Woman wakened in Premier Inn to find creature on her face wasn’t what she thought

A woman was left horrified after a mouse ran across her face while she slept at a Premier Inn.

Francesca Fattore was staying at the Eastbourne Polegate branch in East Sussex on October 10 for a work meeting when she was rudely awakened by the ‘hamster-sized’ rodent.

Initially, the 44-year-old thought it was her pet kitten, but quickly realised she was in a hotel room and began to panic. Shocking footage shows the mouse darting across her belongings before scurrying up the curtains.

In another video, the tiny creature is seen dashing down the hotel corridor after Francesca showed it the door. Despite the incident, which she shared on TikTok, Francesca says she isn’t deterred from staying at another Premier Inn, although she couldn’t sleep for the rest of her stay.

Premier Inn has apologised and offered her a refund. Francesca, from Reading in Berkshire, said: “I was asleep. At home I have two kittens and sometimes when they jump down from the headboard on my bed they jump on my head. I thought one of the kittens had done this and then I came too and realised I was in my hotel room.

“I then realised the feet that had ran across my head was not my cat. I could hear the rustling at first so I switched on the lights. At first I was freaked out because I didn’t know if it was a rat or not.

“I told myself it was a mouse and for some reason I thought I needed to get it on video. I calmed myself down and kept my distance. The more I started recording it, the more I saw the funny side to it. I thought the mouse was actually quite cute. It was the size of a small hamster.

“I wanted to get the mouse out and managed to get it out the doorway. When it went, I thought there was no point in moving rooms. I didn’t know where it went but that wasn’t my problem. I just wanted it out of my room. Even if I moved rooms I wasn’t going to sleep.”

“I was going to stay until the check out at 12pm but at 7:30am I got up, showered and got dressed and left.”

Following the incident, Francesca said she showed the hotel manager her video footage and was directed to put in a formal complaint online and has now been told she will receive a refund for her £73 night stay.

After sharing a post about her unexpected hotel visitor on TikTok, the video was viewed more than 200,000 times and received more than 150 comments.

A Premier Inn spokesperson said: “We’re really sorry Francesca didn’t get the great night’s sleep she deserved. As soon as our guest team saw her video on social media, they proactively reached out to apologise and refund the room to expediate a resolution – faster than they would have been able to reply to the complaint raised online.”