When will residents of Gilbert-Addoms catch a break? In the past seven months, the East Campus dormitory has endured invasions of mice, cockroaches, ants and, most recently, rats.
Rats have been reported in Gilbert-Addoms Down Under, a space below the dorm for students to eat, study and congregate.
Freshman Grant Smith is one of a few GA residents who has witnessed the rats firsthand. “I was in GA Down Under, studying back by the pool table, when they ran right by me,” he said.
Jeanne Duncan, East Campus facilities manager, insists that the presence of rats will not be an ongoing problem. She said the appearance of rats is most likely in correlation with the increased disposal of food and garbage, due in large part to the arrival of The Q Shack as a food distributor in GA Down Under.
“Whenever there is a sighting of rodents, as there was in Gilbert-Addoms, we place about a dozen humane traps in the area, and later release the animals away from the campus,” Duncan said. “We do not expect this problem will continue, but if it does we will communicate with sanitation about how to handle it.”
The discovery of the rats may be the current focus of attention for the dormitory, but only a few weeks ago another type of rodent was sending the first-floor girls’ hall into a frenzy. One night, as Tia Ferguson and her roommate prepared for sleep, the girls heard a strange rustling sound coming from the closet. The morning light revealed a gnawed-upon protein bar—the first tell-tale sign that they had an unwanted guest.
Days later, the girls watched in terror as a mouse ran under their desk, and they quickly alerted their residential adviser and neighbors of the problem. “We heard that mice run in packs of six, so we were really scared,” Ferguson said. “Our RA told us that it wasn’t likely that anyone would do anything about the mouse, so our neighbor bought about 12 mice traps for us to set up throughout the hall.”
Not every resident had an adverse reactions to the sudden appearance of rodents, however. Around the time that Ferguson’s unlucky visitor made its first appearance, three or four other mice found their way into Will Arnold’s first-floor room through a hole in the wall.
Arnold and his roommate caught two of them and kept them, for a day or two, in a cardboard box with a water tray. “Their names were Jesus and Jamal,” Arnold said. “They were our pets. We clothed them, fed them, paid their way through school.”
Another common residential annoyance is the infestation of ants, and Duncan admitted that most, if not all, East Campus dorms experienced this problem. But GA residents say they endured more than their share first semester, especially during prolonged periods of warm weather. Authorities dealt with the infiltration by installing “bait stations” within GA halls that were meant to poison the ant nests.
“They bit me while I slept,” recalled freshman Joseph Williamson. “Worse, they would run across my fingers as I typed on my keyboard and would get squashed between the keys.”
Williamson’s neighbor, freshman Matt Rinehart, has difficulty forgetting the night that he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, opened his retainer case and discovered that his retainer was buried under a mound of ants.
Since the start of winter, residents have said ants have been much less of a problem. Although the cold weather may have discouraged the ant populations, it seems a new insect has worked its way inside GA’s walls and made itself at home. “The cockroaches are huge!” Williamson said. “We mostly saw them outdoors at the beginning of the year, but it seems they’ve come inside for the winter.”
Despite the influx of inconveniences, residents of GA maintain that they would not sacrifice their dorm for a more sanitary living space. “Don’t get me wrong, GA is such a great place to live,” said Smith, who, despite his rodent encounter, remains faithful to the dorm. “The people, the atmosphere—I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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