They’re back! Eeek Mice #4

I was watching Judge (Madam, you’re an idiot) Judy on TV when out of the corner of my eye a brown furry-looking thing the size of my shoe scurried under the sofa I was lying on.

Eeek!

I jumped up and scurried into the kitchen to email Gus, who owns my apartment, to tell him that covering the mouse holes with steel wool did not work. That was one big mouse!

The next morning, there was a brown loafer right where I’d seen the scurrying brown furry thing.

I wondered if I were losing it–you get jumpy when critters scuttle around.

Gus emailed me back to ask for the number of the city health inspector to find out who’s responsible for bringing in an exterminator (he is ). I said let’s give it a few days to make sure I saw what I thought I saw. it was my

The next day, while I was eating breakfast, something resembling a huge hairy cockroach (or was it a shadow?) scooted from behind the table to the radiator I thought we’d blocked off . That night, a new mouse (not Arthur or Jack or a huge hairy cockroach) rushed out from under the stove. I screeched. He ran across the kitchen and disappeared under the refrigerator.

I emailed Gus: “Eeek”.

Gus told me the health inspector told him he had pay for the exterminator if the building doesn’t take care of it but “don’t let them use poison” unless the Doug, the building manager, agrees. Doug has a “thing” about using poison. “I don’t want dead mice in the walls stinking everything up,” he told me, the first time I complained. The third time, he had the super put a pile of gooey traps outside my door.

Gus, I just ran into Doug. Told him the mice are back. He said he’d send in an exterminator. He uses one called Cambridge Chemical or something like that. Definitely has “chemical” in the title. Anita

Gus responded: that’s good news for me – thanks

hope it also turns out to be good news for you

Mind you, this has been going on since December, with weeping baby mice in the gooey traps, and mommy and daddy mice following them to the grave. Er, garbage can.

For other reasons, ( really, I’m not a whiner but huge clouds of white dust are emanating from the construction site across the narrow driveway, next door) I called the Cambridge Health Department…asking them not to use my name so I don’t piss off my building manager, who’s also in charge next door, before my mouse problem gets resolved.

The inspector wasn’t much interested in the construction issue (too simple: they just have to hose it down) but the mice were a different story. Where but in the Peoples’ Republic of Cambridge would an inspector use the term “mouse turds,” in trying to ascertain how serious a situation I was in?

I told him, “gross, no turds; I’m seeing real mice. Three in gooey traps. I’ve named the others Art and Jack, after my ex-boyfriends.” The inspector asked how my current boyfriend feels about my naming mice after my ex’s. “I don’t exactly have a boyfriend,” I said. He advised me whom to call about the dust clouds and the mice, promised to call me again and offered to come by to check out the situation.

I left messages for a couple of exterminators. At 6:30 pm, one called back to say she’d be away for a few days but could recommend someone else if this were an emergency. I hesitated, then decided the situation had been going on for so long that I could last for another few days. “Thanks,” I said. “It isn’t.”

Big mistake.

To be continued.

—Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA. We also publish HarriscomBlog and Ithaca Diaries Blog.

Ebooks and authors: The math of publishing doesn’t add up

In Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book ( New York Times , Feb. 28, 2010) reporter Motoko Rich considers mainly publishers’ profits in her article about the current debate about the pricing of e-books versus printed ones. She does point out, however, that authors, earning 15% on a book that sells for $26, would come away with almost $3.90 after paying back any advances on royalties.

On my book, Broken Patterns, published 15 years ago by Wayne State University Press, I made 7.5%…on each hardcover–which sold for $44.95 ( you can imagine how many I sold at that price!) and 5% on the paperback, which went for $24.95. The book, on which I spent 12 years, went on sale a few years later…Used copies are now advertised at 11 cents…Well, you can do the math. (I can’t bear to).

With a new book, Ithaca Diaries, in the works, I’ve been thinking of self-publishing, this time around. But I read somewhere that self-published authors, using publishing on demand plaforms, sell on average maybe 25 copies—and you have to factor in the costs of marketing, editing and design.

In her Times article, Rich quotes Anne Rice, the best-selling author of vampire books, as saying that authors have no idea what books cost or what profits publishers make. “For all I know, a million books at $9.99 might be great for an author,” Ms. Rice says.

Could be. (Hey, I was an English major–again, no math). But even I have figured out that if I had a day job, I shouldn’t quit it, just yet!

–Anita Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA. HarrisCom also publishes Harriscomblog and Ithaca Diaries blog.

Eek #3. Mice? Men? Is it really over?

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.