Researchers and lecturers at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences are fed up with the mice infestation in their offices. The clinical psychology department has been hit particularly hard. ‘On several occasions, they have raced past my feet.’
Mouse droppings on desks and in office corners, traps to catch them, ultrasonic repellents to scare them off, and mice regularly scurrying past people’s feet while they work. This has been going on for about a year now, reveals an enquiry by Mare among lecturers and researchers. The corridor of the clinical psychology department, on the second floor of the Pieter de la Court building, is particularly affected by the vermin.
Many of the staff members there are familiar with the photos and videos circulating internally, including one of a dead mouse found on a desk by a cleaner. But in recent weeks, the nuisance has grown worse. This was not only reported by the staff Mare spoke to, but is also evident from a letter the Faculty Council sent to the Faculty Board (see text box).
‘I had to deal with them in my office for nine months’, says associate professor Eiko Fried. ‘There was a terrible stench coming from behind the radiator, probably from a mixture of mouse droppings, urine and dead rodents. It was so bad that I had to receive journalists who came in for interviews in a different office.’
AIR FRESHENER
He and his colleagues complained about it multiple times, but no concrete solution was ever found. The cleaners couldn’t do much either, says Fried, because they cannot reach behind the radiators. So the only thing left to do was to put an air freshener in the room. ‘Apart from the fact that it smelled like chemical apples, masking the stench with an air freshener is, of course, not a real solution.’
‘At first, it was still kind of funny’, says clinical psychologist Laura Steenbergen. ‘But I became very ill this summer and even ended up in hospital for a while. I came back to find my entire office covered in mouse droppings: along the table legs and all over the walls. That’s when I realised my health was at stake. So I sent an angry e-mail to the faculty office.’
Together with Fried, she also reported the situation to ombudsman Marjan van Dasselaar. According to Steenbergen, Van Dasselaar was supposed to contact the Health, Safety and Environment Department, but she does not know whether this actually happened.
Van Dasselaar neither confirms nor denies having received any reports. ‘I have an obligation to protect the confidentiality of those who report to me, so I cannot share any information with the press.’
PHOBIA
Assistant professors Cosima Nimphy, Anna Babl and Sanne van Luenen, who share an office, confirm their colleagues’ accounts. ‘It’s been going on for quite some time; I saw the mice as early as a year ago’, says Nimphy. ‘Sometimes I see them weekly, and on several occasions, a mouse has raced past my feet while I was working.’
She shows a pile of mouse droppings at the edge of the room. ‘The mice sometimes crawl under the doors. Some colleagues really can’t stand it.’
‘They work from home more often now’, adds Van Luenen. ‘They’re right in that it’s really disgusting. So now we have to keep the place extremely clean ourselves.’
A little further on, two researchers are working in one of the offices. They confirm the stories, but want to keep it brief. ‘We have to be careful that our colleague doesn’t come in, because she has a phobia of mice. So she doesn’t know that there are mouse droppings here.’
We do, in fact, find a pile of mouse droppings behind a desk. ‘That’s been there for weeks’, says one of them, who wishes to remain anonymous. They have noticed ‘a sharp decline’ in how often the offices are cleaned. ‘They used to wipe down the desks every day, but that’s no longer the case. I think the cleaners don’t get enough time to do so.’
Steenbergen agrees. ‘This is not the cleaners’ responsibility. They don’t have time for that.’
Fried says he once had a dead mouse in his office, which was removed by cleaners. ‘But I don’t think my office was thoroughly cleaned or disinfected by pest control specialists afterwards. I feel sorry for the cleaners that they have to deal with this stench and dead rodents.’
‘So now we clean our desks ourselves’, says a colleague. ‘And we don’t leave any food behind and make sure everything is double-wrapped in plastic.’ The cleaners also advised them to remove their drawer units from under their desks. ‘Otherwise, the mice will nest between the drawers and the desks.’
Babl and her office mates also try to keep their room as clean as possible. Babl: ‘And we take any leftover food home with us.’
During last week’s Faculty Council meeting, the Faculty Board said that they remind staff to keep their offices as clean as possible. But the researchers say they have not received any formal communication from the faculty. ‘We don’t hear anything from the university, only from the cleaners’, Nimphy responds. ‘For example, that we should clean up our food properly.’
‘And that we shouldn’t eat at our desks’, adds Van Luenen. ‘But when you eat at your dining table at home, mice aren’t an issue, are they?’.
Nimphy acknowledges that there has been more cleaning in recent weeks. ‘In the summer, when there were few people at the faculty, the situation was at its worst.’
Faculty Council chair Kiki Zanolie, located on the third floor, wrote a letter to the Faculty Board on behalf of the Council regarding the problem. ‘The Board agrees that the problem is much worse now than before. They’re trying to solve the problem, but it won’t be possible to eliminate it completely. It’s an old building.’
A pest control company has been brought in to deal with the vermin.
In addition to a mice infestation, there have also reportedly been sightings of rats, writes the Faculty Council in an urgent letter. Cutting back on cleaning ‘may have been counter-productive’, according to the board.
By Else van der Steeg
‘There have been several reports of mice and rats in the building recently, as well as droppings in offices and workspaces’, the Faculty Council wrote to the Board. ‘Although the Council has previously raised questions about this, the situation does not appear to have improved. This raises concerns about working conditions and hygiene within our faculty.’
‘It became the talk of the town at one point’, said Faculty Council chair Kiki Zanolie last week during the Council meeting. ‘In every corridor you walked down, you would hear people talking about it. The ombudsman even asked about it. We had noticed mice running around before, but it seems to be getting worse. The main question is: how are we going to deal with this?’
Director of Operations Egon Houben says they are well aware of the situation. ‘We have a real problem on our hands. Unfortunately, the scale of the problem is increasing, despite the measures we have already taken. Pest control has set traps that are checked regularly. Extra traps have been placed in areas where we know vermin are most likely to appear.’
CLEANING
According to him, preventative measures have been taken as well. ‘We ask staff to keep their desks as tidy and clean as possible. We enforce this by addressing people directly. We also explicitly ask staff to ensure that food is only left in securely sealed containers.’
The Real Estate Directorate is looking into whether the building can be better secured, particularly along the waterside, to make it more difficult for mice to get in. In addition, an appeal has been made to the cleaning team.
One possible additional measure that the Board could take is to increase the frequency of cleaning. Houben: ‘At the start of 2025, we scaled that back somewhat. We are considering bringing it back to the old level. The scaling back was done to save costs, but it may have been counter-productive.’
Zanolie thinks this is a good idea. ‘Getting rid of mice remains a difficult problem. But extra cleaning can help to keep the environment as hygienic as possible.’