Brown Mice Invade Stoughton North

Jennifer Kimball '95 thought she had taken all the necessary precautions, carefully throwing out all of her food and trash in liners before going to bed.

But in the morning, Kimball said, "I reached for my robe and saw a brown thing. It was a mouse. I went crazy."

Adjusting to life in one room is difficult enough when you have a roommate, but many residents of Stoughton North also have several smaller, unwanted roommates to contend with. Mice have been spotted in at least seven of the dorm's 16 rooms in the past few weeks, residents said.

Elizabeth Bernal '95 said she first discovered the problem while reading in bed three weeks ago. Bernal said she heard something "rummaging around."

When she looked up, Bernal said, she saw several mice "jumping around."

Bernal called the Yard superintendent's office, which installed mousetraps in the room. The office has continued to provide mouse-traps to other rooms in the dorm.

At a proctor meeting on Monday, Stoughton North residents discussed the mouse problem and decided to request traps for all the rooms. Some students speculated that the superintendent "might have to come in and do a big job," according to Barbara Brescia '95.

"It's crazy," Brescia said. "The dorm is overrun with mice."

Bernal and her roommate, Nancy R. Hsu '95, have one of the dorm's most mouse-infested rooms. Four mice have already been snared in their room, including two unlucky rodents in a single night.

But last week, Hsu said she and her roommate asked the superintendent to remove the "non-humane" mousetraps, those which kill the mice rather than simply trap them.

"I would rather know that the mice are running around than finding them in the mousetraps dead," Hsu said.

Brescia said the mouse appearances are "a growing problem" and that the dorm is prepared "to start an all-out war" on the mice.

But the worker who installed the traps was less than optimistic, Kimball said.

"He said that the problem is not going to go away because the building's foundations are old, so you can control the problem, but it will never go away," Kimball said.