Homes in Llanfair Caereinion were left without internet after pesky mice chewed through vital broadband cables.

Rodents in the Powys town caused several houses to be left without internet for the day on Tuesday (May 14), while engineers were dispatched to repair cables which had been chewed through by a group of mice.

Several residents in Llanfair Caereinion took to social media to report that they had been left without broadband on Tuesday, May 14, with some baffled over the cause.

Several residents posted to local community group pages to ask if the issue was affecting anyone else, only for dozens of comments to confirm that multiple houses in the town had also been left without internet access.

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Some speculated that the outage was the result of heavy rain over the weekend, leading to connection issues or damaging the network in some way.

However, in a statement after being approached by the County Times, broadband infrastructure company Openreach confirmed that it was a much smaller culprit that was behind the outage.

According to the provider, several mice had found their way into a roadside fibre cabinet and chewed through the cables, cutting off the internet and phone lines for a section of the town.

A spokesperson for Openreach said: “Our engineers have been working on a roadside cabinet serving properties in Llanfair Caereinion after mice managed to work their way inside and chew some of our cables.

“We’re sorry that this has slowed down some residents’ broadband services and we want to thank people for their patience while our engineers repair the damage."

One commenter also noted that Openreach engineers had been spotted a team of engineers from Openreach working at a roadside cabinet near the cemetery on Watergate Street.

Openreach also confirmed that they are hoping to repair the damage before the end of the day and were safe proofing the cabinet to prevent any similar incidents of mice-related sabotage from happening.

Their spokesperson added: “We’re working to prevent any further visits from our furry friends and expect to restore a full service to all affected customers by the end of today.”