There's a moos loos in the hoos

[Freaki Li Cuatre]

You can't absolutely stop them but you can sure discourage them. Being unceremoniously chucked on the floor while shouted at has an effect. Obviously though it takes time and you have to be consistent, no "isn't that cute" when you're doing the washing up and "get down" when you're preparing food.

I'll concede it probably varies depending on the stubbornness of the cat and how early you start training/breaking them, yours might be more awkward than ours

You don't get cats do you?

They do precisely what you don't want them to do just to piss you off!

[Platypus]

This thread made me laugh! Thanks, keep those mousetrap stories coming

[d000hg]

You don't get cats do you?

They do precisely what you don't want them to do just to piss you off!

Seeing as we HAVE a cat... perhaps it's like children, generally the badly behaved ones have bad parents.

[SueEllen]

Seeing as we HAVE a cat... perhaps it's like children, generally the badly behaved ones have bad parents.

Cats (and dogs to some extent) are clever enough not to do things that their human will not like in their presence. Once their human is out of smell, earshot and sight then some of them are damn sneaky.....

[d000hg]

That is very true, but they do tend to leave evidence - clothes hairy because the cat found how to sneak into a chest of drawers, etc If the dirty dishes on our worktop are still dirty, that's a good clue the cat hasn't been up there

[Freaki Li Cuatre]

No more sightings since I posted this.

And I reckon I know why.

Was round the back of the house earlier replacing a piece of rotten fascia when something scurried out from a hole in the wall to check out what all the commotion was.

It was a little stoat! Cute little thing with a white bib almost right up on his back legs looking at me. Then he vanished back into his hole.

Voracious hunters, though, are stoats. Think we've lost more chickens to stoats over the years than to foxes. Don't have hens these days but he's more than welcome to shack up in my wall if he's going to keep the rodent population down!