The pest I’ll never forget: the cats who filled our house with live mice

Our house was a mouse-free zone until our new kittens began venturing into the nearby woods in search of prey and playthings This is a cat-and-mouse story in which the cats are the real pests. My old house, despite being next to rodent-filled woods, was blissfully mouse-free … until, during lockdown, we got two kittens, Mimi and Ruben. As soon as their fine motor skills were sufficiently sharpened, they started hunting.

Thankfully, they weren’t into birds, but wood mice became their specialism. I suppose the dearth of mice indoors meant they had to catch them outside. The tabby twins would then bring their prey back to their lair (our house) and release them, still miraculously alive. Perhaps they thought mice would make fun pets. You would know they had brought in a mouse when they sat guarding sections of ill-fitting skirting or gaps under cupboard doors, uttering odd…