Rodents invade Baruch's campus

Lunch time at Baruch means pizza on the third floor where all the club and student association offices are located. It also means hundreds of students getting their lunch from the cafeteria or nearby food carts and using the front of the building at 25th Street as an improvised dining room. Faculty and administrative staff order food almost everyday or sometimes they bring their own.

In recent weeks, weather changes and the increasing amount of garbage and food leftovers produced by the students and faculty alike are increasing the amount of rodent reports around campus. Every time a report is received at the Department of Building and Grounds, a custodian is sent to exterminate the rodent and more importantly, to find out where it came from. Furthermore, a report is prepared for the exterminator that visits the campus every Friday, all year long.

Carl Aylman, director of student life, said that, "any new building like the Vertical Campus is always filled with holes and gaps, which mice or rats find easily, but since the building is working at full capacity most of these holes have been covered and sealed."

Students from the first to the third floors need to practice the slogan "Clean up after yourself" to help eliminate the infestation.Unfortunately, after lunch time, the front of the building at 25th Street looks like a parking lot after a football game, even though trash receptacles are available all over campus.

The VC produces almost 15 cubic feet of trash everyday. This is enough to fill an entire dumpster within two days, which then needs to be replaced with an empty one every Wednesday and Friday. Several reports of trash and leftover food also come from the Baruch High School that is located in the 23rd Street building. Classrooms and stairwells are no exception to this sanitation issue and students and faculty need to be more careful in disposing their trash properly.

Franck Antonucci, acting director of the office of Building and Grounds, commands a small army of engineers, electricians, security officers and custodians that keep the VC, Library building, 23rd Street building and the Annex building running 24/7.

Besides the weekly exterminator visits, glue traps are being placed and monitored all the time. Also, new RTU stations, areas where mice and rats will feed from and consequently become sterile to avoid proliferation, are being strategically installed around the campus. The team also tries to close every gap and hole they discover, using any means necessary including sheet rock or cement.

"We need to be aware of the plasticity and the amazing sense of smell that mice and rats have. Anything from cookies, pretzels to condiments, packets of ketchup and salad dressing inside someone's cabinet are targets to mice if they are not properly sealed in Zip-lock bags," stated Antonucci.

The clubs on the third floor must be extra careful with pizza leftovers after hours, because the custodians do their last cleaning rounds around 5:30 p.m. and will not do another until the next morning, leaving a real feast for little unwanted creatures.

Also, some faculty members leave piles of papers, books and documents covering all four corners of their tiny offices. These barricades create the perfect conditions for mice to breed and hide, which makes the task of finding them all the more daunting.

Building and Grounds is also considering becoming a member of the program "Adopt a Basket" from the Sanitation Department, to take care of the trash receptacles on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 25th Street.

If any student spots a rodent on the campus, they should alert security immediately. The security will then call the Building and Grounds office so they can take care of the problem right away, or students can call and report the sighting directly at 646-660-6630 Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. After hours and weekends, security can be reached at 646-660-6000.