The question that first comes to mind when people discover mice in their house is, “How did they get in?” That wasn’t a question for my wife Carolyn and me. We knew the source of our mouse problem, it was our cat Phoebe. Wait a minute! A cat caused a mouse infestation? Yup, Phoebe liked going out at night to hunt, in the evening, she’d sit by the door and mew until we let her out, that was ok, but when she wanted to come back in she’d jump up on our bedroom windowsill, sometimes at 3 am, and mew until we opened the window for her. That wasn’t ok, and we decided to eliminate the problem by installing a cat-flap in our sun room door.

The cat-flap did the trick, Phoebe learned to use it almost overnight and stopped nagging us to go in and out, but this silver lining came equipped with its own dark cloud, Phoebe soon decided that rather than enjoying her mouse-du-neur on the lawn or out on the deck, that she would carry a live mouse in through the cat flap so her family could enjoy it along with her! She’d bring the mouse into the kitchen or the living room in her mouth, release it, and then chase it around for a while before administering the coup-de-grace and enjoying her evening meal.