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Mice in dorm when I have a phobia

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Ma-24

Junior Member
Hello everyone,

TLDR; is my university responsible for relocation if the dorm room I'm staying in is causing me extreme mental distress due to it's mice problem?

Details:
I live in the dorms of a university in Massachusetts and have had a mouse infestation in my dorm room. Now bear in mind that this is where I sit, study, sleep and eat. I have been diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder and have a phobia of mice. I contacted the school about the mice which were giving me extreme distress - panic attacks and all, and asked to be relocated until the situation is cleared. The university did not resolve my issues. They sent in pest control etc but the mice still hang around and I still have a phobia and will have a panic attack in that room. I've been staying at other people's places for a while and want to know if the university is responsible for relocating me until the situation is resolved or what could be done/said to them about this. I've been unable to study because this mice issue is amplifying my anxiety and mental health situation. Please help me out, thanks!
 


Gail in Georgia

Senior Member
If you continue to see mice after pest control has been there, report this again so they may address the issue again. You may ask if you can be moved to another room but there is no requirement they have to grant this request.

Make sure you don't leave food out to attract these critters. I remember while in college students were notorious for storing lots of food in their rooms (and we had a cafeteria to go down to eat at); snacks were helpful to munch on while studying but they did tend to attract bugs (this was in Southern Illinois where it was pretty warm year round) if one wasn't careful.

Gail
 

Shadowbunny

Queen of the Not-Rights
Hello everyone,

TLDR; is my university responsible for relocation if the dorm room I'm staying in is causing me extreme mental distress due to it's mice problem?

Details:
I live in the dorms of a university in Massachusetts and have had a mouse infestation in my dorm room. Now bear in mind that this is where I sit, study, sleep and eat. I have been diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder and have a phobia of mice. I contacted the school about the mice which were giving me extreme distress - panic attacks and all, and asked to be relocated until the situation is cleared. The university did not resolve my issues. They sent in pest control etc but the mice still hang around and I still have a phobia and will have a panic attack in that room. I've been staying at other people's places for a while and want to know if the university is responsible for relocating me until the situation is resolved or what could be done/said to them about this. I've been unable to study because this mice issue is amplifying my anxiety and mental health situation. Please help me out, thanks!
Your school most likely has a behavioral health clinic -- you should make an appt ASAP to deal with your phobia and anxiety.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
If you continue to see mice after pest control has been there, report this again so they may address the issue again. You may ask if you can be moved to another room but there is no requirement they have to grant this request.

Make sure you don't leave food out to attract these critters. I remember while in college students were notorious for storing lots of food in their rooms (and we had a cafeteria to go down to eat at); snacks were helpful to munch on while studying but they did tend to attract bugs (this was in Southern Illinois where it was pretty warm year round) if one wasn't careful.

Gail
I get bugs in dorms, but I do not get mice. Dorms are generally concrete block buildings where there is little wall space for rodents to climb and hide.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Clearly you didn't go to school where I did, or the school where I currently work. No dorm at either school is a concrete block building.

You know, you're not doing yourself any favors when you make these declarative statements that you can't support.
 

Just Blue

Senior Member
I get bugs in dorms, but I do not get mice. Dorms are generally concrete block buildings where there is little wall space for rodents to climb and hide.
Have you ever been to Boston? Have you seen the dorms in town? Mice are rather common in large cities.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
A flat, Dorms are generally concrete block buildings does not suggest that you are limiting the statement to your own experience, but are making an across-the-board generalization with few or any qualifiers.

It's not because your experiences are not mine that I am correcting (not, "belittling") you. It's because the way you word your statements is, in fact, wrong.
 

Just Blue

Senior Member
A flat, Dorms are generally concrete block buildings does not suggest that you are limiting the statement to your own experience, but are making an across-the-board generalization with few or any qualifiers.

It's not because your experiences are not mine that I am correcting (not, "belittling") you. It's because the way you word your statements is, in fact, wrong.
My Eldest's dorm was brick. ;)


And yes...this was in Boston. :)
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Well, we don't know for sure that the OP's dorm is in Boston - only that it's in Massachusetts. I work in Cambridge.

Still, I think the odds are at least even that it's not a cement block building. Brick is a pretty good bet up here.
 

quincy

Senior Member
I get bugs in dorms, but I do not get mice. Dorms are generally concrete block buildings where there is little wall space for rodents to climb and hide.
Are you sure you are not thinking of prisons?

I have never seen a concrete block dorm.
 

not2cleverRed

Obvious Observer
I get bugs in dorms, but I do not get mice. Dorms are generally concrete block buildings where there is little wall space for rodents to climb and hide.
And that has... what to do with OP's initial legal question? Are you inferring that OP is hallucinating mice?

There are many ways that mice get into buildings. Sometimes there are holes in a foundation. Sometimes someone leaves a door open. Sometimes people let loose pets/lab micefor that matter, wither accidentally or as a joke... or out of sheer desperation that the mice have been breeding like rabbits...

None of which matters.

What matters is that, given OP has mice, what are OP's legal options.

OP can follow up with campus life or whatever it's called at OP's institution and inform them that the problem still exists.

OP has be advised to remove all food sources. Anything not stored in metal or glass is fair game. Mice will chew things, whether or not they need chewing, to get to food. This includes your pockets. OP can set old fashioned traps in the dorm room.

OP can survey neighbors in the dorm and determine the extent of this infestation. As there are more than a couple of mice, it is highly likely that others in the dorm have a problem with them. As a group they can go through whatever campus groups might have the power to d something about the problem.

If the problem is still not remedied, OP and the other dorm residents can contact local media about the vermin problem.

One thing that OP should not do is go on about the mouse phobia. OP can use factual concerns - such a mice as a disease vector.
 

HRZ

Senior Member
Many a brick wall is merely brick over something else ...but never mind, the mice have not learned how to read ..but presumably the OP has some such skills**************I simply don't know if a phobia about mice is a recognized handicap that must be accommodated In the meantime, many a city has Codes about vermin infestations and I suspect that there are many ways to bring the matter to the attention of senior university administrators ..it might be a novel exercise in productive use of free speech . . Probably tenants are entitled to vermin free dwelling spaces ...but that begs the question of if dorm units are dwelling units and dorm residents are tenants entitled to such protections. I would think folks in MA have taken an enlightened view of purely public charities and exempted them ...but I didn't check.

JUst be careful about the animal rights activists ...and field mice have been seeking warmer winter quarters for hundreds of years ...and one of my cohorts from an Ivy even arranges reasonable accomodations for them .

The not so bright PhD a few doors away exterminated a rather large critter while inside the walls ...and he hasn't gotten the stench out in weeks so be a bit careful not to go to excess if there are big critters in there . ( leaving his windows open in winter sort of helps, but his carbon footprint is under pressure)


.

In the meantime..just about every hardware store and many a supermarket has a variety of products designed to abate the mice population in your vicinity ...and they generally work for the design purpose ..my daughter loves a model that traps them live and she releases them a few yards away . We disagree on that one.....
 

quincy

Senior Member
Following is a link to a 2005 Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management handbook.

Once a mouse takes up residence in a house or building, it is not easy to evict them. Their entry points need to be found - and there can be many entry points.

http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/RodentExclusion.asp

The university has taken steps to remedy the problem, which shows the university is taking your concerns seriously. The university is not responsible for your phobia, however. That will need to be addressed by you, possibly with help from a mental health professional.

You can ask the university to take additional steps to get rid of the mice, perhaps referring them to the methods suggested in the handbook, and you can request a room change - although a new room might not be available until the end of the term, and there is no guarantee you won't find mice trying to share space with you elsewhere. You can contact the health department for an inspection of the premises. And you should keep a detailed daily record of your mouse encounters and the daily evidence you find of mice in your room.

I see no lawsuit available.
 
Last edited:

justalayman

Senior Member
Once a mouse takes up residence in a house or building, it is not easy to evict them. Their entry points need to be found - and there can be many entry points.
It’s nkt the original immigrant you need to worry about. They’ll die in a couple years. It’s the anchor babies that you have to deal with. In a perfect world (for the mice) one breeding pair can result in over 130,000 mice in a single year.
 

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