Elong Elong resident Louise Hennessy is warning people to check rainwater tanks for mice after she found a bunch of the dead rodents in hers on Thursday evening.
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She contacted health authorities for advice on steps to take in response to contamination concerns and is urging people in a similar situation to do the same.
Ms Hennessy, who works at Dubbo, posted to social media about finding the unwanted deposit in the tank filter after Thursday's 25mm of rain.
Her post, with photo of the dead mice, was shared more than 2000 times in 12 hours as people heeded her appeal to spread the message.
Ms Hennessy said she had only checked her rainwater tanks a week ago, at which time she'd removed handfuls of mouse fur clumped together.
Ms Hennessy told the Daily Liberal on Friday she came home on Thursday afternoon and saw that one of her rainwater tanks was overflowing and it shouldn't have been, so she investigated.
"When I went up I saw there were mice blocking it, so then I went back down in the rain and got my camera out, my phone out, I took the photo," she said.
Ms Hennessy said she was concerned people were not aware.
"So I thought if they see this they'll start to check and look at what's happening and get that information out there, bring attention to the mouse plague and possibly get more info there to help people," she said.
"I put it on my personal Facebook page and I made it public so people could share it, my idea was to let people know, to share it.
"And I think every second person has put one of those little emojis that have got the green person vomiting, but people have shared it to everyone they know with a water tank.
"So then I put it on the One Day Closer To Rain site...
"Within 12 hours I have over 2000 shares - so that's not likes, [it's] people are sharing it, which is just perfect, isn't it, and everyone's asking each other to look in their tanks.
"So, what a great outcome."
The resident of Elong Elong, 45km from Dubbo, wants people to take action if they also find dead rodents.
Ms Hennessy said on Friday morning she had rung NSW Health's public health unit and asked for some advice on what they should do.
She said she'd been sent information on how to disinfect.
"So the second part is a message to people they need to do something, that if they feel their tanks are contaminated, they do need to do something," she said.
"We will have to do something, definitely, we do filter our drinking water... but we're still not happy with that, so we'll disinfect using what they recommend on their site."
Agronomists and farmers reported of rising numbers of mice from spring last year, and the rodents were also being seen within the city of Dubbo.
Ms Hennessy says they have "definitely got a mice plague around our house and in our fields".
"I felt it was just starting to drop a week ago, and now it's just blossomed, so I think I had a honeymoon period a week ago, and now I have lots more," she said.
I did feel like it was getting better, and some people on Facebook said the same, that they thought it was better and now it's just got worse.
- Louise Hennessy
"I did feel like it was getting better, and some people on Facebook said the same, that they thought it was better and now it's just got worse.
"I travel the Golden Highway to Dubbo for work every day, and dead mice on the ground...
"It peters off, you can see where it almost stops, that it doesn't actually go up Mugga Hill at all, it's not anywhere near that last strip towards Dubbo."
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