All over campus, UCLA students and staff have been hearing the
pitter-patter of little feet. But the source has a long tail and
beady eyes, not diapers and pink cheeks.
Rats have been popping up in Dodd, Haines and Kinsey halls,
leaving refuse and messes in the workspaces of campus faculty,
staff and students.
“It’s a question of how hygienic is the environment
we’re living in,” said Simon Kenrick, an art history
graduate student.
Kenrick and his colleagues dealt with the rat problem in the
department’s graduate lounge in Dodd.
The rats have been leaving feces all over the lounge, and
ransacking garbage cans, and scattering the contents across the
floor since August 2002, Kenrick said.
The students couldn’t help being aware of the rats’
presence, and some students actually saw the rodents, Kenrick
said.
“One morning there was an incident where we had people
standing on chairs,” he said.
In Haines, the rats are making themselves at home in the ivy
bushes next to where students eat, students and staff said.
Sheryol Threewit, department manager at the Cotsen Institute of
Archaeology, located in Haines, described the rats near the
building as being fearless around people.
“They tip their hats and say good day to you,” she
said.
Threewit stopped going to work as early in the morning because
she did not want to cross the rodents’ path on her way to
work.
Food seems to draw the rats to the buildings and rooms they
settle in, and gives them reason to get personal with people.
In the student commons at Kinsey, evidence of rats showed up
during winter break.
At that time, candy and cookies were constantly being brought
into the room, said Mary Margaret Smith, student affairs officer
and current coordinator for the women’s studies program.
“They seemed to really like the Tootsie Rolls,”
Smith said.
The candy wrappers left around the bowl and on the floor, and
chewed book bindings were evidence of the rats’ nighttime
outings.
Smith said the building’s custodian warned her about
keeping the candy bowl in the commons because he was sweeping up
rat droppings. Smith later purchased a device that emits a sound to
drive away the rats.
In Dodd, both glue traps and carpenters were used as possible
solutions.
“One morning we came in and found (a glue trap) covered in
rat hair and rat blood. We can only assume it gnawed itself
free,” Kenrick said.
After seeing the effect of the trap, glue strips were no longer
used. The carpenters quickly responded to the problem, and patched
up rat holes in the wall to keep them from getting back into the
room, Kenrick said.
But that didn’t deter the rodents; they appeared even
after holes were sealed, causing Dodd occupants to look for another
solution.
“(The university’s) basic line is that there is no
problem until a formal complaint has been received,” Kenrick
said.
A formal complaint was filed early winter quarter by Katherine
Dunlop, a teaching assistant whose philosophy department office is
in Dodd.
In her complaint she cited rodent problems dating back to May
2002, and focused on what she called poor handling of the problem
by facilities management.
She cited numerous unanswered phone calls to the facilities
management office, and what seemed to be a failure to check on glue
traps once they were distributed in September 2002.
Facilities management officials were not available for comment
after numerous phone calls.
After the problem was left unresolved, Dunlop said philosophy
graduate students took matters into their own hands by purchasing,
setting, and disposing of rats in spring-release traps.
Dunlop also described her own experience with a rat that had
been caught in one of the traps, and left to decompose in her
office over winter break.
The Student Association of Graduate Employees has taken up the
infestation in Dodd as an employee issue and is in the middle of
negotiations with the university, said Daisy Rooks, a member of
SAGE.
Rooks said the parties who have to be in agreement about
accepting the terms set by SAGE are labor relations, facilities
management, skilled crafts and the building manager.
Rooks said after going through two meetings with these groups,
terms were rejected, but she added that SAGE believes the
university might accept their terms a third time.
If the university does not cooperate, the association may go
through third-party arbitration, which would cost both the
university and the union thousands of dollars, Rooks said.