Room 333. What might seem like a regular classroom in the new building, amongst the other hundreds, has a secret hiding behind its doors. Well, multiple secrets. Mrs. Weitzel, teacher of the Social Studies department, first moved into the room during the start of the school year. She’d soon be a witness, and perhaps victim, to what the walls had been hiding: the mice. She’d started suspecting things when she saw various droppings in her class but, still unsure, called Mr. Tobias, also of the Social Studies department, and had some other colleagues come in and confirm her fears.
When she saw one firsthand, rummaging through the candy she’d kept in her desk, the situation became all too real.
“My first reaction was to run across the hallway,” Weitzel recalled of this direct confrontation.
Soon, she’d find herself having another encounter with a mouse in her cabinet across the room from her desk, and eventually capture it; adding into a total of two mice. These instances aren’t so bad when compared to her experiences in her old room where she said she saw mice quite frequently; however, these occurrences were the first time they’d actually gotten into her belongings.
So, why is this happening? It could be because of the newly-constructed building’s structural connection to the old one that’s currently under renovation.
“See, with the construction in the old building, I think it has moved some of these creatures into different places,” Weitzel said. “Or, when our things were packed up and moved here, they moved up with us.”
In all, a total of three mice have been captured on the third floor of the new building according to Weitzel– but the sightings haven’t stopped there. Megan Krippner (12), spotted a mouse in a collaboration space (146) during an interview she had for her yearbook class. Having never seen anything like it, she started recording the creature which emerged from a gap between the walls.
“I think the janitors are working their best.” Krippner said, “It’s just a lot to maintain.”
Dr. Fick, principal of the senior class, has heard of sightings elsewhere; one in the collaboration space, next to room 143, and in the area near the learning stairs by the elevator.
“With the cold weather, I imagine they’re moving into the old building that has holes and lots of spaces that they can go into,” Fick explained, “and then they’re moving into the warmer building.”
So, what’s the solution that’ll put an end to these confrontations? For Mrs. Weitzel, she resorted to using traps– both the glue traps that the school provides and ones for caged capture bought by teachers. When a mouse is caught, she calls a custodian that takes it away; she doesn’t know what happens to the mice after. No matter, the district can and has hired people in pest control, who can hopefully subside the issue until construction finishes this fall.
“That’s gonna be something that I guess will need to be ongoing to try to keep pests out of the building.” Fick said.