Live mice found in Amazon delivery

An Amazon customer was shocked when she opened the box containing her new flat-pack table - and three mice jumped out.

Kat Kahraman, of Pimlico in London, then discovered another three mice dead inside the polystyrene packaging; another live one appeared in her kitchen later that day.

"The guy brought the table to the door. There were holes in the box and I saw that it was damaged, but we were about to have a dinner so I took it inside," she tells Metro.

"We opened and I thought 'hang on a minute, this doesn't look right,' and suddenly live mice popped out. It was totally shocking."

Ms Kahraman - ironically, a customer services agent herself - bought the £47 table from a seller called forestfox-trading on Amazon Marketplace. When she first contacted the company, she says, it offered her a refund of just 50%, saying she could keep the table.

She wasn't happy with this, pointing out that the table was scratched and covered in mouse droppings - and that she now has four mice to care for.

She has now received the full refund she was after, plus a £60 voucher from Amazon.

Ms Kahraman says she now plans to keep the survivors as pets out of sympathy, although she's a little worried they may breed - and she's already had to fork out £51 on vets' bills.

The RSPCA advises against keeping wild animals as pets, and it has to be said that Ms Kahraman is unusual in deciding to make her new mice part of the family.

However, it's by no means unheard of for vermin to turn up in deliveries.

Just last week, we reported on how 19-year-old Beckie Richardson had a panic attack and collapsed, after discovering a live rat in a box of groceries from Tesco. The company claimed it probably hadn't come from the store.

This time last year, a mouse popped out of another Tesco delivery, this time in Clacton, and the store responded by sending round pest control. Meanwhile, spiders regularly turn up in packs of supermarket bananas.