Redwall: A Tale of the Uninvited Duppy Mouse

While everyone else's Summer2K18 was filled with maximum enjoyment, mine was relatively uneventful apart from one hostile rodent takeover. To date, I'm the only one that has seen the mouse in question, and still hears it from time to time. In memory of my month of torment, and seeing as I'm convinced I heard it in my room again last night, here's how this June's Redwall Invasion went down.

The Uninvited Duppy Mouse:

It’s been two weeks since I’ve slept in my own bed, or even set foot in my room - which has now become base camp. Currently my household is living in a state of DEFCON 4. What was just my problem, and arguably a figment of my imagination, is now every body's problem.

Defcon 5

The first sighting. Around 6:45am, while I was ignoring my alarm and preparing to be late for work, I heard rustling etc that was way too loud to be coming from outside my window. Please note I was in stage 2 of cleaning my room - this is important (to me). So I was at the point where you have that last pile of clothes/crap in the corner you’re too tired to sort through. My guy was climbing in and through my CC pile, when he sensed a disturbance in the force, turned and just stayed looking at me.

Now, when you’re semi-conscious and haven’t quite let go of sleep yet, and you see what you never realised until that moment is in fact one of your worst nightmares - in what may or may not be reality - it’s a lot to take in. There was a 5 second delay between me seeing it, and realising the mouse was not in fact a hallucination. I wish I could tell you I handled it well. I really do. But, I didn’t.

Visual representation of rational though & my instincts during the mouse sighting.

Defcon 4

After waking up my housemate screaming, and failing to find and catch the mouse, we searched my room that evening and found nothing. We even called in a boyfriend as backup. Everyone reassured me that the mouse had surely disappeared by now. I got all brave and decided I wasn’t gonna be run out of my room by some brave little (actually, rather large now that I think about it) rodent. I checked every corner of my room - by this point we, with the loving support of our hired muscle (the boyfriend), had already discovered this little cretin had dug holes in all said corners. It was nowhere to be found. So I decided to try to go to sleep. It was my room. I pay rent. I belong there, and it was gone for now anyway.

Obviously, that wasn't the case. I fell asleep for all of 3 minutes before this thing started digging its way around the headboard of my bed coming out of the hole. I shot out of that room and into my housemate’s bed like my name was Bolt.

Defcon 3

Sighting number 2. Now, 3 days since I’d gone in my room, I remembered that all the clothes and underwear that I love and need are still in my room and still at risk. So, having run out of clean clothes I decided to get brave (mistake) and go in my room alone to rescue some undies. By this point my dresser was trashed...I was still struggling to accept the fact that this little beast had climbed from the floor all the way up there somehow. Standing on my bed I started fishing clothes out of my top drawer, and obviously my guy had decided to bed down in there. I wish I could say that this time around I went sick and destroyed my dresser trying to kill it. That I at least made some effort. But I just couldn’t take the shock that early in the morning. I wasn’t ready.

Defcon 2

At this point my room was a no-go zone, door barricaded and everything to keep that scratchy furry demon inside. But I was still, with the aid of my housemates, trying to take back my room. They’d gone in and laid traps, armed with my hockey stick, the boyfriend and daylight so everything was in plain view. We were hoping it would be dead the same day. Needless to say the traps were empty, the poison untouched and my carpet was being shredded daily. We decided to check on the stuff in my wardrobe - that's where I shoved my beloved CC pile for safe keeping. It’s also where I stashed a box of chocolates. You can see where I’m going with this I’m sure. The mouse had somehow gotten into my wardrobe, dug through all my stuff, chewed on shoes and cracked open that box of chocolates and went to town.

At this point we called in pest control and the landlord. The latter, acknowledged my trashed room looking like Swiss cheese with all the carpet holes and said no point filling them let pest control nuke the place. Pest control came, accompanied with poison and traps, left those same holes open, found out it had been in the kitchen, left traps there and said deuces, see you in 2 weeks. No nukes, no nothing.

Defcon 1

This weekend in my exhaustion I just zoned out on the sofa waiting for my housemates to come home from their busy social lives. Since this thing is now mocking my life by never appearing before witnesses, it decides to burrow out of my room under my door and stroll across the living room and behind the TV. Again, this didn’t go well.

I ended up barricaded out of the living room with all my belongings (I had been sleeping there), no charger for my phone or laptop, and ran them till my batteries died and somebody came home.

So now, I live in a state of permanent high alert. Every time I’m in a room alone I’m on edge, just listening.

Anything and everything has become a threat. Every creak, every pipe noise, fridge fan, curtain blowing in the wind, even my own shadow. This thing only shows up when I’m alone. It’s literally trolling me.


Deep down I know the day is coming where I'll have to face it alone. I wish I could tell you I’d had enough and I’m ready to go terminator and rage through the house. I really do. But let’s be honest, every time I hear a scratch I fall out. I, am not the one.