The first week that we moved in I was walking down the spiral stairs to the downstairs bedroom and I heard squeeking at the baseboards on the first floor. Squeeking like a nest of baby mice. YES! Please feel free to feel my horror! We went out that weekend and bought several RidX plug-ins (they emit a high frequency that is supposed to irritate rodents, hence shooing them away). And... it worked. It worked for about a month. Then the scurrying noises began. Sounds of tiny feet running along the wall. We have stairs that lead half a flight up to Cameron's bedroom and you could hear them scrambling under the stairs.
Please don't think this wasn't upsetting, because it was. Our apartment management company changed in September, but when we called the old managment company in July with our complaints (we moved into this apartment in June) they sent a guy out. He was a nice enough fellow named Jonathan, but he brushed it off as life in New York City in an old apartment building. Well, if you think about it that's stupid because almost all apartment building in New York are at least 100 years old and not all of them have rodent problems. But because he was the exterinator "on staff" in the building I just went with it.
Last month the problem worsened. The sound of the mice in the wall was more constant and the sound under the stairs sounded like larger bodies (I won't say the word). One night we were watching TV and we heard a thud. We all stopped, looked at the stairs, looked back at each other, and said "s*&^%, that was big!"
The kitchen opens up into the living room so if you are sitting on the couch and something in the kitchen happens you can hear it. A week later, and again we are watching television. In the middle of watching "Jeff Who Lives at Home" there was the sound of a pot lid in the cabinet falling. We put the movie on pause. We looked at each other with wide eyes and I probably screamed, although that is a blur.
Jeff went over to the counter and opened the bottom cabinet doors. He stuck his head in and looked around with the flashlight. The cabinets are deep so he looked back towards the wall were the pipes come into the apartrment. There, perched on a cooking pot in the direct beam of the flashlight, was a little mouse staring back at him. He said there was a moment of recognition and then the mouse scurried back into the hole in the wall. All the while I am sitting on the couch frozen with fear. I can't believe it. It's one thing to hear them in the wall, but now they have infiltrated. There is no safe place. Jeff found some steel wool and stuffed the hole. We go back to the movie. Suddenly we hear the cabinet door shut as if something was trying to push it open but was unable to succeed. Dear god! They are trying to push their way out of the cabinet. Forget the frickin' movie. I am over the top! Jeff returns with the flashlight. He examines his steel wool work and sees that the mouse (mice) have pushed it out. We tied the cabinet doors closed and decide to call the exterminator the next morning. When we move away from the cabinet and start getting ready for bed the cats lie down in front of the cabinet with their eyes fixed on the door. Really? As if I don't know the mice are in there the cats are now going to set up camp to remind me that they can smell the little critters just inches away in the cabinets.
The next morning I called the new exterminating company contracted with the new management in our apartment buidling. They guy showed up mid morning, so that was fantastic. I telecommute and my desk is in the living room. The cats were still staring at the cabinet and every time the heating pipes knocked I felt my heart race, so the exterminator could not get here fast enough. When the guy got here he introduced himself as "Fida". He was a good looking young Pakastinian in his late 20's. I told him what had happened and I told him I was FREAKING out. He stayed calm and spoke in a soothing manner. He said his company had just acquired the exterminating contract on the buidling and they were keenly aware of the rodent problem. He said that they were working on the laundry room and the courtyard for, dare I say it... rats... and the interior for mice. He said it might take a few weeks to complete the job in my apartment but he would work with me directly and get the job completed. He went under the cabinets and filled the holes (yes plural, he found three holes) with steel wool then put a sheet of sticky mouse trap paper up to cover the hole. He said that even if the mice pulled the steel wool out, they would be confronted with the sticky paper which they would not like. He then drilled several tiny holes in the wall where we had heard noises, he shot poison in, and then put little green stickers on the holes so that he could come back in two weeks and put more poison in. He wrote his name and number on a piece of paper and he told me to call him any time if I wanted him to return before the prescribed two weeks was up. I immediatly put the number on the fridge.
During the week we did hear some scampering behind the walls, but it was much diminished from before. I wanted to call the exterminator, but Jeff said that he had said to wait two weeks. Much to my surprise and delight a week later I got a knock on the door. It was Fida checking in. He had been checking some of his work in other parts of the building and wanted to see if I was ok and if I'd seen any changes. Ok, now THAT is service. I told him I'd heard some slight sounds near the stairs so he shot some more poison in that area of the wall.
Fida could have been like many New York service workers and been curt and dismissive. Instead he listened. He promised to do his best to correct the situation. And he smiled a reassuring smile. He's obviously not afraid of rodents, but he did not mock my fear and he seemed to understand my inability to live in a house where mice might pop their heads out of the cabinet doors.
It has now been two weeks; there are no sounds of mice at all. All the holes are still patched. No - I'm not confident that the situation is taken care of. Fida even said that in New York it's not a matter of completing a job, it's all about getting the initial job taken care of then maintaining the property.
As you know, we moved from 80th to 108th Street this summer. Unlike some things, rodents do not pick and choose locations based upon real estate prices. As a matter of fact, the rat issue was a huge problem on 80th Street. I used to sit on our stoop and talk on the phone, but (especially in the summer) the sight of rats scurrying underneath the cars parked on the street was a nightly occurance. For some reason I don't notice it on our new street at all. About a year ago there was an article on the news about a children's playground on 77th Street and Amsterdam that was overrun by rats at night. The city was working to clean up the problem. Hmm... I think I may have talked half of the people who wanted to come to New York City to visit out of their trips. I hope not. 99.9% of visitors will never see a rat in New York City, but 99.9% of the people who live here will have. My blog is all about what it's like to live in NYC so I guess this is just another part of my experience here. I'm just trying to take it all in stride, although I have to admit this element of city living is one I'd gladly have skipped.
