ysabetwordsmith | The Tidy Mouse

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

The Tidy Mouse

A man in Wales found his workbench inexplicably cleaned up overnight. So he set a camera to record it ...

... and found a mouse.

My first thought was, "World's best glamour, it even holds up on camera!"

Because Wales is home to faeries, and they're known for tidying. They're also known to disguise themselves as other critters, among which mice are a favorite. Admittedly, handling metal parts is somewhat less likely, but there are a few fey who can even handle cold iron.

Mice will gather food, or bedding, but they are messy and leave traces. They don't tend to meddle with things that aren't edible, gnawable, or shreddable. They mess things up rather than putting things away. I suppose it's theoretically possible for a mouse to behave in an unmouselike manner, but it seems a far stretch.

In a situation like that, turning a camera on the spot is damn risky. You might just get abandoned. You also might get hexed up one side and down the other. This guy was so, so lucky.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Either that or this one likes him too much to do either of those.

...

Either way, so damn lucky.

We're still here, bitches! xd

I saw this and was completely stunned. Last year when we had some work done, we had a couple of mice get in and no, they aren’t tidy; it’s how we found one of them as it had made a nest in a chair. (Though the other one obliged by getting into a tub of suet pellets for the birds and couldn’t get out 😂)

But yes, it is incredibly strange.

E.T.A

He’s filmed one before as well, in Bristol in ‘19. It was happening in a friend’s shed who asked him to set up a camera.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-bristol-47625284

Edited 2024-01-12 16:30 (UTC)

Even before I opened the cut to read the rest I was thinking "Ope, someone's attracted a brownie. Hope they know to leave an offering and how to avoid giving offence."

When I move to a new house I bake a loaf of bread, so the place smells like there's someone home. And then I put out a bowl of homemade bread with milk for the brownies. I left it outside the back door, and I think the raccoons ate it. No clue what the brownies are up to.I even once gave them some BROWNIES (the only psychoactive ingredient was chocolate). But they never tidy up my messes, or wash the dishes while I'm asleep. And they have never once finished a sewing project for me. (But they did leave the ribbon I bought draped over my boots, so I'd see how it would look once I glued it. I got a lot of compliments about my boots when I was visiting the relatives in upstate NY.)

Edited 2024-01-13 06:37 (UTC)

That is a good approach.

The house isn't really HOME to me until I make it smell of baking - bread, cookies, cake, pie, I bake. And they say to have a loaf of homemade bread baking when you're trying to sell your house (Or some recommend baking an apple pie - even a frozen pie from the supermarket will smell "homemade" when you bake it.)

I once had a mouse get into my house - my son had gone camping, and a mouse was inside one of the pipes that supported the tent. He stored the tent stuff on my porch, and the mouse got into the house. I got a humane trap and baited it with peanut butter. I took it outside and let the mouse go loose in a nice dense patch of weeds behind the VFW Hall. Another time a vole got in - my husband came home from work on a cold day, and as he opened the door I saw something dash between his feet and hide under the sofa. The mousetrap was too small for the vole, I bought a squirrel-size Havahart and used more peanut butter, and caught the vole. I took him outside also, and put him down near the seawall, because there's a lot of birds and chipmunks and stuff out there. Neither time was there any sign the animal was anything more than an ordinary rodent.

The ribbon on your boots sounds super cool.

I don't mess with the fae. I do believe there are things sharing the world with us we can't perceive readily, but I don't do anything to invite them into my spaces. As tempting as it is sometimes, I don't leave offerings, I don't decorate with fairy doors or otherwise make entrances into my metaphysical space that I can't watch over, and I wish them well at a distance.

However, growing up in an old 1800's farm house, we did have a being? spirit? something we called The House Monster. It was responsible for lost things (it took them) and returned things (thanks for giving that back!) and all the knocks and bumps inside the walls and floors. It started in that house, where we lived for about 10 years, but it then traveled with us to all our other homes (we moved a lot). After living in a space 1-2 months, the vibe would just change, and while I think a large part of that was just our general family energy, that shift was always closely followed by something going missing. So we knew that The House Monster had made the move too. We never perceived it as a negative force, just something you had to work around.

As an adult, living in my own home now, it of course has a different energy because it reflects the family I've made with Husbando, but there isn't a House Monster. The house itself has an energy, of course, and I've worked hard to bring its personality out, but currently I'm free of any other worldly beings I can perceive.

As my son grew up, I had to teach him what to do with the spirits he perceived very clearly. (I told him, "Don't piss them off. Treat them politely. Always ASK first.")He made the annoying ones leave, and tried to suck up to the useful ones.

The first house we owned, after our son was born, was an old carriage barn, and it was so steeped in local history it might as well have been showing documentary movies on its walls. It was generally good to us, and we were sorry to have to move (my husband's job). The next house was the one before the one we're in. It was a "tract house" from the 1950s, and I had grown up in a similar type of house, so I understood all the tricks it tried to play on us. And this place here is a vaguely "winterized" beach bungalow, and if I owned it instead of renting I'd upgrade a lot of it - buy higher amperage electrical service, replace the furnace with a split-cycle system to heat and cool as necessary, replace the insulation the raccoons removed, re-do the roof with solar panels (and sell power back to the grid) - maybe even install an elevator and perhaps even a "dumb-waiter". And I'd have the whole building lifted, which is very popular around here since Sandy, and many people make the ground floor a garage. (But a garage that's vulnerable to flooding is no use as a workshop.) Yeah, when I win the lotto.

Edited 2024-01-15 04:57 (UTC)

I was getting ready for a six-hour car trip to visit relatives 600 miles away, and last year we couldn't go because the highways were closed to remove abandoned cars so they could speed-plow it. I needed snow boots. I went to one of the discount shoe places and got a pair of plain black suede (outside) boots - they have a fleece lining,they're waterproof, and I can walk in them without falling down. I thought they were too plain, so I went to a fabric store that has a huge selection of decorative trim, and I got some that has a sort of a tapestry design in various colors. I also got two non-functional silver buckles, which I threaded on the ribbon. I glued the ribbon around the tops of the boots, with the buckles in front, and they're a whole lot more colorful than a pair of plain black boots would be.And in conjunction with the fleece-lined leggings I bought, my legs and feet were comfortably warm on the long car ride. So the house spirits, trying to be helpful, left the length of ribbon draped over the boots where I set them down in order to work on them. I saw how right my choice of ribbon was. - the slightly muted tapestry colors were bright enough against the black background. The lady I met in the truck stop restroom asked me where I got them, so I explained.

The boots really do sound lovely :-D

>>I can walk in them without falling down<<
This would be my favorite feature.

I had a pair of snow boots, in a men's size roughly equivalent to my womens' size, and when I fastened the velcro, I couldn't bend my ankle so my toes pointed at my knees. It was hard to go up and down even one step. So I just decided to add new boots to my list of fleece-lined leggings, winter jacket with a smooth lining that doesn't get stuck to my shirt sleeves, and warm socks. The decision to decorate them was pure whim. I had tried on the plain black ones to see how they fit. When they fit perfectly, I had to "personalize" them. But I know this one fabric shop - it's in an ethnic neighborhood, where the women sew their own mother-of-the-bride dresses. They have a huge array of trim, and fabrics I'd love to wear, except I'd look foolish in zebra stripes made out of silver and purple sequins. (If I knew someone who needed a figure-skating or gymnastics costume, I'd look through the pattern books and buy the fabric there.) And I chose a tapetry-like abstract pattern, in slightly muted colors (one of which is mauve) instead of the purple metallic braid I first picked out, which would have been too gaudy. (Not that I've ever let that stop me.)

>>Not that I've ever let that stop me.<<

Never, ever let that stop you!

I need new gloves. It's -10 with the windchill today and I own 0 pairs of gloves? Why am I like this, lol. Its because I hate gloves, and the way they mute touch and dexterity. But I imagine I'd hate frostbite even more, so when I'm grocery shopping today new gloves are a must. Maybe even 2 pair. Blargh.

A few years ago, during a cold snap, my nearest grocery store had a big cardboard bin (like they use for watermelons and pumpkins) full of winter gloves and hats right inside the front door. I found a hat that matched my fuzzy jacket, light lavender like the jacket but knitted with silver glitter yarn here and there. And I also got gloves that matched. Those are all stuffed into the pocket of my fuzzy jacket, but they'll also go with the new winter coat I got. I don't like wearing gloves either, but I lose dexterity when my fingers get cold. Maybe you can get a pair that has conductive fibers knitted into the fingertips, so you can use your phone's touch screen with your gloves on.

I have a tendency to wear inappropriately sparkly accessories in public - especially sparkly socks. Yes, part of me is six years old and has an overdeveloped sensawunda.

"Traces" is a polite word for what they've left in my apt.

Exactly! Mice leave a trail of various messes. They gnaw things. They knock things over. It is not what I would call subtle unless there is only one and it stays along the sidewalls. Even then, it's got a messy nest and food cache somewhere else. You are going to open a drawer or something someday and find that.

mercifully I haven't seen any in here for a long time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Tidy Mouse

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Yes ...

Re: Yes ...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Not that I've ever let that stop me.

Re: Not that I've ever let that stop me.

no subject

Yes ...

Re: Yes ...