The lawyers at the state attorney’s office are acting as judge and jury when it comes to an unwelcome invasion of rodents
TAMPA — In the south tower of the courthouse annex on Kennedy Boulevard, mice are everywhere, says Pam Bondi, spokeswoman for State Attorney Mark Ober.
On desks. Scampering across floors. Leaving droppings and urine all over the place.
“This has been going on for a couple of months,” Bondi says. “There have to be hundreds of them. Bold. Brazen. People are standing in the hallways, and they will run right by them. You will be sitting on the phone talking, and they will run right by you. When we go to meetings, we sit with our legs folded.”
“I found feces and urine from mice everywhere,” Bondi says. “All over Ober’s desk, all on our attorneys’ desks. I keep my vitamins in a Ziploc bag, and one of them ate my vitamins. Now the mice are healthier and stronger than ever.”
One of the mice made a guest appearance during a recent meeting with Jim Madden, the new head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Ober says.
“A mouse ran behind the couch,” Ober says. “We proceeded with the meeting. It ran into my bathroom, did a U turn in the bathroom, ran along the wall of my bookcase on the other side of the room and hid in between some books. It was peeking out from the law books, telling us to hurry up and get done with the meeting.”
Bondi says that although the county is doing all it can to fix the problem, there is a health concern.
“One of our pregnant attorneys found mouse feces in her drawer,” Bondi says. “She had to change offices.”
The rodent infestation stemmed from construction in the building and elsewhere downtown, says Don Harwig, facilities director for county buildings. Harwig says a pest elimination company is targeting the mice and the population is being reduced.
Harwig says a rat infestation has been eliminated.
The building had rats about six months ago, Bondi explains. Although exterminators hired by the county took care of that, the solution might have led to the current problem, she says, because the rats ate the mice.
With no rats, the mice are running wild.
The problem is so severe, Ober took matters into his own hands, bringing in several cheap mouse traps.
“The county mouse hunter scoffed at these $2 traps,” Bondi says. “But guess who was the only one to catch a mouse today?”
Ober.
Bondi named the mouse Norma.
Ober says it is a familiar issue for the lawyers.
“We deal with rats every day in the courtrooms.” he says.
