I am a longtime lurker but I have never posted here before. I have worked some terrible retail jobs in my day but my past weekend at my current job has been unbearable. My store has had a mice infestation for months. At first, it wasn't too big of a deal, just a scattered mouse caught in a trap, then about a month ago, we began to discover mouse feces and urine EVERYWHERE including our store shelves and on products. I brought this to my store manager who brought it to his boss who said she does not care. Interesting… we then have a visit from her boss and inform him of the increasing issue with the mice and again, he does not care. Finally, things went to shit on Saturday when I noticed an absolutely foul smell coming from our storage room which we are told to never go in because it is severely neglected. I knew I was smelling dead mice and needed to get it the fuck out of the store before the smell spread. Well. When I opened that door I almost fainted. My coworker and I discovered the meeting place of the mice. The entire floor was coated in feces and urine, there was not a single clean spot of flooring to be seen. There were not one, not two, but four mouse corpses found in this very small room. Then we found the mold… and then the holes in the walls, and then the nest. One of my coworkers ended up getting extremely sick (we think because of the mold) and I spent far too long throwing up in a dumpster outside in the parking lot. Obviously this was such a big deal I geared up and started to try and remove the corpses and a fair amount of shit (did not touch the mold). We documented all of this and took pictures and sent them off to our district manager to address the absolute biohazard that was happening in that room (and the whole store tbh). Her response and I really wish I was kidding here, was “I hope this doesn't mean you were cleaning on a Saturday. This is absolutely unacceptable and I will be addressing your behaviour soon”. I blew up. I lost my absolute mind. We spent the day trying to convince her to get someone in to clean up the mess but she would not stop saying that is behaviour is unacceptable and that we are going to be written up. I responded to this email requesting the proper company protocols for biohazardous materials and was told “I have already addressed this”. which she did not. I am at a complete loss here. I love this job besides these last couple of months and she is the only one who is the problem here. Her disrespect is insane and she clearly does not care that we are in constant danger being exposed to this material. I am obviously handing in my notice ASAP but just can't believe I was put in this situation and received the responses I did.
I have reported the situation to occupational health and safety but I do not have high expectations.