Dunno what made me think of this just now. When I worked for IT in a school district way back in the 90s, a librarian told me she kept a supply of mouse balls in her desk because kids would steal them out of the school computers. What I remember about those balls was they picked up dust and crud off surfaces. Pretty soon optical mice came along and they were history.
My school used to actually glue them, as in glue the part you would remove to get access to the ball. So the mouse still worked, until enough gunk got in there that it didn’t any more, then someone has a fun time trying to find the right solvent to dissolve the glue without killing the mouse.
Ahh, ok now we’re getting into supervillain territory!