That is a strange happening! I think there are other diseases that make rodents unafraid of predators - I think toxoplasmosis is one.

Here's my crazy story:

Years ago, my indoor, declawed cat brought me a baby possum in the middle of the night and dropped it on the bed. I initially thought it was an injured rat because of the way it moved so weirdly and I couldn't see it clearly in the dark. It wriggled across the blankets and disappeared under the bed with the cat following it, both running over my legs.

I was really tired. There was no way I was going to get up, turn on the lights and peer under the bed, which was full of storage boxes anyway, to look for what I thought was a rat, and perhaps have it run out at me. The cat was intently guarding too, so I thought, 'she's on it', and dozed off again.

The next thing that woke me was a scratching noise and I sat up to see something clinging to the window screen across the room, and the cat trying to get it and being very vocal about it. That's when I turned on the light and saw it was a baby possum, so I got some leather work gloves and a bucket, pried it off the screen and took it outside to let it go, the cat following and meowing the whole time.

Baby possums are kind of cute. I have no idea how the cat got it, but we have an attached garage, and a cat door because we kept the cat's litter box in there. All I could think was the baby possum somehow got in through a gap in the outside garage door.

P.S. The cat came to us totally declawed, both front and back. I would never do something so cruel to an animal. She managed very well with those tiny clawless paws

I lived in the mountains for a short period of time in my 20s. There were mice around but we never saw one in the house. One night I woke up to feel something small running across my foot (over the blankets), and my instinct was to kick upwards. I saw it fly through the air, backlit by the moonlight. A perfect little mouse shaped shadow careening through the room! It was so cute and funny that I couldn't be all that stressed out about it. I was young and not easily perturbed about these things, so instead of doing anything about it, I just fell back asleep. I wish I could sleep that good these days! So worry-free.

I still get creeped out thinking about this even though it occurred a long time ago. As grad students, DH and I lived in a townhouse with our 3 cats. One weekend I was dusting the dresser and picked up an item wondering what the heck is this? I opened it like a fan; it was a bat wing! I showed it to DH and he said he found it on the floor and threw it on the dresser because he thought it was a barrette. Thankfully the kitties never got sick. We never saw any other evidence of bat intrusions or what became of the other wing or the rest of the bat. Eww!

Dh & I sat watching the opening scene of a Batman movie, very dark in Gotham City...when a bat launched off the ceiling fan, flew through the room and I yelled "IT'S A BAT!" Hubby thought I was talking about the movie.....then started laughing...and laughing....he couldn't stop. The bat was flying low, like it was going to get stuck in my hair....I'd heard that could happen. Bats outside started making the radar squeal to it's pal....I opened several sliding glass doors....waving a broom at it. Husband still laughing.....he was NO help at ALL.....just laughing.....the bat flew out the door.

Nicole, yikes!!!

Once when a friend of mine was having flooring installed and the door was open a mouse got in the house and at first we were both jumping on the furniture and then we decided we needed to get it out alive so we chased it around and were trying to sweep it out with a broom. The mouse went rigid and the tail stuck straight out and it flopped over and we thought we killed it.

But it looked like it was breathing. So we actually got a spoon and put peanut butter on it and coaxed it out of the house.

So we went from being terrified of it to practically petting it on the head in under 5 minutes.

Well this isn't really all that funny, now that I think about it. Back when I was a tot, I was selling Girl Scout cookies. I had a pile in my room, awaiting delivery. One night, I heard a mouse in the drawer of my vanity (remember those?) It scrambled around for a while, then I thought it left. A few days later, there was an odor. Oh jeez, that mouse had died. I was certain I was in trouble, so I never said anything. The smell went away, and for years I never opened that drawer.

Fast forward to moving away from there. The time had come to open that drawer. I did gingerly, and there, in a box with manicure tools, was the wee tiny skeleton of a mouse. I got brave and dispatched it.

And no, the mouse didn't bother the cookies.

Carol & Seattle, you all have more guts than I do.

Mimou, a bat wing, really? That's super creepy. I wonder if one of the cats found the wing outside and brought it in for your pleasure. :)

Nicole I would have fainted.

This story is funny now like the other, but not so funny when it happened. During the night I went to the kitchen and thought I saw a mouse. I was able to kill it and for the life of me I have no idea how I did it.

The next morning the boys came to me asking if I'd seen their Gerbil. Oops. :)

Every time we open the umbrellas on our deck at our cabin the person opening them has to wear a hat. Took a few times of having one fall on my head but we learned that bats nap in the umbrellas.

This one flew away quickly.

My sister took a pet mouse for a drive once and it got into the dash and chewed up a bunch of wiring. Not that I blame the mouse for it, but whenever I think of that mouse I think about the scraped hands and torqued back and the joy of working under the dash. And whenever I find myself under the dashboard for something, I think about that dumb mouse.

Mice don't bother me at all. I'd rather they didn't co-inhabit my homes, but I'm not squeamish if I see one. Don't get me wrong though, I do set traps (and have a service contract with a pest control company) but they don't bother me if I see one. In fact, I had a small trap for chipmunks that caught a mouse. (It was a catch and release trap.) The mouse was quivering in a corner. I took it to the fenceline and opened the trap. Both of us were happy with the outcome,

We've also had the occasional bat in our cottage (but not recently.) It's not uncommon in early summer to find one errant one in the house. For us, it's the basement. After a moment of "oh, shoot, a bat!" I turn off the lights and open the door with the outside light on. The bat goes to the light. Problem solved.

I just thought of another one! The workers came to lay the wood floor which was on a slab and it needed to be glued down. I put my dog Gracie, a large and fast English Pointer in the bedroom for obvious reasons.

When I opened the door to the bedroom to check on the floor progress, Gracie ran out because she knew people were here. I said she was fast, remember? I ran after her, she saw the guys who had just spread a large amount of glue on the floor and there Gracie goes, sliding right through it like she was making a homerun. What.a.mess

Not too long ago I was visiting my elderly aunt and noticed a very small, two compartment plastic container on the top step of her front porch. It was to the side, out of the way. I mentioned it, and she told me she feeds a little mouse. She enjoys watching it come every day, coming through some narrow slats of the bottom rail of the railing.

My aunt remarked that it was getting fat - so fat that one day she chuckled as it started through the same slats as before but got stuck! lol A visiting repairman told her the mouse was probably pregnant and my aunt will be sorry when she sees a bevy of little mice coming for dinner, too.

I have so many stories of animal invasions. The latest was a slug climbing up the curtain in my den. I had to get a friend to bet rid of it. Slugs are more than I can bear.

I had bats hanging in the cupola of my garage. I really kind of liked them. Id see them swooping around at night. Fine as long as they stay out of the house.

Another time we had a raccoon living in the chimney, and another one in the garage. So gross. My husband and boys caught the one in the garage in a trash can and let it go in the woods.

The biggest mystery was a pile of bird seed in the middle of the living room. My cat would bring her trophies into the house sometimes. I honestly don’t think she could eat an entire bird, feathers and all, and leave it’s stomach contents in a neat pile on the floor. I will never know how that bird seed got there.

Mice. Eek.

Oh, my. These are some stories! I have a couple.

In summer camp, we put on a little show every week. The last show was a musical and took two weeks to practice. The year I was in it, the night of the show, we ran a little later and the bats in the rafters of the lodge woke up and started flying around! You can imagine all the age 8-17 girls and even their counselors jumping and squealing! We carried on with the show, but by the end we were all in tears!

Mice don't bother me either. We used to keep fancy ones for pets and I loved how they'd wash themselves like tiny cats on speed.

We don't have mice as pests here. We have RATS - which is a whole different thing ☹

Ded, mice like bird seed and they could have brought it inside. I kept a bag of seed on my garden stand on the front porch. It had two drawers and I never could use them because mice had made nests inside. We eventually got rid of the drawers.

We've spent several thousand dollars to fix almost new vehicles due to mice.

Bats! Our neighbors up the road had a couple on their deck roof. I've never seen one here.

I'll never forget the Mother's Day when this happened. The boys came over and they went fishing with DH. When they got home I greeted them at the back door that leads to the patio. There was a huge bull snake and DH picked it up as he always does (he got bit the last time he did that) and they put it in an ice chest and took it to the creek to set it free. I kept telling them a dead snake is a good snake.!

Boys left, and that afternoon DH and I saw 4 more snakes. I was washing dishes and saw one slither down the terrace to the patio. DH saw one up in the oak tree next to the house. Minutes later there was one coiled against the house.

Apparently this happened to a lot of people that day in OK, even those who live in the city.

A dead snake is a good snake.

I’m a grown up tomboy. I pick up and rescue taranrulas with my bare hands. Chase away too nosey coyotes, etc. Live mice don’t scare me, BUT for some unknown reason, dead mice freak me out! One Winter afternoon while DH was at the clinic and DD was away at college, our then Doberman came up to me while i was sitting on the family room sofa … and upchucked a dead mouse right at my feet!!! I totally freaked out and ran out of the room! Eventually, I was brave enough to put a bucket over it until DH got home and could clean it up.

He should have learned by now after all these years married to me, but just last month I accidentally grabbed, while cleaning out our garage upright freezer, two frozen dead mice in a plastic bag. He’d gotten them out of garage mouse traps and “didn't want them stinking up the trash until trash day“! I’m sure that every neighbor within a good mile heard me screaming!

About midnight (several years ago) I got up to go to the bathroom (in the dark) and saw something scurry across the floor. Good thing I was seated. I yelled loudly, several times for husband, (who was and had been asleep for hours, and trying to awaken him in the middle of the night is akin to awakening the dead) closed the door to the potty room and shoved a rug at the base.

Husband finally appears in all bleary eyed, assesses the situation and then wants to know what I expect him to do. Well DUH.

Me: "Get a mouse trap from the garage."

Him: “There are no mouse traps. I’m not going to look for one now. I’ll get it in the morning.”

"By morning there will be a 100 mice in there, you’ve got to set it NOW. OR at least some duct tape to seal up the cracks around the door!"

He stands guard outside the bathroom door, (less than pleased) while I go search for a mouse trap. I find one, bait it and take it to him.

He gets it set, I open the door and he says, “It’s not a mouse, it’s a RA-bbiT.”

All I hear is “RA—T” WHAT?? A RAT???“

“NO It’s a baby bunny!”

Amazing how your whole attitude changes from a being freaked out to “awwww it’s a cute little bunny.”IN MY HOUSE no less. AT MIDNIGHT. He hands me a towel to I chase it around the toilet, it runs out and into the shower. I am standing about 1/2 way in the door way of the shower, not real sure if I want to get in there or not. I still wasn't positive it was a bunny. Husband pushes me inside the shower and shuts the door behind me.

I finally caught it and took it outside and turned it loose. No idea how it got inside OR how long it had been in there! The dog feeding station is in the bathroom, and I had noticed pieces of dog food in various areas of the room. I thought the dogs were scattering it. Nope.

Oh and our ever vigilant wiener dogs? Those vicious, fearless, badger hunting dogs? They slept through the whole thing. They’re an embarrassment to their species!

They probably let it in to begin with.

Great stories! One day a few years ago I was visiting my parents and we were sitting outside on their patio. My dad had just come outside after going in for something, and I decided to go back in for a refill on my water. I walked into the kitchen and there was a mallard duck! It hadn't been there just minutes before when my dad was inside. It must have flown in when he came out or I went in - we never did figure it out. After a bit of a chase, I managed to pick it up and take it outside. After wrangling cats, many feral, for years, a duck was nothing!

Pudgeder, I know how that bunny got inside. Same way I found a big toad in my bedroom today! Because it's hot outside the toads like to line up at the back door to feel the cool air because DH and dogs are in and out in and out all day long, and I've told him to look before he opens the door so a toad won't come in. He obviously didn't. Of course I had to scream for him to come get it.

My cat catches baby bunnies, eats their head and leaves its body on the porch. Does the same with mice. Only heads mind you.

Oh my cats are always bringing me "presents", so proud of themselves, also sans heads. ugh.

One time Peach was intrigued by something in the privet hedge. Suddenly he lunged and came up with a garter snake in his mouth! I couldn't believe it. I yelled at him to drop it, drop it. Which he did, but as it scurried off he caught it again.

This time when I chased him down and he dropped it, I carefully got the snake to coil onto a stick, and I took it far away to the edge of the property where it slithered away. There was a small wound on its body, I can only hope it recovered from the bite and lived another day.

Bluebell-- A DUCK??!?!?!?!!!!!!

Schoolhouse, when we lived in the middle of nowhere, we allowed one of our cats to be outside during the day. She would always bring home garter snakes and deposit them on our back door mat. (Sorry, not sure why this is upside down.)