I’m just a little girl in a big city, and now there’s a dead mouse in my room?

The end of winter break can bring a lot of things to campus: the first snow, the start of cool new classes, and seeing your friends and roommates again after a month of separation. 

I had survived my 14-hours and 45-minute-long flight from Doha to JFK and finally got onto campus at 11:45 pm. All I could think about was the “everything” shower that I was going to take in Brooks and the clean sheets I was going to crawl into. 

But, from the moment I walked into my room, I knew that something was off. There was a musty, slightly sour smell, just barely noticeable. I thought nothing of it because the room had been empty for a month, so it was probably just stale air. I went to bed. The next morning, I woke up, and I could still smell that weird smell. I didn’t want to face the facts, but I kind of thought that I knew what it was.

I looked under my roommate’s bed to find a 100% stone-cold, dead-ass mouse. I thought, “Okay, we’ve had a mouse in the room before; I know how to deal with this.” 

I was so, so brave and such an adult. I used a nail file to push the (dead) mouse into a paper bag, which I then double-bagged with trash bags and disposed of. 

Dust dust. (That’s the sound of me dusting off my hands because I am such an independent woman who can take care of herself).

Here is where the real problem emerges.

Now, I don’t know how long the mouse had been deceased for before I got home, but I will say that I think it was more than a week. I don’t know what the buttcrack of hell smells like, but my best guess is that it smells like Unspecified-Weeks-Old Mouse Carcass because, let me tell you, that smell hits you like a ton of bricks, and it singes your nose hairs.

At this point, I had no idea what to do. I was sleep-deprived and jet-lagged and stressed and sad and nauseous, so I Facetimed my mom to ask for help.

My roommate and I went to the hardware store and spent way too much money on bleach wipes, extra-strength carpet cleaner, and apple cinnamon Febreze. I soaked the spot in so much carpet cleaner that I would not be surprised if the dorm below mine develops water damage in a few weeks. We also fumigated our room with apple cinnamon Febreze. Now, whenever I smell that scent, it makes me feel a little sick because it just reminds me of dead-mouse smell, which is such a shame because I love fall.

In case you, at some point this semester, have critters or creepy crawlies in your dorm, I have compiled a crash course list on dos and don’ts with handling your new friends:

  1. If an animal dies in your room, do NOT just leave it under your bed for months because it will smell very, very bad. Also, it’s probably a health hazard.
  2. Buy traps if you wanna get rid of pesky fellows (Standard snap traps are the most humane for mice, and bait traps are great for ants and cockroaches.)
  3. Become a crunchy essential oil mom—peppermint, citronella, and eucalyptus essential oils repel rodents and roaches.
  4. Call CARES, but make sure they send a guy who knows what he’s getting into and isn’t an HVAC repair guy who is probably just as scared of the mouse as you are
  5. If someone does put out glue traps (Very important reminder: go outside before this next step), use q-tips and vegetable oil to help free the mouse and let it go.
  6. If you are freeing a mouse, DO NOT just let it go in front of the door because it will just chase you back into the building lobby, and now you have to catch it again.
  7. Cockroaches can not only climb, but they can also fly. Be careful when cornering them because they are icky and can move fast.
  8. If there is a roach in your room, don’t try to kick it. And if you do try to kick it, make sure that you’re not kicking in the direction of the wall. And if you are kicking in the direction of the wall, make sure you know how to repair drywall.
  9. Don’t ever ever leave any kind of food in the room ever. Especially—and I can’t believe I have to say this—over break.

Dorm friend via Bwog Archives.