Letter: The tale of a trapped mouse

Sir: Mention of the Roach Hotel (Magazine, 24 August) reminds me of an incident involving the very similar (and cutely named) Hoy Hoy Trap-a-Roach, a folding contraption with an insecticide-impregnated sticky floor baited with a sachet of chocolate powder.

At a certain NHS hospital in the Midlands, these were routinely laid out in the roach-infested kitchen of the postgraduate centre. One of the female staff was collecting the full traps for disposal one morning when one unusually heavy-seeming trap proved to contain a terrified mouse. Unwilling to kill the creature, another of the ladies carefully cut around it with a pair of scissors and let it go - the sight of it clattering away with four cardboard boots and a very stiff tail will remain with me for ever.

DAVID ROGERS

Queen's Hospital,

Burton upon Trent,

Staffordshire