Australia has a massive mouse problem — and one woman found herself the victim of a mouse attack when she woke up to discover a rodent gnawing at her eyeball.
via The Sun:
The woman was rushed to hospital after waking up horrified last week – as tens of millions of rampaging mice torment communities across the country.
She is one of many victims of the outbreak, being described as the worst in more than 30 years, The Times reports.
Another farmer was fast asleep when he felt something small scuttling across his face.
Mick Harris, who lives in Narromine, about 250 miles inland from Sydney, said: “I felt a tickly, furry sensation as it crawled from behind my ear across my cheek.
“It made my skin crawl. My hair stood up and I jumped out of bed.
“For the rest of the night I didn’t sleep a wink — until I caught the mouse in a trap under the bed.”
And his wife experienced a similar horror weeks earlier when she felt something nibbling her wedding ring finger while she slept.
Mick, 35, added: “She was horrified. We’ve got two young kids.
“It does make you worry that when they wake up crying it’s because they have a mouse in their bed.”
There have been calls for the mouse plague to be declared a “natural disaster” so frustrated Aussies can claim insurance payouts after a house was torched, cars were destroyed and crops left decimated.
Horrific outbreaks stretch 1,000km from Brisbane to Melbourne and have been wreaking havoc for farming communities for nearly a year.
As the Australian winter sets in, home and car owners have been forced to deal with rats and mice looking for warmer places to live.
The rodents have eaten through electrical wires which sparked a house fire in Narrabri, New South Wales, while cars have been damaged.
Mum-of-three Shirilee Jackson, 31, who lives in Mandagery, NSW, said a swarm of rats and mice left her car damaged beyond repair in just one night.
She told A Current Affair: “Ten grand’s (£5,474) worth of damage. I’ve woken up at five o’clock in the morning to find the seatbelts chewed, the heater unit, flooring, head rest, and child’s car seat chewed.
“It’s just unreal, in a matter of 10 hours.”
Mrs Jackson said she has insurance and tried to make a claim but was told she wasn’t able to.
Major insurance companies in Australia have told customers that general home and contents insurance and car insurance does not protect against rats and mice unless there are other effects, such as a fire or floods.
Andrew McKenzie, a mechanic in Orange, NSW, said the damage caused by the infestation of rodents was getting worse and he’s “now getting up to four cars a day”.
He said one driver he spoke to had his brakes fail at a dangerous intersection, while another motorist said her car nearly burst into flames.
Mr Mckenzie said: “The rats had built a nest under the engine cover and chewed through the fuel line and made it leak fuel everywhere.”
Rural areas are having their livelihoods threatened by the infestation
People are resorting to putting the legs of their beds and tables in buckets of water to prevent mice crawling up them.
And one farmer – Anne Cullen in Coonamble, NSW – has found herself killing 50 mice a day by hand as they take over her home and hay stores.
She told The Times: “The first time I had to pick a mouse out of the pool and smash it on the cement to kill it, I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I can’t do this.’ But then I was doing 50 a day.”
Between the rat infestations and the thousands of spiders — you won’t catch us in Australia ANYtime soon.
