Let Them Eat Cake, Those Dirty Rats!

(Our offices are located in several converted houses built in the 18th century. Several people on our floor persist in leaving uncovered food like cake and biscuits out overnight, despite pleas from the cleaning staff. Inevitably, we have mice. On occasion, I’ve seen them scampering across our office floor! The company has traps put out regularly, but since winter’s coming the mice are naturally going to escape from the cold any way they can, particularly when their refuge is well-stocked. During a meeting with a coworker whose office is in the building next door:)

Coworker: “You guys have mice in your building, right?”

Me: “Very likely, although I haven’t seen any for a while.”

Coworker: “Yeah, so we have mice and rats.”

Me: “What?”

Coworker: “You know [Coworkers] had their leaving do last week? Well, they left such a big mess that apparently one of the cleaners had to come in on Saturday to finish tidying up. And when he got into the office, the first thing he saw was this big fat rat eating cake, right off the carpet! Because, of course, they left the food out overnight, and some of it fell to the floor. It was just stuffing its face; it wasn’t scared of him at all.”

Me: “Good grief.”

Coworker: “The guy was really angry; he said he hadn’t been hired to clean a rat-infested building!”

(I very much hope the company is going to step up with pest control, and that the people next door got rightly scolded for creating extra work for the poor cleaner and leaving food out. I’m tempted to tell people on my floor about the step up in pests, in the hope that they’ll tidy up after themselves. I now also try not to let my feet touch the floor when I’m sitting at my desk, in case something scurries past.)