Bedbugs reinfest ODU dormitory

By Collin Binkley

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

A residence hall at Ohio Dominican University that was treated for bedbugs last year is again infested by the pests, this time just days after students moved in.

University officials said they found bedbugs in 17 suites in Lynam Hall, which houses upperclassmen, and that 17 students have had to change their housing plans until their rooms are treated.

“It is a major inconvenience, and we just want to make sure everything gets treated,” said John Palmer, a spokesman for the Columbus university on Sunbury Road.

On Saturday, the second day that students could begin moving onto campus, a student noticed the bugs in her bedroom. University officials paid a company to treat that room and four others where the bugs were identified early this week.

But since then, a dog trained to smell bedbugs found them in more rooms, bringing the number to 17.

Officials said it’s unclear whether the bedbugs were already in the building or someone brought them.

About 100 students live in Lynam, the newest residence hall at the university.

Of the four students the university paid to house in a hotel, only one has yet to return to the university. Other students have been moved to other rooms throughout campus.

The company treating the rooms, Rose Pest Solutions, is using diesel-powered generators to heat the rooms to more than 120 degrees, said Fred Gould, district manager for the company.

He said that method is more effective than spraying rooms with chemicals, the method that was used to treat Lynam last year.

“With heat, it’s about as close to 100 percent as you can get,” Gould said. “We usually say it’s 98 percent effective the first go-round.”

Students who have had to move because of the bugs were told to leave most of their belongings in the rooms so they also can be treated, said Kaylin Hunsaker, president of the university’s student body.

“They’re just living out of a couple of outfits that they have,” said the senior in integrated social studies. “Some of them have been struggling with it.”

Several of the students are also athletes, Palmer said, but university officials haven’t decided whether athletic facilities such as locker rooms will be treated.

Other local universities have also dealt with bedbugs in recent years, including Otterbein University and Ohio State University.