Mouse With OCD? Video Shows Rodent Cleaning Up Man's Shed

Wildlife photographer and retired postman Rodney Holbrook had been wondering who was moving the objects on his workbench every night. The Welsh man noticed how the bolts, nuts, and other small things on his desk would be arranged neatly inside a box. To find answers to this mystery he set up a night vision camera on his desk. When he reviewed the footage, Holbrook was pleasantly surprised to see that a mouse had been ‘tidying’ up his desk every night. Holbrook nicknamed the mouse, Welsh Tidy Mouse. Recently the 75-year-old shared the footage of mouse’s nightly cleaning with the media.

Talking about what prompted him to set up the camera, Holbrook 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."

The septuagenarian added, “I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the mouse was tidying up. 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."

On Monday, The Guardian posted a short clip that showed the mouse meticulously arranging Holbrook’s desk. This clip mustered over 13 lakh views within a day.

Commenting on it, a YouTube user wrote, “Maybe this could be a not-so-rare occurrence. It could be the source of those legends of elves who used to tidy people’s houses every night in exchange for something to eat." Another quipped, “This is the house spirit you need to appease with a saucer of milk and a slice of bread and in exchange they will clean up around the house in small ways."

Back in 2019, a similar incident occurred in Bristol. Steve Mckears, a 72-year-old man from Severn Beach, thought he was “going mad" when he kept noticing metal objects like screws in his box that stored his bird feed. Mckears and his neighbour set up a night vision camera near the box and they noticed that a mouse was routinely storing things in it.

Mckears told BBC that he was relieved to find that the mouse was displacing the things instead of a “poltergeist". He added, “I call it Brexit mouse because he is stockpiling for Brexit, but my friend calls him Metal Mickey."