There are millions of them.
They're destroying crops, gnawing their way through months of cafe and supermarket stocks, and inundating homes, hospitals and hotels right across inland eastern Australia.
Mice infestations are a natural occurrence in this country, but what we're experiencing right now is different and our country friends are not okay.
For those of us creeped out by one mouse (*shudders*), this is literally the stuff of nightmares.
Watch: This was filmed on a farm near Gilgandra. Post continues after video.
It's been described as a plague of "biblical proportions" or a "carpet" of mice. It's the worst infestation we've seen in Australia in decades - and it's been going on for almost a year.
They emerged after a bumper grain harvest and have been leaving a trail of destruction since July 2020 in some regions, with the recent deluges of rain sending them indoors in even larger numbers.
The smell is unbearable, they breed at unprecedented rates and locals are finding them in their beds and running through their walls and ceilings.
Mice start breeding at six weeks old and can have a litter every 21 days. Local media has crunched the numbers and calculated that a pair of mice can produce up to 500 offspring in a season. Terrifying.
A demand for rodent traps has seen stock practically fly off the shelves - with customers sharing photos of empty Bunnings stores across the NSW Central West, one of the hardest hit areas.
A grocer in Gulargambone told the ABC they were catching between 400-600 mice a night.
"It's been pretty terrible this past month or so. It's getting worse here. They are doing a lot of damage - we have thrown away around $20,000-$30,000 worth of stock so far," he said.
Hospital patients have been bitten while being treated for non-mouse related reasons and there's been one report of a rare mouse-related illness known as lymphocytic choriomeningitis [LCM].
There are also reports of people being bitten in their own beds at home, with The Quicky's Claire Murphy telling Mamamia's podcast Mamamia Out Loud, "I woke up with a start the other night... I woke up to something walking on my hand. So I did the big fling and I jumped out of bed... I can only presume it was a mouse."
One woman in Albury wrote on social media that it "looked like the ground was moving" under her headlights, as she drove up to her house.
Locals have reported finding poisoned mice in their water tanks leading to fears of contamination and disease, with NSW Farmers president James Jackson telling DW "the mice situation is only getting worse."
It's bad. Really bad. And locals have been calling on the state and federal governments for months to offer some kind of rebate to help them control the problem.
"The mouse plague crisis is escalating by the day currently, and is quickly moving from an economic disaster - hard enough to stomach for the producers who have started to emerge from years of drought - to a public health crisis in many rural and regional communities," wrote Country Women's Association (CWA) of NSW president Stephanie Stanhope for The Land.
"I am also forming an advisory committee to ensure everyone has access to expert advice – including the latest hot spots, health and food safety advice, information for vets and guidance for keeping children and animals safe," said Deputy Premier John Barilaro.
The NSW government has also flagged the use of the world’s strongest mouse poison, bromadiolone, which kills in under 24 hours and is yet to be approved. But experts have warned that the pesticide will also have deadly consequences for wild animals and domestic pets if they ingest it.
"Because it is highly palatable, it can cause primary poisoning to animals that eat the dead or dying rodents and has been known to cause problems in a range of animals including domestic dogs, native mammals such as possums, and wetland and sea birds," warns ecologist Dr Maggie Watson.
Locals don't think the government is doing enough, and it's too little too late.
As Trundle Central School principal John Southon told Today Show this week, more needs to be done than simply supplying poison. In just one night, he caught 80 mice in traps in a single classroom.
"Surely there must be something we can do to reduce the impact of this - if this type of infestation was at Bondi, we would have massive amounts of resources being put out to try to get rid of these things.
"They just sap away your self-confidence and the way you feel about yourself because it's just constant - every day."
Feature image: Twitter/@GetNewsd
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