Monday, September 8, 2008

I Hate Mieces to Pieces

My last week of work started out pretty hectic. I woke up late and rushed around to get ready so I wouldn't be ridiculously late to the office. Fredo took Cora outside for her morning walk and I went about making my lunch. I headed to the trash can to throw something out... and found a dead mouse on our kitchen floor. There's nothing like making a soon to be first time mom feel better about the safe home she is providing her baby than finding a dead rodent.

Backing up a bit, we found out soon after moving to our apartment that there had been, at one time, a rodent infestation. My landlord has an exterminator to come once a month but he doesn't have a key so he can't get into the apartment unless someone is home. Fredo works from home and is usually there to let him in, so I figured we were good. Our apartment is in an old building and there are plenty of places for mice to get in, so really having mice is not all that surprising, however, our apartment is clean and with the monthly exterminator visits, I wasn't terribly worried.

Until Sat. morning...

I had made banana bread last week and left it on our counter, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap. I planned on having the last of it Saturday morning and went about unwrapping my banana bread, excited about my breakfast. I took the plastic wrap off and noticed 3 round chunks missing from the bread. I asked Fredo if he had ripped chunks out of the loaf and he said no, while looking at me as if I were crazy. So great, evidence of possible rodent activity. We started hunting around with a flashlight and sure enough, found droppings in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. We knew we needed to call the exterminator to come out, but decided to wait until today anyway since we didn't actually see a mouse.

It has become a more urgent situation now, of course, and hopefully we'll have an exterminator out sooner rather than later.

It's always something with this apartment. If moving weren't damn near impossible right now, I would probably be seriously considering it. In the mean time, we'll make the best of it... which means complaining to our building manager, maintenance and landlord as often as it takes to get something done.

For now, let's hope for no more mice!

2 comments:

CaraBee said...

I hate the mieces, too. When I first moved to Baltimore, I lived in a historic mid-rise apartment building. It was beautiful...and full of mice. Despite my best efforts at sealing up any possible entrances to my apartment, staying as clean as possible and complaining, loudly, to management, it never got better. That was also the place where I had a retired blind boxer living next door to me. He used to listen to the radio and shout unintelligible things at it. That wouldn't be so bad, except he had no concept of day or night, and the first time it happened at 2am I almost hit the ceiling, I was so scared. Ah, good times.

I only lasted one year in that apartment.

Bailey said...

Mice are the worst.

I bet, once you got used to the random shouting, it would be pretty funny to live next to that guy.

But I don't think I would have lasted more than a year in that apartment either.