DeKALB | It would seem fairly common to find mice in a house during winter.

When they were found in Stevenson’s Tower D, however, many students were caught off-guard.

“I thought it was funny because people were putting pants against their doors like the mice were going to crawl under the crack,” said Aubrey Opyt, a sophomore special education major.

When calls come in about mice in the residence halls, building services is contacted and they call in an outside vendor from environmental services to take care of the problem, said Jennifer Manning, assistant director of Residential Facilities.

Pest control comes in and puts baited traps out to get the mice away from the hall and out of the building, Manning said.

“We get one or two mice a year, usually when it gets cold outside and they’re trying to find a warm place,” Manning said.

It is not entirely unexpected that mice should come indoors during the winter, considering DeKalb’s harsh winter weather, she said.

“Pest control comes out and sprays once a month, and they put traps by the docks to prevent mice coming in,” Manning said.

To prevent pests from coming into rooms, students should try to keep food in their rooms stored somewhere out of the open, Manning advised.

“I transferred from Southern [Illinois University]. I paid a lot of money for this room and there are mice in it?” Opyt said.