Read at 3 different speeds

Mouse cleans man’s shed - 26th January 2024

This mouse is putting things in a box. It’s cleaning someone’s work space. This is Rodney Holbrook’s shed. Holbrook had nuts in his shed. Someone was taking them.

Rodney Holbrook: “I noticed the nuts that was in the box that I had in there had suddenly disappeared. And I thought well I haven’t used them to feed the birds. So I thought I’ll put some nuts back in again. Next morning, the nuts were gone again. Strange. Someone’s pinching the peanuts.”

Holbrook takes photos of animals. His camera can take pictures in the dark. He put the camera in his shed.

Rodney Holbrook: “When I looked at the uh– at the videos I captured, I thought that is amazing. Even though I’d seen it before, similar to it in uh, in uh, 2019. I could not believe this is happening again. I really could not. It was amazing.”

Holbrook lives in Wales. But he saw this situation before. A different mouse cleaned a different shed in England. Holbrook calls the new mouse ‘The Welsh Tidy Mouse’.

The Welsh Tidy Mouse cleans every night. It puts things in Holbrook’s peanut box. But why does it do this? Holbrook has an idea. The mouse doesn’t want other mice to take the nuts. It’s hiding the nuts.

Rodney Holbrook: “It’s picking up all the items on the deh- on the uh, on the uh top there, to hide the nuts. Hide the peanuts. I think it’s, it’s actually just hiding them from any other mice. So he, he’s kinda saying that’s mine peanuts. So you’re not– no one else is having them.”

Now, the tidy mouse is in the news. The video made Holbrook famous for five minutes. And the tidy mouse doesn’t work for free. Holbrook pays it in peanuts.

Rodney Holbrook: “It’s a bit of a joke to say this, but I pay him peanuts. Which ain’t a lot. But I pay him peanuts.”