A dad who ordered a pair of designer trainers from Amazon got a nasty surprise when he found two dead mice in the box.
Paul Payne, 44, ordered the £69 Boss sneakers to wear at his delayed work Christmas drinks last week.
He was away on a fishing trip when the parcel arrived, so it sat in his hall for two days before he could open it.
Paul, who runs a photo-booth business, said: “When I got back I took the box straight upstairs because I wanted to see what they were like and try them on – I was excited.
“But the second I opened the Amazon box and pulled the first piece of packaging away I could see what I thought were droppings.”
He added: “I’ve started to feel sick just thinking about it.
“I pulled one shoe out and saw one of the mice in the box at the bottom with loads of urine and droppings everywhere and bits of paper. It stunk - the smell was just disgusting. It was like a dirty alleyway or something.
“I picked the other shoe up and as I did this other mouse fell out, dead.”
Paul, who shared photos of his grim discovery, found what he claims could be teeth marks around an air hole on the top of the shoebox and he believes this is where the rodents squeezed in.
He also reckons the creatures may still have been alive when the package arrived as he poked their bodies with a stick and found they were “quite soft”. The dad of two said: “I’ve never seen mice in my home all the time I’ve lived here. I’m convinced they were in the package when it was delivered.”
Paul, of Bromley, South East London, thinks the critters might have crawled into the box for warmth or because the packaging made suitable nesting material. He said he
got on the phone to Amazon “straight away” after finding the mice and was offered a refund.
But he was not satisfied and felt more needed to be done.
Paul, who is father to Ellie Rose, 20 and 11-year-old Beau, added: “I said to the lady that I appreciated her refund but this is not acceptable.
“What has happened, it’s disgusting – what if it had happened to an older person or someone with young kids?
“What if I had opened that parcel earlier and the mice was alive and it had run out.
“The scenarios are just grim.”
It is understood Amazon has also issued Paul with a further £75 gift card as a gesture of goodwill.
The firm said: “We have apologised to the customer and we are working directly with them to make things right.”
