Bedbugs discovered, exterminated in Skarland – The Sun Star

Photo credit: Molly Putman

A second outbreak of bedbugs on campus has been discovered, this time in Skarland hall. The pests were found last month according to Jamie Abreu, director of Residence Life.

We are utilizing pest management to continue treating the rooms, and working directly with the students to walk them through how to get rid of them, Abreu said.

The pests were discovered in two dorm rooms and traps were set in each of the rooms. However, affected students were not moved out of infested rooms.

The students were not moved as the traps were catching everything and they were going through heating their items to kill any bug that wasnt trapped, Abreu said.

Students from Skarland did not feel as positively about the speed of the operation. Eric Fitts, a marketing student, and Kayla Haeg, a political science student, both said that faster inspections would have decreased the problem.

I think restricting students to their rooms a period of a month or longer, when the bed bug situation is spreading is ultimately on UAF and how long it took bed bugs to actually be inspected foris shameful to be quite honest, Fitts said. [the students whose rooms had bed bugs] were only allowed to be in their rooms, the bathroom and the kitchen if they were making food,

Haeg suggested an idea that could have improved the situation for the affected students.

I personally think that quarantining students on campus in their own roomsfrom what Ive heardis rather atrocious, Haeg said. We pay to stay here and then you guys quarantine people off I think a better policy would be to make sure that all of their clothes are clean and then put them in a separate room.

She stated that the students could take their essential things from the room and still go around campus and enjoy their semester.

It should have been handled better, Skarland resident Walter Palof said.

As of now, there are no bedbugs in Skarland, according to Abreu, but she said there is no solid plan to avoid infestations in the future.

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Bedbugs discovered, exterminated in Skarland - The Sun Star