Every night, senior Manijeh Azmoodeh, a Stratton resident, wears earplugs to sleep.
Azmoodeh is not kept awake by music or loud neighbors, but mice running through her radiator and above her room's ceiling. The phrase "quiet as a mouse" never seemed more of an oxymoron. "The mice wake me up at night," she says.
In what has become an annual event, bugs, mice, and rats are settling into Tufts' dormitories to escape the cold. And students are complaining about their new neighbors.
Residents of Stratton, South, and Metcalf halls have reported to Facilities sightings of creatures scuttling across their floors, over their ceilings, and inside their walls. Stratton seems to be the worst off. According to students and Director of Facilities Ron Esposito, Stratton, particularly the third floor and basement, is infested with bugs and mice. The mice have been there since September, although their numbers have increased with the colder weather.
Junior Samantha Diamond, a Stratton resident, said the mice build nests in the building's basement and commute to the third floor through the walls, where they crawl through gaps near the radiators and squeeze under doors into the third-floor hallway.
One mouse took up residence in the back of Diamond's refrigerator and often visited her closet. Her attempts to catch it were fruitless.
For the most part, the creatures are a small nuisance, though they occasionally steal food. But others have expressed health concerns: mice are carriers of the Hanta virus, a rare and sometimes-fatal disease transmitted through inhalation of rodent feces.
While mice infest some dorms, bugs prefer others. Hodgdon and Metcalf halls are home to especially large cockroaches, according to residents. Even Tufts' newest dormitory, South Hall, is not exempt from the problem. A freshman living there said students spotted a mouse in the hallway and called maintenance to catch it.
"We're doing everything we can," Esposito said. Stratton residents have been given sticky glue traps to catch mice. A few residents also report that Facilities has put poison traps in the basement and outside the building to kill rodents before they reach student rooms. This work is done by a private exterminator, EcoLab.
Facilities also uses rodent-proof foam and copper wool to block holes in the walls and penetrations in pipes. The department has also ordered a vacuum cleaner for Stratton residents to remove mice droppings.
Although the problem arises every year, Esposito said Facilities never has much warning before its onset and that he does not know which dorms will be effected until after the creatures move in.
For this year, the problem remains unresolved, and senior Jelena Senour is still not satisfied.
She explained that she "signed [her] housing agreement with Tufts University under the assumption that [she] would be living in a healthy and safe living environment."
Diamond said Facilities has not been quick to act. "If there are holes in the wall, why didn't they take care of them in August?" she asked.
