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
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