Thought I was going to have a heart attack

[Van Diemen]

My brother and his wife came to visit me today so I thought I would show them Teddy's cage and see if he'd be willing to wake up and say hello.

I went into my bedroom to gently talk to him and was affronted by the sight of his cage door hanging open.

My heart started beating a million miles an hour and I couldn't breath lol.

It's a bit of a drop from the cage to the floorboards and my room is full of crap - like everywhere!

I have never been so worried in my life I don't think. I quickly kicked my sister in law out of my room and started frantically calling Teddy's name.

I kept having visions of him hiding in something like a plastic bag and choking or getting into all my makeup and being poisoned. I near on had a full blown panic attack.

Luckily some sense of rational thought stayed with me and I decided to check his cage before I turned my room upside down looking for him haha.

I took his cage off it's box down onto the floor, and took the top off so I could see everywhere in the base. He wasn't there!

My next move I feel ridiculously guilty about. I gently poked my finger into his nest to see if he was in there - he was.

I was sooo relieved that I called out to my sister in law to come back up stairs to see him, I didn't even stop to think

At this point Teddy is calmly waking up and coming out of his nest while i'm grinning like a fool and praising him for not escaping. As soon as he got fully out of his nest he realised his roof was gone and started freaking out - at that exact same moment, my sister in law started coming up the stairs. The stairs are really noisy

Poor little Teddy didn't know what to do - he pulled a meerkat pose and spat at me!

He started running round the base of his cage then stopping every few seconds to stand up and spit.

Luckily I was quick enough to think to say to my sister in law "don't come in the room!". I quickly got the top of his cage and placed it back on. He calmed down a bit then so I let my sister in law in to see him quickly.

Teddy stayed out long enough to say hi very quickly - like : OI YOU - this is your fault - then went back into his nest.

I haven't disturbed him since. I feel like a horrid person right now.

Does anyone here have like an "Escaped Hamster Plan"???

I don't want to do that again lol. I know about the bucket traps - what I mean is like a way to check his cage properly without scaring the life out of him.

I feel awful for sticking my hand in his nest and waking him up, only to find half his home gone and a stranger coming up the stairs

That's like - the number one thing not to do.

I have no idea how his cage door got opened either

I must have not closed it properly when I went to bed last night

[vanilla-yazoo]

glad he was safe!!

My guys i tripple check they are locked when i put them back, wurzel is my only one to escape of this lot, he has 4 times, normally envolves tipping the whole room upside down, pulling everything from under the bed and a few carriers near by for him to be put in.
luckily, i have a spare imac under my bed, and most of the time he goes under there, the wire section is on the floor so i lift the edge, he runs under, i press it firmly down when he is through, and then get him from in there!

if you think it might happen again get a bulldog clip for each door, it means it cant be pushed open, and you soon get into the habbit of clipping closed

[StarlightSerenity]

Oh my, talk about stressful! Glad he was still in his nest!

Something similar happened to me - gave Luna some treats in her cage (which is in our bedroom), went back into the living room then half an hour or so later went back into the bedroom for something only to realise I had left Luna's cage door open I rushed over and shouted her name, thankfully she was in her nest, looking out at me bleary-eyed, probably wondering what on earth I was doing shouting at her lol.

I don't have an escape plan as such, just know what I would do - close all the doors, set up bucket traps and then search each room one by one. Luckily I know that there aren't holes etc that she could go through to get out of the flat, other than through the boiler cupboard which we keep closed.

[Van Diemen]

Bulldog clips! Genius!!!!!
Lol thank you Vanilla


They're are tricky little things aren't they! Naughty hamsters lol.

I think you and I SS must be lucky to have hams that don't escape when presented with a golden opportunity lolol.

[student1304]

I've had a similar situation, with my first hammy Magoo my boyfriend at the time left her cage door open.
She had definately escaped and I had a major panic, when we found her the poor little thing had gotton under the carpet and got stuck there!
We pulled the carpet up, and she was lying on her back covered in the underlay stuff.
Luckily she was fine but she did spend a good twenty minutes cleaning herself when she got back in her cage.
In a way I'm glad she was rather dumb because If she'd have got out of my room she could have gone done the stairs!!!
Definately a panicky situation!! The boyfriend was never allowed undersupervised time with her again haha

[kyrilliondaemon]

We've had escapes. Scamp we just collect asap, Whizz we swore a lot, Muffin fortunately got collected quickly.
We close doors, then start praying when its a robo lol

[Van Diemen]

Lol I can't imagine how stressful it must be when a robo escapes! I bet they can get anywhere!

[Lougarry]

I had such a terrible panic last week when the kids put Dinah down and couldn't remember (or wouldn't say!) where. I couldn't find her anywhere and convinced myself the dog had eaten her. Both kids were in floods of tears. About half an hour after we'd stopped the search Lyra saw her running across the dining table. The relief!!

[kyrilliondaemon]

Try an untame, afraid of humans roborovski escaping... Thats when we swear a lot lol
Whizz can get from one corner of the room to the opposite corner in about a second and is way too fast for us to hope to catch her until she runs into something she can't get out of. Muffin fortunately was kind enough to just go and break into the binbag we'd just put some of her cage contents and food store in so she was easily retrieved. Skip is even nicer and hasn't escaped yet

[Van Diemen]

Awh Lou glad to hear everything turned out well!

Lol Kyrill sounds like you have a handful with your lot - I envy your energy!!