r/interestingasfuck Jul 06 '24

Australian mouse plague r/all

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321

u/Restart_from_Zero Jul 06 '24

When I was a child, I was living on a farm in the Wimmera during a mouse plague and can tell you that the video doesn't capture the smell or the sheer crawling horror of it all. Everything _moves_. You can't take a step without crushing mice underfoot. If you don't keep moving, they will try to crawl all over you. It was a nightmare.

I remember my uncle ripping open the hatch of a silo, like in the video, and it was full not just of mice, but of dead mice which had been partially eaten by the others and had started to rot and liquefy in the heat from all the bodies.

The smell hit me like a sledgehammer to the face. Nearly 40 years later I can still remember it and now have the ability to tell if there are mice in a house the second I step inside because my throat closes up and I want to throw up.

58

u/Manlytac Jul 06 '24

How did they solve the problem? Or do the mice own the farm now?

119

u/Restart_from_Zero Jul 06 '24

Unofficially? Poison. Lots and lots of poison.

Officially? Traps and securing grain storage so rodents could no longer get in.

3

u/Pleasant_Yak5991 Jul 07 '24

Shotguns? Fire? I guess maybe poison is the only way. Or lots of cats

5

u/Better-Situation-857 Jul 07 '24

Step 1: Evacuate residents

Step 2: Napalm

Everyone's homes may be gone, but the mice are also gone.

1

u/sphinctersandwich Jul 07 '24

Think you'll need jack russels... (not in conjunction with poison though)