'You can't escape the smell': mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia
Written by Matilda Boseley
Locals who have endured months of mice and rats getting into their houses, stores and cars are praying heavy rain will help wipe them out
Warning: graphic images may disturb some readers
Drought, fire, the Covid-19 pestilence and an all-consuming plague of mice. Rural New South Wales has faced just about every biblical challenge nature has to offer in the last few years, but now it is praying for another – an almighty flood to drown the mice in their burrows and cleanse the blighted land of the rodents. Or some very heavy rain, at least.
It seems everyone in the rural towns of north-west NSW and southern Queensland has their own mouse war story. In posts online, they detail waking up to mouse droppings on their pillows or watching the ground move at night as hundreds of thousands of rodents flee from torchlight beams.
Kaza from Dubbo says she has 14 traps at home but that still isn’t enough to curb the mouse infestation. She went to buy more but the store are all sold out. #mouseplague @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/EawXoD5Zrg
Related: Three hospital patients bitten as mouse plague sweeps western NSW
Related: Are poison-packed drones the answer to eastern Australia's mouse plague?
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