Dartmouth students who retreat to their rooms to escape the out-of-doors may be surprised to learn that, in many dormitories, the wilderness has followed them inside. Such was the case for Rebecca Goldberg '10 who was greeted by an army of unwelcome visitors emerging from her fireplace.
"Out of a broken brick, clouds of black ants came crawling in," Goldberg said.
Goldberg is one of several students interviewed by The Dartmouth who have encountered infestations in College residence halls.
In the weeks following the ants' arrival, Goldberg found herself brushing the pests off her arms while she worked, she said. From time to time, she watched the ants march up and down her walls.
Goldberg e-mailed the Office of Residential Life, requesting an exterminator. She said that although ORL responded quickly, they did not eliminate the infestation.
"They supposedly fixed the problem, but nothing really changed," she said.
The exterminator who visited Goldberg's room used a technique called Integrated Pest Management, which applies highly targeted chemicals instead of industrial pesticides, Director of Residential Operations Woody Eckels explained. Eckels insisted the IPM approach is effective, but Goldberg said it took two visits for the ants' presence to decrease to what she considered a "not so gross" level. In the meantime, she ordered ant traps online, which attracted, but did not kill the ants, she said.
On the second floor of Butterfield Hall, Priya Rajgopal '11 was confronted with a different pest: mice.
Rajgopal said she had stored food in an airtight container and believes she must have left it partially open at some point. One day before Thanksgiving break, she reached in the box and saw noodles strewn across the bottom.
After conferring with her undergraduate advisor, Rajgopal e-mailed ORL, which said it would send someone to set up traps before Thanksgiving and would follow up after the holiday to check on the status of the infestation.
"The next day, I woke up, and a mouse trap had magically appeared behind my radiator," Rajgopal said.
While the response was prompt, Rajgopal said the trap is still empty.
Similar pest problems plagued Alison Flanagan '10 when she returned to her Mid-Massachusetts Hall room this winter. Something had arranged a nest of paper towel shreds in her room.
Flanagan contacted the Troubleshooters, the division of the Office of Facilities, Operations and Management that responds to off-hours calls. She believes that they did not take her complaint seriously, she said. Nobody responded to her request for a week, and Flanagan said that she only knows the Troubleshooters visited because her UGA received an e-mail informing her that they entered Flanagan's room.
This past weekend, Flanagan saw the mouse.
"I was watching a loud movie and the lights were on, but it appeared in the middle of the room," she said, "It was scampering towards me, and I just kind of froze."
Eckels said the Troubleshooters are not equipped to eradicate pest problems with the same effectiveness as an exterminator. The Troubleshooters are not trained in IPM, so they do not have the same tools at their disposal that ORL can provide. Jane Fournier, an administrative assistant at the FO&M office, said that in order for her office to provide complete extermination work, it must receive a work order from Residential Operations.
According to Eckels, students can drop pest complaint notes in a box on his door. He said he receives three to six complaints every week.
"They're not very discriminating," Eckels said about the pests. "It's just part of living in New England. We really are out in the wilderness."
Eckels also noted that when the McLaughlin Cluster opened in 2006, residents complained of a rodent problem, but it was resolved within a few weeks.
Dartmouth has a contract with Maguire Pest Control, a company that services all of the College's buildings, as well as the Hanover Inn and a variety of other institutions. Because of its busy schedule, the exterminator is only available one day per week to respond to Dartmouth students' requests.
Goldberg, Flanagan and Rajgopal all said that, because the ants and mice are still present, they avoid spending time in their rooms as much as possible.
"I just want it gone," Flanagan said.
