Oh Rats

When Assistant Principal Rebecca Hitchcock returned to school, the last thing she thought she’d find was a rodent invasion. Hitchcock wasn’t alone in the discovery.
Now nine weeks into the school year, the invasion continues.
“I caught two yesterday,” Hitchcock said on the day of this interview.
Assistant principal Peter Braveboy has also found the little critters around the administrative offices.
“We saw that the wires to the telephone were eaten,” Braveboy said of the reception office. “We figured they were little mice, so we set new traps.”
The devices used are sticky traps, where the mice become glued to a piece of plastic. The administrators are also using a liquid bait “that smells like peanut butter,” Hitchcock said.
Hitchcock and Braveboy have taken it upon themselves to capture the mice.
“The custodians have given us sticky traps, but I also caught a few in the counselor’s office. I put cheese in the trap.” Braveboy said.
Mrs. Hitchcock herself laid traps and caught mice, using peanut butter crackers.
Students have also been catching mice. A student in family and consumer science teacher Lola Pepper’s class caught a mouse in a jar. The mouse was delivered to science teacher Mrs. Bollom.
“While some students were trying to catch the mouse, the others were up in their chairs with their feet away from the floor,” Pepper said.
In the room Mrs. Pepper shares with Coach Wallerich, there is a fair-sized hole in the wall that an alleged mouse chewed through. The mouse hasn’t been seen, but it just might be the same mouse that’s said to roam around in Coach Garfield’s office, which is said to be the size of his foot!
There aren’t too many options to rid of the mice in the school, besides the traps being set.
The signs that read ‘No food beyond student center and cafeteria’ aren’t put there just to be mean.
“The main reason why there is no food allowed is because of the mice,” Hitchcock said. “So unless you want to share your classroom with little mice, I wouldn’t bring food into the classrooms.”

Mice Found on Campus

Instead of students and teachers being the only things in the school, this year, there are a few new visitors: mice.

Deliese Nusser, Food and Nutrition Sciences teacher, doesn’t have a problem with the mice.

“The mice we’ve been seeing are adorable,” Nusser said. “They just can’t be in the kitchens. Unsanitary!”

According to a sign posted on the front door of the school, there are pest control treatments scheduled for the first Wednesday of every month.

“The one last year we caught in a sticky trap,” Nusser said. “Never again! Too inhumane. I always want to release them outside, but they can get back in. Sneaky little boogers. One from this year, dubbed Ratatouille, we still can’t find, it probably has brain damage from a student slinging it off his hand after being bitten.”

Unlike Nusser, art teacher Nancy Kizis didn’t have a difficult time catching the mouse.

“He just ran out of my closet one day and over Jim Henson, art teacher’s, feet,” Kizis said. “Jeremy Boren saw him first and screamed like a girl. A few days later, I went into the closet and brushed against some crinkly paper and it scared me and I screamed like a girl.”

Lola Pepper, PFD teacher, was “shocked” when she saw the mouse.

“My 7th period spent about fifteen minutes trying to catch the mouse using two boxes,” Pepper said. “It was a very small mouse, probably a baby. We weren’t able to catch it though.”

Kizis believes the mice have been there “forever,” while Nusser thinks they were put there as a crude joke.

“I heard from a student that Old High students put them there last Rider/Old High week,” Nusser said. “Maybe, maybe not.”

While most of the people in Nusser’s class last semester hurried to catch the mice, not all were as brave.

“Watching the girls jump on chairs and tables made me laugh,” Nusser said. “Even the males were scared of them.