WOIO-CHANNEL-19

The folks at 19 Action News tried to spur action from their landlord by mailing a dead mouse.

(Michael K. McIntyre/PD)

They're everywhere!

At 19 Action News, that apparently includes the mice.

Everywhere! Even in the mail.

When you're Cleveland's in-your-face, "everywhere!" news station and you want to get your landlord's attention about an apparent rodent problem, what else is there to do but mail him a dead mouse?

"My assistant opened it and she just about fainted," said Doug Price, CEO of the K&D Group, which owns the Reserve Square building where the WOIO-TV Channel 19 and and WUAB-TV Channel 43 stations are headquartered.

Dominic Mancuso, vice president and general manager at Raycom Media's two Cleveland stations, WOIO Channel 19 and WUAB Channel 43.

Dominic Mancuso, who took over as vice president and general manager of the stations a year ago, made his displeasure with the digs known pretty quickly. Staffers at the station say the complaints range from bugs to mice to a deteriorating parking garage that deposits chunks of concrete onto the parking surface below.

The mouse arrived in a package around the beginning of winter, said Price.

Mancuso - the man who directs an operation whose reporters are dispatched to ask questions of people every day - refused to respond to Tipoff's repeated requests for comment.

Price, though, said he is working directly with Mancuso - despite the mouse caper - to rectify problems, including a $2 million upgrade to the parking garage, exterminating and other issues.

Channel 19 is under lease until 2020, he said.

"This is a new GM and since he's been there, he has not been the easiest guy to get along with," said Price. He said he believed Mancuso has "wanted to move to a new freestanding building" and was hoping to get out of his lease.

"We don't want to lose them. They're a great tenant," said Price.

He said they're working through "the usual stuff" that tenants and landlords experience, but the mousegram was anything but usual.

"I've never had anything like that," Price said. "I don't know where he's from, (Joliet, Illinois, with most of his career in Chicago) but that's not typically how we do things here."