It's no big secret that mice like to move into your house or apartment when temperatures drop in the winter. But this winter has been so heart-wrenchingly cold and cruel that your rodent roommates have started signing 18-month leases and building miniature IKEA couches behind your refrigerator. Shouldn't you be charging them rent?
Not so much, apparently. According to the Times, mouse violations have actually dropped this winter, down to 3,171 documented violations from October through February from last year's 3,514 violations. It appears that the interminable polar vortex that has the city's human population furiously Googling ways to burn noisy neighbors for warmth may have killed off some of the mice. "Mice populations fluctuate from year to year,” mouse expert and biologist Hopi Hoekstra told the newspaper. “Because it’s been especially cold, it may have resulted in poor reproduction and many natural deaths."
Of course, SOME of us still suffer nightly mouse attacks, and wake up to find millions of teensy rodent bowel movements littered all over kitchen counters (Brooklyn, unsurprisingly, ranks number one in mouse violations). And while the number of documented violations may have dropped, it's also possible the rodent-afflicted have given up altogether, surrendering themselves to cold winter nights spent swapping True Detective theories with DJ Danger Mouse and his offspring.
To cut down on unwanted visits from Mr. Mousey, plug up as many holes in your apartment as you can find (behind appliances, in radiators, etc.) with steel wool. If you're using traps to catch mice, use peanut butter, not cheese, as bait. Be sure to keep any open food in sealed containers, lest you provide your mice with fun snacks. And if your roommate refuses to wash her dirty dishes for weeks and weeks on end, feel free to put them under her pillow.
