“I killed 116 mice in my apartment”: in Sokolniki, Muscovites complained about rodents

“I am a siege survivor, I have many different diseases, and now I still have to fight with mice,” 84-year-old Muscovite Vladimir Vladimirovich from Sokolniki complained to MK. The house is 50 years old, but the residents have not seen rodents… 49 years (they were noticed only in the first year, when people just moved into it) – until January 2024, when rodents unexpectedly took a fancy to this site again. The management company “ZhKH Ispolin” cannot yet solve the problem. Is it really possible that an elderly person who survived the siege of Leningrad will have to continue to fight pests alone, while those whose responsibilities include this are unable to do anything? “MK” looked into this outrageous situation.

In Sokolniki, in an old building No. 5 on Egerskaya Street (VAO), mice suddenly multiplied. One of the residents, Vladimir Vladimirovich, complained to MK that he had to deal with indifference and boorish attitude towards himself on the part of district structures and services. He tried to reach out to whomever he tried: he called the Administration, the Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, and Rospotrebnadzor… All roads lead to Management Company Housing and Communal Services Ispolin LLC, but its executive director Alexander Filippov, according to Vladimir Vladimirovich, has already stopped picking up the phone and answering calls. his numerous emails. All calls to the Criminal Code to the veteran are answered: “Filippov is busy.” “When can I contact him?” – “He’s always busy, he’s working, do you think you’re the only one like him?!” “But isn’t the issue I’m calling him about his direct work? – the man is indignant.

– When and where did rodents appear in your apartment? – I ask Vladimir Vladimirovich.

“The last time we saw mice was 49 years ago,” he says. – And now they appeared in early January. From January to today, 116 (!) mice have fallen into the mousetraps that I set (there are twelve of them in total). Every day there are four or five. They climb through the toilet, through the hole where the house communications go. Every time I have to pull the dead mouse out of the trap and throw it into the garbage chute. And so every day…

The neighbors above and below also have rodents. I called the SES, and they answered that the management company should place an order. I asked them to come and spread the poison in my apartment, but, according to them, this was a waste of time, since “the whole house is contaminated.”

“MK” got through to the same Alexander Filippov at the “Ispolin” Housing and Public Utilities Management Company. He assured that they did everything they could.

“Every month we treat the common property in the house; we have an agreement with the city station, which treats houses monthly with its preparations,” Filippov told MK. “And we don’t have the right to place poison in apartments.” Residents have the right to call disinfectants to their apartment themselves. We went to this man’s home and, at his request, sealed up the cracks in the bathroom and toilet; I even offered to pay from my personal funds for the drug that he needed, so that he would put it in his apartment. I sympathize with him, but there is nothing more we can do. We will now additionally disinfect the ventilation from top to bottom in this house…

But if nothing helps, and the rodents don’t go anywhere, then we need to look for some other way out to solve this problem?

“I’m sure that if the management company comes to me and properly caulks all the holes in the toilet, then the mice will stop coming in,” says Vladimir Vladimirovich. – Several residents in our entrance said that they sealed the holes themselves, and after that the mice disappeared. I just can’t do it. I’m completely depressed about this whole situation. I contacted local deputies four days ago, and I really hope that they will finally help…

Why are mice dangerous? They are capable of creating real chaos: chewing up walls, destroying food packages, ruining clothes or shoes, and more. Because of such “guests,” an unpleasant odor appears in the apartment. Moreover, mice often damage wires, which can cause a fire. But an even greater danger comes from rodents – they are carriers of a bunch of diseases…

For comments on how we can completely get rid of pests, we turned to the disinfectant technologist, head of the facility sanitary treatment service, Alexey Menshikov.

“Perhaps in this old house there are some underground communications connected to the sewer system, the metro, or some other rooms where mice live,” says the expert. “That’s why they crawl into the house from all the cracks.” If you take the right measures to completely isolate apartments, there will be no pests in the room. Therefore, the first recommendation is to cement the holes and install seals, which will prevent free penetration of the pest into the living space. The presence of food supply for rodents is a prerequisite for their appearance, hidden nesting and movement.

The house is old, and there is a possibility that rodents live in large numbers somewhere in the walls, in ventilation, garbage chutes, in the attic, in basements… All these areas need to be worked on – and, first of all, with the help of chemical disinfection, when everything is cleaned, and disinfectors use special equipment (steam generators, sprayers) to work on the walls, floors, joints, ventilation in order to eliminate the odors of urine and rodent excrement, and thereby scare them away (mice and rats smell the waste of their relatives, which attract them, for 300 meters!).

I know how city services work – usually according to the old scheme. The fact is that rodents have now developed immunity to the poisons of the old generation.

We just worked on one site where there was a dominance of rats, and were able to completely get rid of them using two methods: first, we sealed all the holes and holes, completely eliminating the entry of rodents, after which we carried out disinfection measures, washed everything with the help of a cleaning company, eliminated smells. After that, we began to look at which drugs and which methods work. In this case, mechanical catching worked. That is, rodents from the street could no longer get into the room, and we caught those that still remained somewhere inside using baits that were placed on an adhesive surface. But, of course, all these methods will cost a pretty penny; the same glue or traps are not cheap. In fact, fighting rodents in a neglected facility is not cheap, but there will be results.