Housing and Resident Life spent the past month working to ensure students’ health and needs are maintained and met.
Two rooms have been treated for bedbugs since the semester began. Students reported bites and though visual checks by Student Life found no bugs, the rooms were treated by Eden Advanced Pest Technologies to be sure.
Pacific has limited services to treat bedbug-infested items, including a recently created cleaning station located in the Walter Hall laundry room. The room offers a steamer; washer; hair dryer; heating, ventilation and air conditioning suit and gloves. It is available only to students with confirmed cases of bedbugs so they can treat their personal possessions.
At the beginning of the school year, three rooms in Walter were “off-line,” meaning unavailable to live in, because of reports of bedbugs.
According to Director of Housing Lisa Geraci, two of these rooms were deemed bug-free by a Peace of Mind K9 Bed Bug Detection dog on Oct. 18 and will be put back on-line for spring semester. The fixed furniture will be removed from the third room and replaced with moveable furnishings.
“Built-in wood furniture is likely the problem,” said Geraci. “They hide in there and multiply.”
The dog was also taken through the Student Life office and the Outback, “for fun,” according to Housing and Residence Life Specialist Jean Flory.
“Chad [Toomey, Director of Pacific Outback] pulled out all their sleeping bags,” said Geraci, and all the bags cleared the scent test.
Other updates being overseen by Housing & Residence Life are the newly added study lounges to Walter, Clark and McCormick halls. Parties were held in each new loung on Oct., with food and prizes for students.
These lounges are available to all students, whether they live in the residence halls or not. However, for those “non-residents,” access will be limited to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 7 a.m. to midnight on weekends, as those are the hours all BoxerCards will grant access to the halls.
The lounges, located on the second floors of Clark and Mac and the first floor of Walter, offer new desk-chair furnishings and dry-erase boards to aid in students’ studies. Multi-colored dry-erase markers and erasers were ordered for each of the rooms on Oct. 19, according to Geraci, and should be available for use.
Print stations were meant to be available upon the opening of the lounges, but were delayed by the manufacturer. At the time of printing, no new estimated time of arrival was available.
The grand opening featured snacks and a raffle for 10 $25 Barnes & Noble giftcards, which were awarded on Oct. 19 to freshmen Matthew Baron, Rylie Ellison, Damon Kosaki and Blake Richards; sophomores Ryan Beck, Michael Henderson, Connor Hurley and Kathleen Rohde; junior Kerstin Amezcua and a student who declined to be named.
Several housing process deadlines are approaching, including those to let housing know if you’ll not be present for spring term – whether you’re studying abroad or withdrawing – and if you’ll be staying for winter term. Check with Housing and Residence Life for the appropriate forms.
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