Melbourne (Australia) - In Australia, it doesn't hurt to have nerves of steel. Last month, dog owner Ayesha from Melbourne saw an animal scurrying through her home that she thought was a rat. Nevertheless, the woman did nothing. It wasn't until a few days later that her dog wouldn't stop barking. When she looked up, she finally realized everything.

A possum, not to be confused with an opossum, was crouching on her curtain rail. The Australian marsupials are tree dwellers that prefer to stay in the forest.

However, like so many animals , possums are slowly adapting to the circumstances and are increasingly being seen in cities.

Ayesha spontaneously decided to name her unexpected guest Mistletoe, as she discovered him just before Christmas. She revealed this in a recent interview with The Dodo.

Without further ado, she enlisted the help of the "Wildlife Rescuers", the Australian told the animal magazine.

Wildlife rescuer Meaghan Scott rushed to the rescue. It didn't take her long to work out how the possum had got into the apartment.

Because the area around Ayesha's chimney looked a little messy, Scott concluded that the animal intruder had come down the chimney like Santa Claus.

The reason for this could have been the heatwave. After all, it's the height of summer in Australia . "I imagine [she] climbed up the curtain and then just decided, 'Well, I've got nowhere else to go'," said the animal rights activist.

However, Scott had to put a spanner in the possum's works in this respect. With a ladder and Ayesha's help, she caught the animal and brought it to the Wildlife Rescuers.

There, the dehydrated possum was nursed back to health for two days before being released back into the wild. "As soon as I opened the transport box, she was gone (...) She was desperate to get away," says Scott.