Drew University recently alerted its students that bed bugs were found in a student’s room. The student was moved temporarily while the room was treated and furniture and mattresses were replaced.
A campus-wide e-mail was sent out on Oct. 15 letting students know that two bed bugs had been found. Student response to the e-mail was mixed.
“It’s disgusting! Bugs and I get along just fine as long as they aren’t in my bed,” Whitney McClees (‘12) said.
“They’re bugs. Unless they’re going to kill me in my sleep I don’t care,” Dana Sumner-Pritchard (‘12) said.
“It made me really glad I don’t live on campus,” commuter student Alexandra Kiely (‘12) said.
“It was kind of gross but I wasn’t really worried. That was the first I heard of it,” Arielle Sorenson (‘12) said.
“Our interest is in making sure the population [of bed bugs] doesn’t spread. We’re being overly cautious,” [Drew Chief Communications Officer Dave Muha] said about the University’s goal in dealing with the bed bugs and the reason for the campus-wide e-mail.
[Emphasis mine.]
A prompt response to a single bed bug case is a good thing.
Bed bugs did not just magically appear in this room. They were either brought in by the student, other students, or employees, or they were delivered in some manner (the old “bed bug Trojan horse”), or they walked over from another space which has a bed bug issue that is as yet undetected.
Since students are vocalizing that bed bugs are not a big deal (“Unless they’re going to kill me in my sleep I don’t care”), I hope Drew will follow up by educating students, staff, and faculty about bed bugs, how they spread, how to detect them, and why they everyone needs to be concerned about and alert for them.
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Perhaps the students will get it when THEY are not welcome in a home, workplace or health care facility. Perhaps they’ll get it when THEY need to make the “work or prep” decision. Or the “food or PCO” decision. Or need to choose which of the items they bought with the cash they earned gets treated and which gets sacrificed.
Well put, cilecto.