Top 10 Gnarly InfestationsBy Robert Lamb, HowStuffWorks.com
 If you're like many people, you probably have a nice little slice of the world set aside for yourself: a place to raise a family or maybe just settle back and watch a good movie. But the world outside your painted walls and sturdy floors crawls with strange and ravenous life-forms. Legions of multi-legged horrors swarm through savage jungles. Nightmarish creatures sift through the seafloor murk. Even amid orderly human cities, shadows hide the shrieking of furry beastly multitudes. Homes across the planet experience a host of dreadful and bizarre infestations. Are you brave enough to peek outside your comfort zone and experience them for yourself? 10. PLAGUE OF MICE: If you think that a few rodent droppings are the signs of a mouse problem, then you really should step out of your pampered little bubble and experience the great mice plagues of Australia. Imagine opening a barn door and unleashing a vomit like torrent of squeaking, scurrying rodents. As the flood spreads out like a living carpet, you might try to flee to safety -- only to feel the crunch and burst of tiny bodies underneath each footfall. Mouse plagues occur roughly every three years in Australia, rampaging through grain-growing regions and causing upward of $150 million in damage. They'll also cascade through barns and homes if they gain access. These regular population booms hinge on the fact that the common field mouse can breed multiple times in a season and as soon as six weeks after birth. In fact, a single pair of mice can produce 500 offspring in just 21 weeks. We're talking roughly a thousand mice for every 2.5 acres of land. Farmers do everything in their power to combat these vermin hordes, pulling out dangerous chemicals and even flamethrowers. The resulting body counts are often staggering. One Australian village reportedly killed 544 tons of mice in just five months. |
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