A Prison Besieged by Mice

For more than a year, prisoners and guards at a century-old Victoria prison have been plagued by a common foe: a stubborn and unvanquishable legion of mice.

Since late 2023, mice at Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre, or VIRCC, have chewed through prisoners’ bread, been spotted dashing across staff couches and created an almighty stench.

The infestation continues today and has been so persistent that it inspired a prisoner to file a freedom of information request with the provincial government in an attempt to learn when the infestation might finally be resolved. Another inmate told The Tyee that the problem continues to this day, with prisoners using shoes to kill scampering mice.

“It’s just gross to live with them,” Tyler Pascal told The Tyee. “They’re fucking running around all the time and are in the kitchen where our food is. The bread bags coming down are half chewed up with rat shit in them.”

Pascal said prison officials have downplayed the infestation to prisons, and in a March email, the prison’s warden told an advocate that the situation was being addressed. But other emails released thanks to the freedom of information request paint a bleaker picture, with staff complaining about unsanitary conditions, speculating about firing the pest control company that has failed to solve the situation and describing the infestation as a “saga.”

The emails also reveal the bureaucratic and staffing hurdles that have made it difficult to resolve the problem. Inmates have cajoled prison officials, who in turn have prodded the private property manager in charge of the building. That company, in turn, has pushed a pest control contractor to fix the situation — but resisted hiring a different company.

As inmates have swatted mice, staff have swapped messages — some of which indicate simmering frustration.

“How about we deal with this instead of passing the buck, which seems to be happening,” one prison employee wrote to an official in March, more than a year after the infestation began. “If your office smelt like dead mice or rats, I'm sure something would be done that day.”

‘Please light a fire’

The first publicly disclosed email comes from Dec. 13, 2022, when a staffer notified Bojan Grbavac, the prison’s assistant deputy warden of operations, that multiple inmates had reported mice in their unit at night. Some inmates had shown staff evidence that rodents had eaten their food and prison-issued flip-flops.

Grbavac’s response indicated it wasn’t the first complaint he had fielded. It would be far from the last. He immediately forwarded the report to his contact at CBRE, the private property management company that helps operate numerous provincial government facilities, including VIRCC. He wrote that he was “still getting numerous concerns about the rodent problem” and asked if there was a way for the prison to “enhance” its current approach.

That question — What more can be done to eradicate these mice? — would return again and again over the next year and leave staff inside the facility pleading with contractors to do better.

Grbavac’s contact at CBRE (whose name was redacted in documents) promised to speak about the problem with Abell Pest Control, the Canada-wide pest company with the contract for VIRCC. Grbavac was also asked to complete paperwork that would allow for the installation of “rodent proof door sweeps” — pieces of plastic designed to make it hard for rodents to move from room to room beneath doors.

The sweeps were slow to be installed, however, and in February, the prison’s food services manager sent an email declaring that the “mouse problem in the kitchen/dining room is getting worse.” Mice were chewing through prodigious amounts of stored bread. Over one three-day period, they chomped on 24 loaves. The manager said that a door sweep had not yet been installed under the door connecting the prison’s courtyard to its dining room.

“Please light a fire under the pest companies feet to address the problem which is getting worse not better,” they wrote.

Winter turned to spring and spring to summer, and the mice stuck around. Some door sweeps were added. Officials also sought to mouse-proof their food processes, but that was challenging because of the importance of bread to the diet of inmates lacking food for the local canteen — the prison’s in-house store.

But the mice continued to plague the prison. And as officials began to grow worried about the coming winter, the first emails emerged related to the infestation affecting staff themselves.

In late August, a commander with VIRCC’s emergency response team found mice droppings in cubbies and mouse-damaged equipment in a storage room. He also saw “three small mice darting around,” according to an email sent by assistant deputy warden Tiffany Mah to Grbavac and Sukhdeep Saini, VIRCC’s warden. Other employees had also seen mice “running through the staff lounge while they are eating/resting,” Mah reported.

As summer turned to fall, Mah warned that cooler weather was likely to bring more rodents to the facility. She and others were increasingly discussing the performance of the pest control contractor hired to fix the problem.

In one of the most candid emails disclosed by the freedom of information request, the prison’s deputy warden, Tami Collishaw, related a conversation with a colleague who expressed doubts Abell Pest Control had the ability to fix the problem. “Perhaps they are not the correct fit.”

One worker had suggested that the prison get some cats. But Collishaw noted that might not be a good idea. She wrote that untrapped dead mice had been found on top of shelves in an old laundry room. Collishaw reckoned they had died of poisoning and suggested that ruled out the ability to recruit cat killers.

“The cat kills [and] eats the mouse then we have dead cats everywhere,” she wrote.

The Tyee asked Abell and CBRE for comments on their responses. An Abell rep was unaware of the situation and not able to provide a response by the time of publication. CBRE did not respond to an email.

As frustration grew within the prison, the rep from the private property manager CBRE assured, “I will work closely with Abell to exhaust solutions” and to formalize a plan to deal with the mice.

Staff continued to complain.

In early September, a worker wrote to Grbavac that the rodent situation was “getting out of control.” They had seen two mice the previous day, and other rodents on a half-dozen other occasions over the previous month.

“Could the leading team please do something about it,” the worker pleaded. “The small traps that are spread around don’t seem to be doing a great job.”

Prison officials started to cast around for their own solutions. Grbavac had arranged for the purchase of two “pest repeller” units that used low-frequency sounds to try to scare away rodents.

Abell, meanwhile, developed a list of recommendations ranging from sanitizing and cleaning all areas where mice might gather to sealing doors and installing more door sweeps. The prison was also told that food in the kitchen had to be placed in sealed totes.

The flurry of activity brought hope. But the problems continued — especially in the VIRCC kitchen.

‘They are reaching the third shelf up’

Last October, nearly a year after they first sounded the alarm bells, the food services manager sent another email to supervisors, this one with the subject line “Continuing mouse saga.”

That email contained a variety of photos of mouse-chewed boxes and foodstuffs.

“Apparently the mice have access to climbing gear — they are reaching the third shelf up and climbing the tower carts!”

The manager requested 10 new plastic totes as soon as possible. They also ruminated about having the prison’s own shop start to build traps to catch the mice.

Abell had seemingly stepped up work to find ways to mouse-proof the prison. The facility had been designed to prevent inmates from escaping. Now the pest control company was undertaking similar surveys to find ways to stop rodents from infiltrating the prison.

Abell workers found an open drain that mice may have been using to get into the kitchen and stuffed it with steel wool. A damaged door sweep was replaced. And along the back perimeter of the prison, Abell suggested digging a one-foot-deep trench and filling it with gravel to stop rodents from burrowing along the wall.

But many of the pest company’s recommendations didn’t turn into actions. On Christmas Eve, Abell’s pest patrol returned. In addition to confirmation of the continued mice problem, they discovered that several things they said should be done — fixing door sweeps and installing the trench — hadn’t yet been started.

As a 2023 problem became a 2025 plague, the mice started being blamed for problems that they may not have even caused.

In March, several parts of the prison started smelling like dead mice. One official belatedly apologized for reporting the matter to Grbavac a week late, while observing, “Obviously this makes for a negative impact on the unit.”

Grbavac replied that mice might not be entirely to blame; a similar issue in another unit had turned out to be standing water caused by a small flood. Whatever the cause, staff had grown restless.

“I came into Lima again today and it smelt like dead rats mice and the dead one still is in the trap I told you about a few weeks ago,” one worker wrote to an assistant deputy warden. It was at this point that they curtly suggested the official would not tolerate such a stench in their own office and asked them to stop “passing the buck.”

‘Obviously a serious issue’

Inmates were also increasingly fed up with the infestation.

In April, they contacted Mashal Syed, a legal advocate at Prisoners’ Legal Services, an organization that works to improve conditions for inmates.

Syed emailed Saini, the facility’s warden.

“Reports have noted that there are mice in food sometimes and that the mice are clearly seen running around on the range,” Syed wrote. “This is obviously a serious issue and threatens the safety and hygiene of the Centre. Reports have noted that pest control has been brought in but that the issue persists and is not being actively dealt with on an urgent basis.”

Saini thanked Syed for his email and promised to “look into the matter further.” When Syed sent a second email a few days later, Saini assured him the mice were being dealt with and did not disclose the prison’s long-running — and ineffective — attempts to do so. He did forward the email on to Grbavac, who in turn sent an email to his CBRE contact, asking whether Abell was making any progress.

The response is not available — the freedom of information request was for emails filed up until mid-April.

But the infestation didn’t end, according to Pascal, the VIRCC inmate who spoke to The Tyee.

VIRCC is a provincially run prison, meaning it houses men whose sentences run no longer than two years. The infestation looks set to last longer than that, meaning many inmates may never know a prison without scurrying mice. The mice predate Pascal’s arrival about a year ago.

“It’s been going on for a long time, like ever since I’ve been locked up here,” he told The Tyee. “We have a long list of documented encounters.... They’re running around our rooms basically every night. Or between our rooms, we have little storage rooms and they’re always in there.”

Pascal said that despite their personal observations, prison officials had denied there was a serious problem.

“The staff has just basically done fuck all to do anything for us,” he said. “They’re super negligent.”

He said mice traps placed around the institution are rarely checked or cleaned, despite frequently catching rodents. So inmates have taken it upon themselves to try to reduce the pest count.

“We usually just kill them with a shoe.”