HELP! Gerbil loose in the house - where? what? Please, any help?

[Hulababy]

DD woke up this morning to discover that the gerbils have managed to eat through the air hole of their big gerbilarium. This is a big lass cage thing, and the only plastic bit is a hard air hole - and this is what had gone!

One of the gerbils is now missing. Have found some droppings in that room, DD's bedroom, family bathroom, on the second floor landing, in the giroun floor hall way, in the garden room and in the lobby bit. Not found anything on the first floor - where kitchen is.

I now have a replacement cage - shop very puzlled how they managed it, never heard of it ever before! Hence free replacement. Going to rehouse the other gerbil in this and then leave old cage as it is for a bit to see if it returns there. have to take that cage back to pet shop tomorrow though for my money back.

Have 4 humane mouse traps, with additional bait of sunflower seeds in them. Have them in rooms where I've found droppings.

Ihave no TV or anything on and just can't hear a thing - no scratching or anything.

We don't have floor boards - new house. And we don't thing it could have gotton outside - can't thing of how.

Anything else I can do?

I was just going to suggest humane mousetraps. Our hamster used to go AWOL all the time but eventually we'd find him in the humane trap.

You need to check them v. frequently - once ours almost pegged it, I think he'd been in there for about 8 hours.

Thanks - I have four of them so maybe he'll go into one of those.

Have visions of him chewing our TV or computer wires to bits!

The other gerbil looks very lonely curled up in a ball!

Anyone - someone must have a fool proof plan to find Charlie! DD went to school to do think mummy would be some miracle worker who would locate her furry friend before the school bell goes for hometime!

When our hamster had disappeared finally for 3 weeks I bought another, slightly smaller one without telling dh or ds.

They were both a little concerned that he'd not only lost weight during his absence but was about 2 inches shorter.

I never did tell.

Yeah! I have two gerbils, back together in a cage!!!

Charlie was in the playroom, where the cage is kept. I was sorting out the new cage, turned round and there he was, under DD'sdesk staring at meintently. He'd maged to retrieve the sunflower seeds from the trap next to him without setting it off until after he'd got them. Cheeky devil!

The lure of more sunflower seeds was too much though - he finally crept nto the little box covered in seeds, where I used DD's little fishing net to stop him escaping again, and transfer him back to his new home, along with Sammy.

Phew!

DD will be so pleased