Arriving fashionably late for Halloween, hordes of not-so-creepy crawlers have descended upon several West Campus dormitories.
Hundreds of ladybugs have been spotted by students in select rooms in Wannamaker, Crowell, Edens and Keohane quadrangles. Ladybugs have been known to frequent the more towering residence halls-namely the Crowell Clock Tower and Edens-that block them in flight. But Keohane and Wannamaker quads seem to be territorial expansions for the critters this year, residence assistants confirmed.
Since early this month, residents on West have reported ladybugs variously scaling ceilings in Crowell Quad, perishing in Wannamaker Quad and procreating in Keohane Quad.
Sophomore Dana Oppermann, a Crowell resident, said the insects entered her room in a slow trickle-an almost unnoticeable presence at first. But then one morning, she and her roommate gazed up to see their ceiling crawling with the creatures and decided to call an exterminator on the spot.
"I thought they were cute before, but they're not so cute now," Oppermann said. "You don't mind them when there's only one or two of them.... You don't want 50 of them in your room."
Crowell Residence Assistant Megan Grant, a junior, said one room in her hall was teeming with more than 300 ladybugs. Grant and three others cleared the room by coaxing the creatures into glass bottles and releasing them outdoors. Crowell residents have been advised to keep the bugs at bay by sealing their windows with duct tape, Grant said.
John Duncan, Central Campus residential facilities manager, who has previously overseen facilities on West, said ladybugs have encroached upon student spaces since they were released by the government in several Southern states to control aphids in about 2000. Duncan noted that Residence Life and Housing Services typically vacuums up the pests in afflicted students' rooms, but added that he thinks the bugs are nothing more than a nuisance for students.
"I don't know whether they hatch or what-they don't bite, they're just there," he said. "But there are people who just don't want to be around anything that flies or swarms."
Jeanne Duncan, East Campus residential facilities manager, explained that the freestanding buildings on East and Central have seen fewer ladybugs over the years because the creatures seek the cool, dry spaces fostered by the breezeways linking the quadrangles on West.
Although students have been dismayed to see the ladybugs cropping up in new corners of West, Duncan defended the honor of creatures sometimes classified as "pests."
"Infestation is a word I would be reticent to use because I don't think a ladybug is something undesirable," she said. "They're very good garden bugs."
Residents on the upper floors of Wannamaker Quad said they have been joined in their rooms by as many as 50 ladybugs. But living on the ground level, junior Greg Rivers has simply brushed off the matter.
"I remember at one point saying, 'Oh, there's a ladybug on me,' and picking it off," he said. "I wasn't like, 'Oh my God, they're swarming us.'"
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