The Feeble Mighty Mouse

First, let me say that this mouse is addictive. I first started using one at work in February and I quickly fell in love with the 360-degree Scroll Ball with adjustable scrolling. Whenever I used a machine without a Mighty Mouse (i.e. my PowerPC G5 iMac at home), I was jonesing for finger tip scrolling. After a couple of months, I bought one for home.

While this mouse is great, it certainly isn't prefect. The main issue is that it isn't easy to clean. After about nine months of daily use, the scroll ball mechanism has gotten clogged up with dirt and I could no longer scroll down. There isn't a way to pop out the scroll ball and clean the rollers. So many people have run into this same issue that Apple has posted a support article on how to clean your Mighty Mouse. I even found a list of other tricks to try by frustrated scrollers. Apple's cleaning method worked a little bit (I could scroll upwards again) but not fully.

Today I finally found a way to make my disabled mouse whole again. I brought a lint-free cloth for cleaning eyeglasses to work along with some rubbing alcohol. I poured a few drops of the alcohol onto the center of the cloth and placed it on a flat desk. I unplugged the mouse, turned it over, and rolled the scoll ball on the cloth vigorously in many directions. This removed the dirt and grime from the scroll ball but I can still see some around the edges of the encasing. Most importantly though, its scrolling functionality has returned to normal.