Harvard Must Do More To Eradicate Campus Pests

To the editors:



I’m writing in response to your article of Sept. 25 (“Unwelcome Visitors Join Students In Bed,” news) detailing the potential outbreak of bedbugs in the Northeast. While this article certainly provides an important warning for students and residents, I am left wondering why there hasn’t been more attention paid to the problem of the cockroach infestation in the older Houses on campus. Having spent two years in Lowell House and one year as assistant to the superintendent of Quincy House, I can attest to the disgusting reality that students face when living in the dormitories. I have heard stories from friends who have found roaches crawling up their legs in the shower and can attest to my own personal horror of finding a cockroach in my shoe early one morning.

Exterminators have come again and again, but often the only response from Harvard is that this is the price we students pay for living in old buildings. The cockroach infestation was one of the main factors in my decision to leave Lowell House for my last semester on campus. Perhaps if there was more publicity, administrators would take more notice and actually try to solve the problem once and for all. Shouldn’t over $40,000 a year buy you a room without vermin?



JESSICA R. ROSENFELD ’07

September 27, 2006