Content warning: descriptions of dead mice

Three years ago, I was living in a house with three other Calvin girls. As juniors, we were enjoying our dorm-less lives with group dinners, Culver’s runs, and spontaneous conversations. Our responsibilities extended to school, part-time jobs, expenses, and maintaining social lives.

But as the leaves changed color and temperatures began to drop, another thing to stress about fell onto our laps. One night while in the kitchen, my housemate Cora noticed a mouse scurrying across our stovetop.

While the rest of us responded to this development with mounting anxiety, Cora stepped up, setting up mouse traps in different corners of our kitchen, slathering them with peanut butter.

As avid post calvin readers may know, I am a very anxious and (at times) obsessive individual. So this development did not bode well for me, someone who had a tendency to jump to worst-case scenarios.

It didn’t help matters that my room was right by the kitchen. Well after we all went to our rooms, a clatter cut through the thin walls. I already feared that every noise I heard in the home was a sign of an intruder, so this sent my heart skyrocketing.

But shortly after, I heard squeaking, which made me wish I had earplugs on hand.

We got through that November after catching multiple mice (by we I mean Cora), and though I spent some time warily walking into the kitchen, wondering whether I’d spot a dead mouse in one of the traps, we quickly went back to our routine.

Cut to one year later, towards the end of November: senior year.

I got up in the middle of the night, half awake as I shuffled into the bathroom. After I sat, I looked down to see that it was that time of the month, so I did an awkward waddle to the drawers to get a pad.

In retrospect, my period could not have come at a better time.

I turned back to the toilet, seat still up, and noticed a strange shape in the toilet. My first thought naturally went to a number two, but it looked strange. And then my heart began to race with understanding, then disbelief. There was no way that was the case.

Since we kept fairy lights in the bathroom, it was pretty dark, so I turned the lights on, praying that someone just forgot to flush.

The bright lights confirmed my fears. In the shallow toilet water lay a dead mouse. There were even some droppings at the bottom of the bowl. At least they had the decency to go there and not behind our microwave.

It was a little past four a.m. at this point, but I was suddenly wide awake. I closed the toilet seat and went back to my room, reaching for my phone to send a panicked text to my housemates. Then I did some googling, where I learned that apparently, it is not terribly uncommon for mice to travel through plumbing.

A few hours later, when the others were up, it became clear what I must do. Ella and Sarah had already left, and Cora was getting ready to leave. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been hoping that Cora, the mousetrap queen, would be able to take care of this. But she had already done more than her share of mousetrapping, so it was only fair that someone else took the reins.

After a much-needed pep talk from Cora, I took a long pair of tongs, a plastic grocery bag, and headed to the bathroom.

Even though I didn’t lay a finger on the mouse, I could just tell from the tongs, as they squeezed around the poor guy, that I was holding something, a being that’s a lot harder to ignore than a squashed bug. It was not pleasant.

I am certain several distressed noises were made as I transferred the mouse to the plastic bag, taking care to securely tie it shut.

Then I hustled out of the house, still in my pajamas. With my mermaid boxers on display for all the world to see, I pranced over the frost-covered grass to our garbage bin, frantically muttering “fuck fuck fuck,” as I did so.

After I left the mouse to rest with the garbage, I proceeded to clean every square inch (how Calvin of me) of the bathroom.

By the time I was done, I still felt this sense of foreboding, the same unease I felt when mice first entered our lives. Like the other times, this feeling didn’t last long.

Was it completely awful to wake up to a mouse corpse at four in the morning? Without a doubt. But if there’s one thing the mice have given me, it’s an excuse to tell a dramatic rendition of their presence.

For better or for worse, my history with mice did not end after I left my college house. At least I have more stories now.

Liana Hirner

Liana Hirner graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a bachelor’s in writing. She currently lives in her hometown of Aurora, Illinois and works full-time in a warehouse filled with books waiting to be sorted. Writing is her first love, followed swiftly by lattes and dark chocolate.