I just cleaned my mouse for the umpteenth time a few minutes ago, and thought I might share my little living tip.

It wasn't too long ago when I first realized that mice attract shite from fingers and accumulate. I tried to ignore the grime at first, then gave up and used my fingernails to scrub off little bit by little bit. Occasionally I'd use a piece of tissue, and that process repeated for a few years (the results were subpar at best). Then I discovered the magic of isopropyl alcohol, or more precisely, isopropyl alcohol swabs (they're also called alcohol pads or wipes).

Like these: http://www.drugstore.com/curad-alcohol-swabs/qxp37586

They're under 2 cents apiece when you buy a box, and unlike disinfectant wipes, you don't get toxic chemicals into your bloodstream by using them. It's so quick and easy to clean my mouse now, the experience is actually enjoyable. It's like magic, how good a previously shitty-feeling mouse can feel like after a few seconds of cleaning.

The last couple years, I've always kept small stacks in various places around the house for easy reach and continue to use them to get grime off eyeglass frames, screen protectors, e-cigarette cartridges, dirty toenails, belly buttons..... :) Not to mention effectively disinfecting dirty little smudges left from killing dirty little creepers like roaches and camel crickets. They also came in handy when my toddler was a newborn and I couldn't get myself to put water in her ears for cleaning.

Some side info:
- A cheaper and very similar method is to wet a tissue or napkin with the isopropyl alcohol most homes keep a bottle of, but you have to be a bit more vigilant about not getting any of it into electronic devices.
- High-proof alcohol beverages like Bacardi 151 or Everclear can also do the trick, but beware of additives that make up the remaining 25% or so.
- Isopropyl alcohol can come with 90%+ purity, but the more common 70% or even 50% ones should do fine in most cases.
- Don't clean your eyes or nostrils with this stuff, you'll thank me later.

(It's okay to take my recommendations with a grain of salt. The LoL friend I taught how to make a lazy-man's version of chicken soup to erased me from his friends list. Not so tough for a self-proclaimed "descendant of the Vikings", he was.)

EDIT: below

TL;DR
Alcohol is cheap and trumps water as a solvent.

Oh! That kind of mice ;)

Nice tips overall though. Thanks.

Throw it into the acid?

Yeah, I'm the one needing a tip for the other kind of mice. :) ....Ow?

Well - if my mouse accumulates grime, I just snip it off with a fingernail. The only area where the dirt is giving me trouble is inside the mouse wheel mechanism, where alcohol swabs wouldn't help either.

You keep mice in your B&B and you're wondering why the business is going badly lately? ;p edit: lol, i'm stupid. btw I destroyed every wheel in every mouse I got :(

Dunno. If so, and if you happen to end up in Germany in the 80s, would you be so kind and grab me some packs of these extra hot potato chips that we had back then? They don't make them like this any more, probably the federal health agency intervened.

But why? ;)

Secret: buy a more expensive mouse that has one of those turbo on/off mechanism. You press a button and the wheel has no resistance so it can spin really fast and I think they are made of metal too, they don't feel as plastic as on cheap computer mice.

Anyway, I do the same as Psyringe. What bothers me however is the dust and grime that attracts on the my mouse pad. For some reason it likes to stick together but it's really easy to clean so I guess it's not a problem at all. :P

And, by happenstance, in Swedish, our word for mouse is used the same way as another word for cat (the "p" one) is used in English. Germ infested such are arguably a greater problem than regarding the computer peripheral.

Actually in the north woods that is kind of unavoidable along with the occasional bat chipmunk and frog. However there are NO roaches or rats and the bears tend to stay in the back yard...most of the time.

I blacked out for a second and mistaken mouse wheel for mouse roll :P

http://www.letsplaygames.pl/allegro/Myszka%20kulkowa%20Microsoft%20Serial%20Mouse%202.1A%20COM/DSC04230.JPG

Interesting. Even though I didn't write it, I was thinking about mouse rolls the entire time while I wrote my post (because I thought, for _those_ a good cleaning mechanism would have been handy). Any known cases of telepathy in your family? ;)

They still make those?!!

According to the shop catalogs yes, but I haven't seen one in the wild for many years.