Out of the corner of my eye I saw...

[GeorgianMumto5]

My hamster, just strolling past on the floor. I scooped him up and saw that I'd left his cage door open.

How stupid can you get? Thankfully, no harm done and he seemed to enjoy his little jaunt. I shudder when I think of all the places he could have got into/stuck in, but all's well that ends well.

Another point to note is that the DC have always been very good about closing his door after play time. I don't think I will confess to them. They won't be impressed.

You have been lucky .

Have your DC read The World Acording To Humphrey? Its a great story about a classroom hammie that can open his cage and has adventures.

Errr, I have done this and lost the lovely ball of fluff for 12 hours.

I searched everywhere for the little blighter only to find him in the morning, in ds's bottom drawer. He looked very comfy, I felt bad moving him
There was also a good amount of suspicious looking holes in his clothes

Don't confess - don't ever confess

Bonkeymollocks, I confess I did just laugh a little, at the holey clothes. My childhood hamster chewed a large hole in the curtains. I told my mother that it would be wrong to accuse the hamster, when we had no evidence. My mother said that the hamsters new floral bedding matched the remaining curtain fabric and that was all the evidence needed. My hamster lost herself a good defence lawyer that day.

Thankfully, Fluffy didn't appear to get up to mischief.

Ha ha, this reminded me of many moons ago when I had gerbils. They lived in the kitchen and it was not unknown for someone (ahem) to forget to latch the door. Cue getting up in the night for a drink/going in for first coffee of the morning/getting hot water bottle for bedtime/etc. to find what on first glance looked like an "uninvited rodent" scampering across the floor. Yikes!

My two laydee mice escaped from their cage (no idea how. It was locked and it was a 'proper' cage but maybe the gaps at the door were too big for mice?)

I was away at the time for 2 days. My mum and I (I was still at home at the time) searched for them but nothing.
Then in my (cesspit) of a bedroom I saw two tailey girls in my burgandy cord dungereees

They'd found a digestive and drank a spoonful of water when we caught them.
Dad was commisioned to build a MouseHouse after that

HaHa cord dungerees I'd forgotten that fashion .

We are 2 laydeez of a certain age are we not 70

T'was the early -mid 1980s . Some might say the era that fashion taste forgot

The mice were obviously riddled with envy so they escaped to move into them

I am enjoying picturing two mice clad in burgundy corduroy dungarees, sipping delicately from a polished
silver teaspoon, into which they occasionally dunk a digestive biscuit.

70, did they also sing songs about finding stuff, binding it and sticking it with glue, glue, glue? If so, my life is complete.

I suddenly have a picture of 'The Tale of Two Bad Mice' by Beatrix Potter!

70 They weren't called Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca were they?

I really want some mice now so I can call them that!

Our neighbour came round one day with a bucket and asked if we had lost a hamster, there was a very dirty hamster in the bucket, he had caught it in his shed.
Checked and yes Bamse my sons hamster was missing, top door on the cage was slightly open.
She must have got out of the house when my husband went to work, she was very very lucky to be found, phew

Dp pooped a brick the other night - i was cleaning out fat hairy hamster, dp sat at pc with earphones in without my seeing, fhh had the run of the floor as always but wouldn't come back to me so i called to dp to catch him.. cue dp turning saying ''what'' catching sight of fhh scuttling under the heater he crapped himself and nearly fell off his chair! oh how i laughed

we had a hamster in the past that was often found sauntering around the house
ds was sat on the toilet once and he came wandering into the bathroom - as his cage was downstairs that was quite a journey for him!

My Dad had to dismantle a false wall behind some shelves once to retrieve my hamster. Wasn't a happy man.

My husband had to cut a hole in the bedroom wall to rescue the hamster .... He'd got out of his cage on the ground floor, somehow got into the actual structure of the house and fallen down inside the cavity wall!!! How's that for a great escape?
Another night, woke up, direct line of sight from bed to bathroom, hamster sitting on the toilet looking at me.

I've just been sat in the kitchen having a lovely cup of tea. Heard some rustling, turned round and hamster is looking at me like "hi!"
So he's managed to get out the cage, from the spare room and take himself straight to the kitchen and the cage doors (he has 2 cages) were shut
He's most irritated at being shoved in a plastic container while I took him back

I did this not once, not twice but at least 3 times with our gerbils! I kept putting food in and forgetting to close the door. Doh! Luckily DP is a pet catcher extraordinaire and has retrieved hamsters and gerbils many times.
It's happened so many times now that only one bothers to escape and the other one can't be arsed and stays in the cage.
Many years ago I has russian hamsters and one of them learnt to open the door (just like Humphrey!) and I found her strolling about a few times, one time she wandered over to me in bed! I thought we had mice...

They are escape artists.

My cousin had one who figured out that if he rolled his hamster ball really hard into the marble fireplace, it would crack open. He is currently awol, probably having a lovely time.

I knew someone else who lost their hamster. Their parents sat down on the sofa 6 months later and it collapsed. Hammy had been nesting in it and had hollowed out the inside!