All rights reserved. The possibility that an employee may be stricken with hantavirus, a rare but potentially fatal disease transmitted by several kinds of mice, has spurred some local employees to tweak their business practices. Others haven't seen the need to change much at all. For those who have changed practices, hantavirus alone hasn't always been the catalyst. Tony Shablo, a telephone line installer with American Communications in Durango, has been avoiding crawl spaces for a long time, said Don Triola, his boss.
Crawl spaces are a potential refuge for mice.
And they can harbor other critters as well. As a result, Shablo has found other alternatives for stringing lines, such as running them around the outside of a building, while still meeting code requirements. But the added incentive of avoiding hantavirus has helped him think of new alternatives. Now Shablo also hides lines behind baseboard moulding, tucks them under the carpet or runs them through a closet. Triola also said that a wireless receiver can be hooked up outside the house and used for a cord phone, although such connections aren't feasible for computers because the transmission can break up on occasion.