one to find a rock hard mummified mouse behind it - must have been there for months - yuk.

xmascaroltygirl · 09/12/2004 21:04

Cripes, glad you found it but yeeeuuurk! Loads of sympathy. We've never quite had it that bad, but have had to lock our cat out at night because that's when she tends to bring them in - we were then finding disembowelled small creatures all over the living room floor in the morning. As this was happening 3 or 4 times a week we had to call a halt, although we feel bad for locking her out and ended up fitting a catflap on the woodshed door and putting a box in there for her.

Generally when she's done it they've been dead, but we had a live one for 2 or 3 days once, until she caught it again. Took it outside beautifully and finally killed it out there, but rather spoiled her /coup/ when she then brought the dead mouse back into the kitchen and dropped it into her dish.

Exit mouse, exit cat and exit food bowl - she now gets fed outside as well! (The bowl in the kitchen was attracting slugs, but that's another story...)

jellyhead · 09/12/2004 21:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OnZephyrstdayofXmas · 09/12/2004 21:48

my mum's kitten has started beheading sqirrels and pigeons.
Remind me why I've got cats again??????!!!!

xmascaroltygirl · 09/12/2004 21:58

OnZephyrstdayofChristmas, that must be one heck of a kitten! What size would it be relative to, say, a pigeon? Shock

And Jellyhead, that sounds dreadful. [yuck smiley] Rather surprised that you have a tomcat who hunts, though, as those I have catered for have been neither use nor ornament about the place.

OnZephyrstdayofXmas · 09/12/2004 22:03

she's fierce, although not a tiny kitten, shes about a year so still quite small. I dont know how she catches squirrels because they are fierce too! But shes not a normal cat - most cats catch things, play then leave it, this cat eats their heads. Gross. lol

LAMBda · 09/12/2004 22:03

I have had several Tomcats (all neutered) who hunt. My latest one left a dead falcon on my patio one day

xmascaroltygirl · 09/12/2004 22:10

Neither OZPDOC's kitten or Lambda's tomcat sound like puddies to be sneezed at... Shock

Ours is a bog-standard quite petite 2 yr old female who we keep partly because she wouldn't go away (came from a barnful of cats at the farm up the road) and partly because there is a genuine rodent problem around here.

Ever since we had the live one, though, we've bought and installed a load of those ultrasonic plug-in mouse-scarer gadgets. The theory is that, if cattipuss does bring in any more live ones and doesn't recapture them this time, they will find our house too unpleasant to settle in and will die without breeding. Well, it's a theory. My SIL's old house used to have a mouse problem and they solved it (mostly) using these things and also by being ultra-careful about not leaving food debris around the place.

xmascaroltygirl · 09/12/2004 22:10

Neither OZPDOC's kitten or Lambda's tomcat sound like puddies to be sneezed at... Shock

Ours is a bog-standard quite petite 2 yr old female who we keep partly because she wouldn't go away (came from a barnful of cats at the farm up the road) and partly because there is a genuine rodent problem around here.

Ever since we had the live one, though, we've bought and installed a load of those ultrasonic plug-in mouse-scarer gadgets. The theory is that, if cattipuss does bring in any more live ones and doesn't recapture them this time, they will find our house too unpleasant to settle in and will die without breeding. Well, it's a theory. My SIL's old house used to have a mouse problem and they solved it (mostly) using these things and also by being ultra-careful about not leaving food debris around the place.

xmascaroltygirl · 09/12/2004 22:10

Bum. Sorry.

OnZephyrstdayofXmas · 09/12/2004 22:10

Blimey LAMBda a falcon??????!!!!! That's a cat and a half!!!! Grin

LAMBda · 09/12/2004 22:16

So pleased you're impressed - we were. Then we got worried as I think birds of prey are protected - had to dispose of the body quickly.

We do live next to a big field tho', so the furry-boy has plenty of opportunity for bloodsport

LAMBda · 09/12/2004 22:18

BTW - he also stalks small dogs like Westies Grin