National Post (National Edition)
Why house mice should freak you out, at least a little bit.
Musophobes — people with a phobic fear of mice or rats — deserve more credit, and less ridicule.
So maybe I’m biased because I happen to be one of those people. So maybe the last time I drove two hours up to the cottage with my husband and kids, I turned around and drove two hours home upon the discovery of new mouse droppings in the cottage kitchen. (The rest of my family stayed up north and enjoyed a relaxing country weekend.) Well, so what? Two new studies of New York house mice confirm what we musophobes feel in our souls: mice are bad news!
Researchers found that the indoor New York City mice they looked at carried 35 different viruses, six of them never seen before. The urban rodents also carried bacteria that can lead to serious — and sometimes lifethreatening — gastroenteritis in humans, including C. difficile, E. coli, and salmonella. And as a special bonus, some of these bacteria appeared to be resistant to antibiotics.
I’m not trying to freak you out here. Well, OK, I am.
But that’s the point: mice should freak you out, at least a little bit, even if you don’t live in the Big Apple.
(If you’re planning to move there, you might want to a) reconsider, given that the lead author of the study noted that “from tiny studios to penthouse suites, New York City apartments are continually invaded by mice”; or b) at least avoid the Chelsea neighbourhood, where apparently the house mice are chunkier and carry more viruses.)
Here in Canada, we know that deer mice carry hantaviruses, which can cause Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a deadly disease in humans.
It’s too bad hantaviruses weren’t well known in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s day, because they’re the perfect infectious agents for a murder mystery. Hantaviruses can become aerosolized when mouse droppings are swept up with a broom, and then can hang around indoors for a few days at room temperature before an unwitting human inhales them.
Do you see what I’m saying?
Even just cleaning up after mice can get you killed.
And no one will have any idea who did it.
In Asia, Africa and Europe, hantaviruses spread by rodents cause potentially deadly Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome — something UN forces learned the hard way during the Korean War.
(Weirdly, there are no reports of humans being infected by hantaviruses in Australia — a continent where it seems like every other plant or animal is designed to kill you.)
I understand that it may be amusing to mock those of us who go pale and clammy at the sight of a rodent.
Or those of us who, say, lock our shaking selves in the bathroom and emerge from our fetal position in the bathtub only to peek with terror at the space between the bottom of the bathroom door and the floor. Theoretically speaking.
But you know what? Humans have a startle response for a reason, and in the case of mice, the hysteria is more defensible than generally acknowledged.
Even Walt Disney, who created one of the world’s most beloved cartoon characters in Mickey Mouse, has been rumoured to have suffered from musophobia.
That may not be true — several sources attribute Mickey’s creation to Disney’s appreciation for a friendly real-life mouse that he used to feed on his desk or drawing board.
Yet it’s easy to see how the urban legend has persisted. Mickey is so anthropomorphized. He walks instead of scuttling or scurrying. He doesn’t have a long slinky tail. His eyes aren’t beady. He never makes ominous scratching noises in your ceiling in the dead of night. And he speaks perfect English, instead of emitting creepy squeaks.
Mickey is exactly the kind of reassuring cartoon mouse someone who fears mice would design.
“Burn not your house to fright the mouse away,” goes an oft-quoted proverb. But seriously, if the mouse is terrorizing you and she’s just had a bunch of baby mice and they’re eating your clothes and crawling up your leg and you’re not that attached to the house anyway …
Just don’t rule out any options based on a pithy aphorism, that’s all I’m saying. Your health and sanity are too important. And that adage might have been coined by someone who has a nicer place than yours.
Ultimately, musophobes deserve a break because their phobia probably isn’t even their fault. They may have inherited their fearful response to rodents through their DNA, based on the experience of their ancestors.
At least, that’s what a number studies on lab mice have shown.
I guess every creature is good for something.