Rats, ants infest Hanszen, Wiess

By Brooke Bullock     9/30/10 7:00pm

Rice students are accustomed to rodents prowling the quads and walkways, but mostly in the form of squirrels. When rats began invading Hanszen College, Rice rodents became much less appealing. Hanszen and Wiess College have both given reports of rat sightings around their residential and common areas. Ransacking trash cans and haunting hallways, rats have become a noticeable pest for the south colleges, Hanszen and Wiess in particular. However, Manager of Communications for Facilities, Engineering and Planning Susann Glenn said the rat problem has not actually worsened in the past two years.

"Two years back, there were 27 reports of rodent problems; 12 of those were duplicate reports," Glenn said. "There have been 14 calls this year, with four duplicates."

Glenn said that Houston in general is facing a greater problem with rats. She said that the Texas Medical Center and residential areas around Houston have been dealing with a rat problem.

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"Rats are always breeding but right now there's an uptake in their breeding cycle," Housing Operations Manager Mark Chaszar said.

Hanszen senior Marina Masciale said, "[The rats] have pretty much infiltrated new section. There were two holes in our room (one in the common room and one right above my bed) where rats would crawl through. I found rat turds all over the floor of my room and even on my bed."

Rats have also been seen in the quad surrounded by Wiess, known as the Acabowl, and on the balconies.

"There are definitely [Acabowl] rats," Student Maintenance Representative Trevor Mitcham said. "But no one has told me they're in Wiess rooms yet."

Housing and Dining and FE&P are working together in a joint task force to try and combat rats, as well as other pests like ants. They have installed rat bait traps around Hanszen and Wiess as well as other places rats may be attracted to, such as fountains and trash areas.

Masciale said that H&D has been helpful with the rat problem inside Hanszen, too. A sticky rat trap was put up in her room to try and catch the rat, but the trap only caught a cockroach which Masciale believes the rat then proceeded to eat, as it was gone the next day.

"Housing and Dining has since then upgraded to heavy-duty rat traps - the ones that snap," Masciale says.

Despite H&D and FE&P's efforts to keep the rats out, the problem is not gone yet. Masciale said the rat continued coming into her room. She and her roommate eventually got scared to sleep in their room because the rats were still coming in during the day.

"For a week, I did not sleep in my room because I was afraid it was going to crawl on me," Masciale said.

The holes in Masciale's room were patched up after about a week and she sleeps in her room now. However, she said that she can still hear the rats scratching in the A/C unit. The girls across the hall have heard it in their room as well, according to Masciale.

"It's still alive, and it's trying to escape," Masciale said.

Chaszar said that H&D is now inspecting the air conditioning units at Hanszen. H&D and FE&P are working closely to make sure that the rats are kept under control and lower the rat population as much as possible, Grounds Superintendent Ron Smith said. This also includes cutting back vegetation where rats could live around Wiess and Hanszen, mowing the detention ditch to remove possible shelter for rats, placing mesh over vents leading to the basement of Hanszen and placing steel wire around pipes and electrical lines where they connect to buildings, according to Chaszar and Smith.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, wild rodents can carry plague, murine typhus, leptospirosis, rickettsialpox and rat-bite fever. Although they have a good sense of smell, rats tend to have poor eyesight. Rats can also cause fires when they chew through electrical insulation.

Other pests have been noticed around Rice. While FE&P has kept fire ants under control, rasberry crazy ants, a type of small, fast ant that is often confused for a fire ant, are posing another ant problem.

Wiess freshman Katherine Spahr called Mitcham, a Wiess junior, because ants were becoming a big problem in her second floor room. Mitcham has bought Raid and sticky ant traps, but Spahr said the ants continue to come in through holes in the caulking of the window. However, Spahr said she has not yet told H&D in order to allow them to come out and address the problem.

Smith said that ants, once established, can be incredibly hard to get rid of. However, H&D and FE&P have successfully kept ants out of the majority of the buildings around campus and have had no reports come to them about problems inside. Furthermore, FE&P has an exterminator who comes weekly to check academic buildings and address emergencies. H&D has an exterminator who comes quarterly to take care of pest problems at residential buildings.

H&D and FE&P are being proactive in their approach to treating pests; however, they don't want to risk harming other animals by putting out too many baiting traps or overdoing other methods of pest control.

Students can help prevent pests by keeping room doors closed and not leaving food around outside. If pest problems are serious, report them to H&D or FE&P so that they are aware of the problem and can address it immediately.

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