I was home alone with my little daughter. She was just a year old, happily crawling around the apartment while I stood in the kitchen cooking.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her crawl into the hallway — and then it went quiet.
When I looked, she was sitting on the floor. In front of her — and partly in her mouth — were the remains of a mouse one of our cats had brought in. Her mouth was smeared with green.
We went straight to the doctor. And while I sat there, worried sick, I came across something in my research — the hantavirus, a potentially deadly virus that mice can carry.
That was the moment I knew: this must never happen again.