I too thought that there was no way a mouse would actually invade my room, until it did. The temperatures are dropping and our furry little friends are looking for somewhere warm and cozy to make their home for the winter, don’t let your dorm be next!

Last Sunday night, I was tragically awakened from my slumber by my roommate whispering my name. I jolted awake, confused, and she anxiously asked whether I heard something moving in our food cart. I said no, and we stopped talking to listen for a sound, but heard nothing. Eventually, I went back to sleep and for my own peace of mind, chose to believe that it was all in my roommate’s head.

However, only an hour later I woke up to the terror-inducing sound of something scuttling around our snacks. This time there was no doubt: there was a mouse in our room. My roommate and I stared at each other in shock and began to freak out. Too scared to get out of our beds, we frantically googled and called our families for help but alas, it was 4:30 am and nobody could come to our rescue. We even debated calling the CARES emergency line but ultimately decided that this was not an actual emergency and we didn’t want to get laughed at.

We considered staying in the room to show the mouse who’s boss and tried to go back to sleep but every time we stopped talking, the mouse started rustling around. To try to salvage what sleep we could, we surrendered the room to the mouse and trudged to our floor lounge to sleep on couches for the remainder of the night.

In the light of day, we weren’t quite as terrified and made our way back to the room to take care of this mouse once and for all. We came armed with mittens and a pole so we didn’t touch any mouse cooties. We sadly had to clean out our food cart and throw out all our snacks for fear that the mouse got its grubby little paws on it. Upon carefully examining the food, we discovered that the only visibly opened thing was two bags of sour cream and onion chips. Honestly, this made me respect the mouse a little bit more; while taking the chips uninvited is rude, I can’t deny that he has impeccable taste. 

Since that fateful night, we haven’t heard from the mouse. We’ve simply assumed that he’s moved on to better and more snack-abundant rooms but who knows. He could be out there: watching, waiting for us to make a misstep and leave a bag of chips out…

This whole experience has caused me to take some safety precautions that might be helpful to any other mouse-haters out there:

• Store any food in an airtight container; yes this is really annoying but as far as I know a mouse can’t open tupperware (I will update if this information changes.)

• Keep your door closed! As we learned, we were not the only residents in our hall that had encounters with a mouse, so we don’t not know that this is all one mouse making its way from room to room, seeing whose snacks it likes the best…

• Get screens for your windows: This step is a bit extreme but when asked for their advice during family weekend, our parents seemed convinced that the mouse came through our windows. Against my will, I learned that mice can climb walls, which is a horrifying thought. 

You may think that all this is unnecessary and something that will never happen to you. But these mice? They don’t care who you are and they will come for you and your sour cream and onion chips.

Header image via Bwarchives