A hamster destroyed a home which led to the death of pets (Picture: Getty)

A mother and son have been left homeless after a terrifying fire – started by their pet hamster.

Tracey Hill had moved Pebbles into the kitchen for the night as he was making too much noise at her home in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire.

They put the restless rodent’s cage on top of their electric cooker to keep him out of reach of their three dogs on October 30.

But he continued to run on his wheel and the cage inched towards the buttons of the hob and somehow turned on one of the rings.


The cage caught fire, killing Pebbles, two of the dogs and a chinchilla – and sending Tracey and her son Kae, 13, fleeing in their night clothes.



The couple were saved thanks to a smoke alarm which woke them at 4.30am.

But their two-storey semi suffered £20,000 damage – 25 per cent of it from fire and 75 per cent damaged from heat and smoke.

Tracey, 40, said: ‘I can’t believe we’ve lost everything because of our pet hamster.

‘I must have put Pebbles on top of the cooker a dozen times before when she was noisy at night. I never realised the switch could be turned on so easily.’

She added: ‘We are heartbroken to lose four of our pets. And we’ve also lost all of our possessions. We literally have just the nightclothes we were wearing.

‘But at least my son and I are still alive. We could easily have been killed.’