Experience the best things to do in NYC using this epic insider's guide to restaurants, bars, clubs, museums and more
If I could have a fleeting telepathic connection with New York City’s mice, I would have only one message to convey: Please, puh-lease, do not enter my apartment. Although we New Yorkers are hardened from seeing 5 billion gross things per day, we really don’t like welcoming Mickey’s mob into our own sacred space. And it’s not because of the singular terror of hearing, at 3am, the pitter-patter of tiny mice feet across our bedroom floor or even due to that sinking feeling of finding nibble marks in our Trader Joe’s Reduced Fat Cheese Puffs. It’s because we really don’t know what the hell to do with the squeaky rodents once we discover them.
RECOMMENDED: See more New York rants
Consider our options: Mouse traps are cruel and bloody. The sticky mats leave us with more questions than answers after they’re caught—we don’t even want to go into some of the shameful things we’ve resorted to. And humanely catching and releasing the furry visitors using a bowl and a piece of paper requires at least an hour of our time and an amount of dexterity that we simply don’t have after our hour-long commute home.
And if you really think about it, the mouse doesn’t want to be stuck in our apartment, either. The living room “sofa” is really just a loveseat, the food consists mostly of two-day-old Seamless leftovers, and our landlord still hasn’t answered our calls about the leaky sink. The garbage-bag kingdoms piled on the sidewalk would surely make a much better home. So, let’s make a pact:
Our casa es not su casa. We won’t have to brave trapping mice if they just don’t enter.