Hamsters, that reminds me of a real problem, so it's not really a funny, but there you are, it happened and survival was important back then...
We had a power cut here once, so we boiled a kettle on a camping gas single ring, which had one of those small blue cylinders. I'd set it all up on the cooker as it was a safe place to work from.
When the lights came back on, after a few minutes, we heard this awful squealing, and still not knowing what was going on, I went into the kitchen and discovered the gas cylinder, on an electric ring, which I hadn't turned off during the power cut...
There was gas escaping everywhere, so I'm afraid I did what had to be done and thought of England, as the whole shebang could have blown the house up!
Still squealing with the escaping gas, I just had to pick the damned thing up and hope I could get it outside without hurting Mrs Growster, the whole house and eventually of course, me!
Did it though, and ran back in slamming the door, while it cooled down outside!
Still have the occasional nightmare about that particular incident...