Breaking News

Fickle weather sends pests out of control

By Anna Archibald

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Fifteen pairs of black and white striped legs scuttle away as the bed sheets fling up into the air and hit the ceiling. Waking up to a house centipede staring down at you can be alarming.

GSP resident Jenna Schwartz said the building been having a problem with centipedes for the last couple weeks.

GOT BUGS?

CONTACT: Department of Student Housing

ADDRESS: 422 w. 11th, Suite DSH

PHONE: 785-864-5048

E-MAIL: housing@ku.edu

— www.housing.ku.edu

“One girl found one on her ceiling when she woke up one morning, and we’ve also been finding them on our clothes,” Schwartz, Eden Prairie, Minn. freshman. said.

Deb Smith, associate professor in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, said that when the weather fluctuates between warm and cold temperatures, as it has in the past few weeks, temperatures aren’t cold enough to kill the bugs but are still cool enough for them to look for warmth in residences.

Smith said if the cold weather was more continuous, insects wouldn’t be as active. “There have been too many episodes of warming and cooling to keep them away,” she said.

Consequently, students often end up with an unwanted, multi-legged roommate.

Although house centipedes are predatory, which means they hunt other insects, Smith said they don’t pose a threat to people.

“When you see them around, it usually means there are or there used to be other insects around, as well,” she said.

The house centipede is just one of many types of insects creeping and crawling through dark corners of houses this time of year.

Smith said the most common pests are box elder beetles, mouse spiders, grass spiders and the Asian lady beetle, which is usually mistaken for a common ladybug.

“These beetles were originally brought here to control the population of other types of insects, but have now become more of a nuisance themselves,” Smith said. “And honey bees generally come out on these warmish days to eat and dump waste, so they’re around more, meaning people are more likely to come into contact with them.”

Schwartz said there were always five to 10 of the ladybug-like beetles by her windows in her room.

“They’ve been getting a lot worse,” she said. “It’s kind of confusing, though, because my window is closed and I don’t know how they are getting in.”

Joanie Haley, office manager of Haley Pest Control, Inc. said that this fall had been busy with calls about pests. She said ants, brown spiders, ladybugs, roaches and termites have been problems this year, but she had also seen an unusual amount of pack rats.

“Pack rats can be a huge nuisance since they like to chew on electrical wiring,” Haley said. “They can also get into car engines and cause all kinds of expensive damages.”

Vince Avila, associate director for facilities in the Department of Student Housing, said most insects found in residence halls traveled in on backpacks, grocery bags and clothes.

“That’s how many of the roaches travel in and then they stay because they food that’s been left out,” Avila said. “That’s also where a lot of the rodents come from that we’ve had to relocate.”

Avila said he recommended students report insect problems so Housing can take care of the issue.

“We use safe insecticides,” he said. “Some of the ones in stores are pretty strong.”

Avila said the Housing Department treated every campus building with kitchens monthly for pest problems and responded to others on a call-in basis. He also said he didn’t think there weren’t many problems in residence halls because students didn’t often call in with problems.

There are, however, cases in student living that do require attention, if not by Student Housing, then by the students themselves.

“Bugs are so much bigger here than they are at home,” Jenny Curran, Chicago freshman, said. “When I moved into Corbin, I had a ton of huge spiders in my room.”

Curran, like many other students, did not call Housing and Maintenance to help solve the pest problem. She took matters into her own hands.

“I had my dad go get me spray,” she said. “That pretty much killed all of them, but I still see bugs around fairly often.”

Patty Quinlan, supervisor of nursing at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said students generally came in with honey bee stings more as temperature changes, but said bug bites could be hard to identify unless the bug is caught.

“We see a couple people every week who could have a bug bite,” she said. “The only time it is a problem is when there’s an allergic reaction, Quinlan said, “but, fortunately, most bites aren’t that horrific.”

— Edited by Betsy Cutcliff

Comments

Laisseraller (anonymous) says...

I do not like bugs in general with that said, I like to learn as much as possible about them- New blog on the Hx. of the Ladybug: http://historyoftheladybug.blogspot.com/

November 5, 2009 at 1:14 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

Advertisement