When retired postman Rodney Holbrook set up cameras to try to find out who was tidying his shed almost every night, he found an unexpected helper scurrying around his workbench.
The black-and-white, night-vision footage revealed that a tiny mouse was behind the mysterious tidying, helpfully moving objects left on the workbench into a box.
“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 to see what was going on,” Holbrook, who lives in Builth Wells, a small town in central Wales about 60 miles north of the capital city Cardiff, said in a statement.
Footage from that camera captured the mouse carrying objects like screwdrivers, clothes pegs or pieces of cable in its mouth and clambering into boxes almost as tall as itself.
“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,” Holbrook said. “I don’t bother to tidy up now, as I know he will see to it.”
Some objects seem easier for the miniature Marie Kondo to move than others; a long cable proved especially challenging to fit inside the box.
“It really was amazing to see the footage, some of the things that it tidies away are really unusual, I think he would tidy my wife away if I left her in there!” Holbrook said. “It’s happened practically every night now for two months.”
Remarkably, this isn’t the first time that Holbrook has encountered a house-proud mouse. He told the BBC that he installed a night-vision camera for a friend in 2019, which revealed another mouse keeping his friend’s shed organized.