This team wants to study the mice in your NYC apartment

We want mice! Thats the rallying cry of Megan Phifer-Rixeys biology lab at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is seeking city mice and their country cousins, too to compare their DNA.

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“We want mice!”

That’s the rallying cry of Megan Phifer-Rixey’s biology lab at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is seeking city mice — and their country cousins, too — to compare their DNA.

Phifer-Rixey — who has a five-year, $1.1 million National Science Foundation grant to study the genetics of urbanization in the house mouse, Mus musculus — has posted flyers around the city seeking volunteers with mouse-ridden homes who will let her students set traps to catch the mice for study.

“People are pretty positive about getting the mice out of their apartments,” Phifer-Rixey said. “You would think we would know more about these mice that live with us, but surprisingly there is not that much research about mice that live in the city environment.”

Mice are a “priceless resource” for researching human disease, her lab website says. They are also highly adaptable to their environment. “They readily live in captivity, they breed quickly with large litters, and they are tolerant of human contact” — traits that make them beloved in the lab, but abhorrent in the home.

Megan Phifer-Rixey, of Drexel University, is looking for the mice in your New York City home. Courtesy of Megan Phifer-Rixey
Among the participants is Debra Lass of the Upper West Side, who’s been having a mouse-related nightmare in her home, which has required a major cleaning effort. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST

Mice thrive in cities like New York, filled with aging housing stock, and are tough to control. Phifer-Rixey has seen situations like “a one-mouse-in-the-kitchen thing to something more extreme,” she said, like a full-on infestation.

Perhaps her most willing participant is Debra Lass, whose mouse invasion started soon after facade work for Local Law 11 began on her Upper West Side building.

“The nightmare began in June when I woke up to the sound of rhythmic scratching sounds and saw a mouse crawling down my bedroom curtain,” said Lass, 70.

Despite her cleaning efforts and complaints, nothing has yet eliminated the mice, Lass said. She has made calls to 311, the health department and her state assemblywoman. She has trapped seven mice, plugged visible holes, set out a Rat Zapper, hosted four housing inspectors and swept up recurring trails of waste.

The mouse issue is particularly present in Lass’s kitchen. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST
Mouse droppings are collecting in her new stove — where mice are also burning up. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST

A musky smell lingers in Lass’s kitchen, where her oven is a warm shelter for nesting mice. When Lass saw “something fluffy” beneath the oven, she thought it was balled-up fur from her 17-year-old cat, Tutti, before realizing it was mouse fur.

She has found mouse remains in the oven. “The oven is a mouse crematorium!” she said. She has also added an air purifier, worried that she is inhaling pathogens.

Her management company replaced the oven, but the new one also harbors the smell.

“The smell comes from MUPs,” Phifer-Rixey said — mouse urinary proteins. “House mice can identify one another based on scent. They are depositing odor — it is territory and identity.”

In mid-August, Drexel students set four humane metal traps around Lass’s apartment. A student texted every morning to ask if she had caught one. It took six days to catch a mouse, easily identified as a juvenile by its small size and not-fully-grown feet.

Initially, Lass thought the fur she saw under her oven was a fur ball from her cat Tutti, but it was mouse fur. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST
Lass says the issue began when she saw a mouse run down her bedroom curtain. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST

When it comes to eluding capture, “the mice are surprisingly savvy,” said Phifer-Rixey. It’s possible that mice may be reluctant to interact with a novel item — a trap — in their environment.

They may also be picky eaters. “How good is our bait compared with their other options?” Phifer-Rixey said. Her traps are baited with peanut butter and oats. Mice are omnivores, and the lab will be studying differences in diet between rural mice, which eat grains and insects, and city mice, which eat people food.

“It is sort of an arms race against mice all the time,” Phifer-Rixey said. “They chew their way in. They spend a lot of time chewing and they are good at it.”

Lass, who has lived in her stabilized one-bedroom for 35 years, suspects the building’s construction work roused the mice — and they favor her apartment because most neighboring units in the building have been fully renovated and are more tightly sealed against rodent intrusion.

The fourth inspector from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development issued a letter citing the landlord for a “Class C” mouse violation, which is considered an “indoor allergen hazard” with a “21-day correction period.”

Lass has resided in her stabilized apartment for 35 years. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST
“I feel so powerless,” said Lass, seen here doing a thorough cleaning of her unit during her mouse infestation. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST

The landlord must eliminate the infestation and “the underlying condition that caused the infestation” by using “integrated pest management practices.” These include cleaning, removing entry points and eliminating water sources from leaky plumbing. Pesticides can be applied only by a state-licensed professional.

If the landlord doesn’t follow the outlined practices, the tenant should call 311, the letter said. The next step is housing court.

“I feel so powerless,” said Lass, who has consulted a lawyer. “I am terrified that it’s not solvable and we’re never going to get rid of these mice, and this is my life.”

On several occasions, the management company, AJ Clarke, sent a contractor to seal holes and an exterminator to set assorted traps.

But the problem persists, Lass said, and she needs a more aggressive plan. She scheduled her own exterminator, but the doorman was instructed to refuse him entry, she said.

“Without notifying us, she scheduled her own vendor to do the work and we don’t allow that typically,” property manager Scott Clarke told The Post. “We need a certificate of insurance.”

The exterior of Lass’s building, where Local Law 11 work on the facade has been taking place. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST
Leftover construction equipment of the Local Law 11 work, which Lass believes caused her mouse infestation. OLGA GINZBURG FOR THE NEW YORK POST

“I look forward to this being sorted out quickly,” Clarke said. “It’s a tough time of year now with mice. When it cools off, they come inside. In the next week or so we will know whether there have been significant changes.”

So far, there have not been, said Lass. “Instead, I am being overrun with pestilence. I feel like I’m in Egypt. What’s next — locusts?”

When the Drexel students returned to claim their mouse, Lass asked them to leave the three extra traps behind, “but they said no — only one data point per apartment.”

That’s because, “if you catch them in the same place, from a genetic standpoint we can use only one,” Phifer-Rixey said. “They are probably really close relatives.”

Her lab continues to seek mice for study. “We are interested in expanding into other parts,” she said. “We haven’t caught any in The Bronx.”

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