HOUSE-PROUD MOUSE

Like a little helper from Bagpuss, it tidies up in dead of the night

IT SOUNDS just like a scene from children’s TV favourite Bagpuss.

A mouse secretly and busily tidies up in the middle of the night as the homeowners are fast asleep.

The activities of the mystery cleaner in Stephen Mckears’s shed left him mystified as he found bits and bobs from his workbench being put away.

They were ending up in an old ice cream tub which the retired electrician, 72, was using for peanuts to feed the birds.

Each night, he emptied the tub of the nuts, bolts, large screws and plastic leads, only to discover them all neatly put back by the morning. He was starting to question his sanity until he set up a trail camera – and was astonished to find that his little helper was a mouse.

The creature was seen on film, scurrying around picking up items in scenes reminiscent of the classic 1970s series Bagpuss in which mice (right) come to life and sing as they mend objects they find.

In Mr Mckears’s footage, the mouse dashes around the messy workbench, selecting items for his pot and even trying to lift some twice his size. Mr Mckears, of Severn Beach, South Gloucestershire, said: ‘ I’ve been calling him Brexit Mouse because he’s been stockpiling. ‘The heaviest thing was the plastic attachment at the end of a hosepipe and the chain of an electric drill. ‘One day I emptied the tub out and spread the contents on the side – and the next day they were all back in again. ‘I thought I was going mad.’ He enlisted the help of neighbour Rodney Holbrook, 70, a keen wildlife photographer, to set up the camera. Mr Holbrook said: ‘I’ve been calling him Metal Mickey but some people have been saying he’s just mouse proud.

‘We thought it was a ghost or something at first. I was quite amazed to see it chucking things into the box.’

The mouse emerges at around midnight and spends more than two hours on its nightly exertions. Mr Mckears, who has three daughters with his wife Sandra, said: ‘He must have to go for a sleep after it.’

And his little helper shows no sign of wanting to stop as the bits and bobs are still ending up tidied away.

Neat manoeuvre: The mouse, circled, grabs a metal plate in its mouth ... then hops over the worktop to the box ... before clambering up to pop the plate inside

Heavy lifting: It finds a nail almost as long as its body and hauls it over to the tub before stretching to drop it in (right)

Amazed: Mr Mckears with the tub