A wildlife photographer in the UK noticed his shed was being cleaned by mysterious forces of tidiness in the night. So he left out cameras to catch the cleaning culprit, and discovered his shed was being tidied by none other than a mouse.
As anyone living with roommates — or children/boyfriends — knows all too well, they rarely clean up after themselves.
Jane Austen said it best when she wrote: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that the mess of an entire house typically becomes the burden of one tireless roommate.”
She truly was ahead of her time.
And if you are reading that and thinking, “Well my house isn’t that messy?” Then newsflash: you’re the problem.
However, in the case of Rodney Holbrook‘s home, the question of who to give credit for cleaning to was a trickier puzzle.
The 74-year-old Welshman said he observed the shed being tidied by an unknown force for two months, with objects he misplaced overnight being put in their correct position by the time he woke up.
He then decided to put his professional talents as a wildlife photographer to use, and set up night-vision cameras to capture the cleaner.
“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,” he stated.
To Holbrook’s amazement when he checked the footage he discovered that a mouse — since christened “Welsh Tidy Mouse” — was conducting the chores overnight.
In the footage Welsh Tidy Mouse would pick up various little pegs, nuts and bolts, plus other small items, and then return them to a tray on Holbrook’s workbench.
@zac_hairpunching Mouse tidying up mens shed. Welsh Tidy Mouse. 😁🏴 Caught on hidden camera. . . . #mouse #mousetok #cleaning #caughtoncamera #caughtout #caughtintheact #caughtredhanded #hiddencamera #secretcamera #animal #animals #animalsoftiktok #animalworld #ratatouille #wales #fyp #foryou #fypシ ♬ Originalton – 🎵SOUL & RNB DANILO_87🎵
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw that the mouse was tidying up,” shared Holbrook.
“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.”
When asked for why he believed the mouse was helping out with the housework Holbrook answered: “I think it’s possible that they enjoy it.”
The owner of the shed also conducted various experiments to test the extent to which the mouse would clean, leaving out bigger items and cable ties to see what Welsh Tidy Mouse would do.
And without fail, the mouse consistently brought everything to the allocated tray overnight — not even requesting a tip for its troubles.
In bad news for the rest of the world, the Welsh Tidy Mouse cleaning service is not taking applications for additional customers at the current moment.
So apologies to anyone who wanted an adorable animal cleaning companion, looks like you’ll just have to set up that roommate chore roster like the rest of us.