Quad resident treats mice 'with respect'

They ate holes through her underwear. They gave birth in her drawers. The clan of mice living in College freshman Kelley Parker's Quadrangle single even "shit on my toothbrush." But, Parker refuses to let anyone exterminate the rodents, which continue to rustle in her room at all hours of the night. "I believe in treating animals with respect," she explained. Residential Maintenance Assistant Director Philip Genther said after reading about Parker's problems in The Daily Pennsylvanian, an exterminator visited Parker's room to lay down bait and glue traps. When the exterminator returned the next day, he saw Parker throwing the glue traps away, Genther said. "There's no reason to kill the little creatures," she said. She added that when she sees a mouse in her room, rather than using an "inhumane" trap, she catches the rodent in a trash can and sets it free outside. But, despite her efforts, one mouse got caught in a glue trap that she had thrown in her trash can on Monday, Parker said. "I saw these sweet little eyes looking up at me from the trash can and knew I couldn't use those glue traps," she said. With the aid of hallmate Charles Kim, a College freshman, Parker was able to free the mouse by using "Q-tips and sesame oil" to loosen it from the glue trap. Kim said he spent almost a half- hour helping to liberate the mouse -- which was jerking about and gnashing its teeth as the students toiled -- because Parker "was about to start crying." "She wouldn't stop [begging] me to help her," he said. Kim said while freeing the mouse, Parker "spoke to it very seriously, comforting it." "She told it not to worry, that everything was going to be okay," Kim added. "She even gave it a name -- Joe." Kim does not share Parker's attachment to the rodents, though, he said. "She's definitely kind of unusual, especially about animals," he said. "Personally, I would exterminate them." He added that Parker is a strict vegetarian who demanded that Kim "thank the animal who gave its life for my meal" when he ate meat in her company. College freshman Marshall Wienfeld, who witnessed Parker and Kim free the mouse from the glue trap, said he was aware of some other displays of Parker's humanitarianism. Parker refused to dissect a rat last semester in Biology class unless it was "dressed for surgery, like a human," said Wienfeld, who is also a student in the class. "She's a little eccentric," he added. "Her social life is mice." But his roommate, College freshman Kendall Watson, disagreed. "I think it's admirable that she's idealistic," he said. "Kelley's the type who would go join the Peace Corps one day."

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