A new gîte in Nantes offers guests the chance to live as a rodent for the night - complete with fur costumes and a romantic hamster wheel for two

Were Franz Kafka alive today - and were he to have developed an uncharacteristic interest in European city breaks - it would be interesting to know what he made of the latest addition to France's panoply of weekend getaway options.

For while there are no gigantic insects lurking in the corners of Nantes' newest urban bolthole - and, one would hope, no more than the standard quotient of existential angst - the writer might have appreciated the gite's raison d'être: metamorphosis, of a sort.

Tucked away down an unremarkable side-street near the centre of the western French city, the Villa Hamster offers guests the "unique" opportunity to leave their species at the door and live the life of a rodent. Urging those curious to enter into its "poetic" world of woodchippings and fur costumes, its website asks: "Is it possible to put myself in the place of my hamster?"

Lost in translation? ... Villa Hamster's human wheel. Photograph: Cedric Chasse

A compact space of 18m2 in a building dating back to the 1700s, the unusual rental home has been deliberately designed to evoke a hamster's cage. It boasts such authentic facilities as containers of organic grain, a water tube which guests can sip, and a double bed accessible only by a step ladder and a quick scramble on all fours. The pièce de résistance is a 2m-wide metal wheel in which both residents, if they wish, can take a turn side-by-side.

So where did the idea come from? Yann Falquerho, the 42-year-old scenographer who lets the property through his quirky urban gîte company, Un Coin Chez Soi, told me that he and Frédéric Tabary, the interior designer with whom he works, had wanted to find something that was simply "very funny".

"We wanted to create a place that was a real gîte - a place where you could sleep and be comfortable - but also where you could have a real experience," he explained. "We wanted it to be eccentric and we decided that the funniest experience would be to become an animal."

Tabary, 41, was marginally more reflective. In comments to the French media, he said he "wanted people to chill out and smile in a society which is nowadays completely paralysed and formatted".

Whatever their intentions, they seem to be doing something right. Since opening a fortnight ago, the Villa has been submerged with requests for visits from both inquisitive media and paying guests. But at the moment most people are choosing to keep their hamster transformation to a Saturday night-only experience, often as a present to a friend or partner.

Falquerho, who is raising the rate from €99 (£88) for bookings made this year to €150 euros in 2010, insists his creation is suitable for longer stays. "It's not just a toy. It's a place you can really be comfortable in," he said, adding that the shower, kitchen area and soon-to-arrive WiFi were all standard gîte facilities.

Though their homeland of western France has brought them success, the Nantais duo now has its eyes on projects further afield. They are scouting for properties in Paris and in London, hopeful that their quirky spirit will appeal across the Channel. A UK version of the hamster experience could be in the pipeline, said Falquerho, or even the company's boldest creation to date: an apartment which aims to take occupants "back to their origins".

"By that we mean their mother's womb," he explained. "There will be lots of light and sound to make you feel as though you are in a uterus." Suddenly the Villa Hamster seems perfectly orthodox.

• La Villa Hamster, €99 a night.