Yesterday, Claudio, my super, finally stuffed up the hole around the radiator pipe in the living room with “wool steel”, as he calls it, then sent not one but two carpenters cover up the huge hole in the cabinet wall under the sink.
I’m hoping this means it’s really over with Arthur and Jack–the mice I named after old boyfriends so I wouldn’t feel bad if they got caught in sticky traps or had their necks snapped by the other kind. I’ve had 12 traps in my 1-bedroom for four months, now, but these being smart, sneaky Cambridge mice (men?) I needn’t have worried–they like their freedom and know how to keep their options open.
My landlord refused to poison them (because, he said, they’ll die in the walls and stink up the whole building) so for months, they often watched me at work in the kitchen or scampered in to the living room when John Stewart came on TV.
As the Cambridge health inspector pointed out, merely filling the holes means that Mickey and Minnie can continue to propegate—along with Arthur, Jack and their current insignificant others–and that, at some point, the whole building will be overrun.
But for now, I’m done with worrying about smelly detergent, mint, cats and black shapes scurrying across the floor. To my neighbors: thank you for your support through all of this. And good luck!
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA. We also publish HarriscomBlog and Ithaca Diaries Blog.
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