Mousetraps have recently popped up near the welcome desk of the Stephen Robert '62 Campus Center, but not because of an infestation.
Rather, the traps are an effort to be proactive with new buildings, said Donna Butler, director of custodial services, and Carlos Fernandez, assistant vice president for facilities operations and engineering.
Mousetraps are only on the first floor near the information desk because of the nearby food in the Blue Room, Butler said. Right now, there are four traps on the first floor. "That is not a significant number of traps for that size of a building," she said.
Because the campus center is a public lounge space, "you see food all over the place," Butler said, adding that they are very concerned about maintaining the new building. "It's a preventative measure."
The traps are "to ensure that we don't have a problem. There are mousetraps in every (unit) where there is food consumption," Jacques Larue, director of retail dining operations wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. He wrote that he had not heard of visitors asking about the traps.
"We have never had a rodent problem here at Brown," said Fernandez, who has been here for 15 years.
In a given year, about 40 mice are caught in buildings, Fernandez said. This number is remarkably low considering the area of Brown's campus, he said.
"We do have some excellent control measures in place," Butler said.
"We have to prevent them from coming into the buildings. In the winter, they love coming into the warm buildings," Fernandez said. "If we didn't have this program, then we'd have a problem. … Good cleaning, good waste management and good pest control management are very connected, and that is what we have at Brown."
