Mouse secretly filmed tidying man’s shed every night

[Introversion]

I’ve been making a big mistake in keeping mice out of the house, clearly!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/07/mouse-secretly-filmed-tidying-mans-shed-every-night

A mouse has been filmed secretly tidying up a man’s shed almost every night for two months.

Wildlife photographer Rodney Holbrook noticed that objects he left out of place were being mysteriously put back where they belonged overnight.

Holbrook, from Builth Wells in Powys, Wales, set up a night vision camera on his workbench to find out what was happening, and captured footage reminiscent of the 2007 animated movie Ratatouille, where a rodent secretly cooks at a restaurant.

Holbrook, 75, told the BBC: “It has been going on for months. I call him Welsh Tidy Mouse. At first, I noticed that some food that I was putting out for the birds was ending up in some old shoes I was storing in the shed, so I set up a camera.”

Night vision footage showed the seemingly conscientious rodent gathering clothes pegs, corks, nuts and bolts, and placing them in a tray on Holbrook’s workbench.

Holbrook even experimented with leaving out different objects to see if the mouse could lift them, but the creature was undeterred and was even seen carrying cable ties to the pot.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the mouse was tidying up,” Holbrook said.

“He moved all sorts of things into the box, bits of plastic, nuts and bolts. I don’t bother to tidy up now, as I know he will see to it. I leave things out of the box and they put it back in its place by the morning. Ninety-nine times out of 100 the mouse will tidy up throughout the night.”

 

[Introversion]

Ah, I missed pdblake’s post of this. Mods, please delete / merge / lock / whatever this thread?

 

[SWest]

In the meantime...

When we moved into our next-to-last house, there was a wee mouse. Every night, she would wait for us to go to bed, turn out the lights...

...then she would climb up the covers and curl up on my feet to sleep. Like some sort of microscopic cat, or something.

After four months of trying all sorts of things, I did manage to trick and trap her. We kept her as a pet for the next three years, which seemed to me an unprecedented age for Mus Musculus. Spaghetti was her favorite food.