How to deal with rats, roaches and raccoons

Choosing roommates for a new school year can often be difficult. But no matter what the final decision is, many students find themselves coping with another breed of pestilent.

Be it on campus or off, rodent or roach, pests are a persistent problem in student housing.

College sophomore Zeke Sexauer has been living among roaches in his Rodin College House apartment this whole semester.

“The roaches were there before we moved in. They were everywhere,” Sexauer said. “When Facilities came — within a day of our report — and pulled back the fridge, there was a nest behind [it].”

Facilities sprayed the apartment with an anti-roach aerosol in order to exterminate and drive roaches out of their hiding places. It forced them to “come out of everywhere and die,” Sexauer said. The effort, though temporarily grotesque, has alleviated many of his roach problems.

Students living off campus experienced similar pains.

One College junior, who insisted on anonymity due to the “disgusting” nature of the topic, reported heavy mice infestation in her apartment at 40th and Pine streets.

Since moving in this fall, she has found mice sitting atop her microwave and holes chewed through her clothes. She has even found mice droppings in her bed.

The College junior said the mice have gotten increasingly “aggressive” since she moved in.

“It used to be that when I wake up and turn the light on, they would run away,” she said. “Now they just stay there.”

She added that she and her roommates have also seen roaches, raccoons and spiders the size of quarters. But, in light of the mice problem, they have chosen to focus on the “bigger issue,” she said.

Unfortunately, in her case, the Office of Off-Campus Services has not been helpful enough. The problem, the College junior said, is much bigger than what a few mouse traps can solve.

College senior Jolecia Flournory reported similar problems on 39th and Pine streets.

“We’ve had the same mouse running around our basement since June,” Flournory said.

However, she has managed “to make peace” with her uninvited guest, she said.

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