“Mice are secretive opportunists that can be in your house six or seven months and you don’t even know it,” says Gerard Brown, who runs the D.C. Health Department’s rodent control program. “Sometimes you might be in a room looking at the TV or sitting down, and you notice something, you think, out of the corner of your eye — some movement. And a lot of times, that’s mice.”

As a means of survival, they stick to the shadows. “They will move along walls so that they’re not as easily detected,” says Frye. Plus, they’re able to cover several feet per second.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLWwucRoaWlqY2R9eHuQa2ahp6diwbB506uYqWWYpMK0sYymoJydXw%3D%3D