Bed bugs at Northern Kentucky University

Northern Kentucky University is suffering from the bed bug scourge, independent student paper The Northerner reports today:

Director of University Housing Peter Trentacoste said, “I can confirm we had a (bed bugs) incident. We successfully treated the six rooms.”

It appears they took swift action and ordered a thermal treatment for six infested rooms in Callahan Hall.

I was a tad concerned about how the university determined which units were infested, however:

When University Housing discovered a possibility of bed bugs, it began calling every resident on the infested floor to ascertain which rooms were affected. Students were relocated to begin extermination last weekend.

I am not sure what questions can be asked of students to determine whether they had bed bugs.

I hope the housing administrators understand that bed bugs and their signs can be hard to see, especially in newer infestations, and that entomologists estimate that 50 to 70% of people do not react to bed bug bites.

In other words, students could have bed bugs biting them, and have absolutely no idea. And it’s essential to detect and treat all infested units if you want to get rid of bed bugs in a building.

It does sound like precautions were taken when students were relocated. This is crucial, to avoid spreading the problem.

via The Northerner – Crawling on campus.