After retiring from his position as a postman, Rodney Holbrook occupies his time with various hobbies. He is an avid wildlife photographer who enjoys tinkering around in his shed. Rodney noticed that things would be “tidied up” on his workbench each morning. Wondering about his mysterious cleaning elf, Rodney set up a night vision camera to see who was moving things on his workbench.
What the camera captured amazed Rodney. His little cleaning “elf” was actually just a tidy little mouse! Watching the video, he stared in wonder as the tiny mouse picked up corks, sticks, and various other items and neatly placed them in a small box on the benchtop. It seemed that nothing was too large for the little fellow to wrestle.
This is not the first time an industrious little mouse has undertaken cleaning duties in a shed. In 2019, Stephen McKears from Gloucestershire also had a tidy visitor in his shed. The phenomenon might be attributed to instinctual drive within the animal kingdom. Other species also partake in this “tidying” behavior.
This Tiny Mouse Tidying A Shed Isn’t Alone
Birds frequently clean their nests of egg remains, feces, and uneaten food. Experts suspect this behavior may be to remove odors that may attract predators. When ants die in their nest, the other ants promptly remove the corpse. Naked mole rats are so fastidious that they actually incorporate a chamber pot of sorts into their burrow. When the chamber is full, it is sealed, and a new one is dug.
I’m here to tell you… I have a two-and-a-half car garage, and I could certainly use a fleet of these industrious little critters! Please, come and clean up after me! I’m a horribly messy crafter! If you enjoyed reading about this happy little mouse tidying a shed, please share this with a friend. I’m going to see if they sell cleaning mice at the pet store…
You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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