Harvard Yard Ops Doubles Down on Pest Control, Students Report Mice and Cockroaches

After Harvard freshmen reported a series of “horrifying” mouse sightings in their dorms last spring, Yard Operations implemented a series of pest management and prevention strategies over the summer. Despite the efforts, some students are still reporting mice and cockroach sightings in their dorms.

Yard Operations laid traps, identified “challenge areas,” hired Secured Environments Pest Control and Wildlife Services to seal heating systems, and replaced building-wide common room trash cans with lidded ones, College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a Thursday statement to The Crimson.

Other changes include increased signage on rodent prevention, advising students to properly discard trash, store food in containers with lids, and keep doors closed. Each room’s door now has a QR code to report mice sightings and upload work orders to Yard Ops, which can lay and empty mouse traps for students.

The Dean of Students Office has also gone to extra lengths in training freshman proctors to provide their students with strategies to avoid attracting mice. Ruth H.M. Jaensubhakij ’22, a proctor living in Hollis Hall, said the issue was thoroughly discussed during training, and proctors were provided informational materials for their students.

“We were all sent, ‘Here’s an example of a sign that you could put up in your dorm — we suggest you add it into their roommate contracts, into the entryway meetings, to tell them this is how to avoid it,’” Jaensubhakij said.

While students are only in the first three weeks of classes amid Cambridge’s ephemeral warm September weather, some have still reported mouse sightings in dorms like Canaday, Hollis, and Thayer Hall.

Lily M. Levitsky ’28 said she first spotted a mouse in her Canaday dorm the night she came back from her First Year Outdoor Program trip.

“My roommate woke me up and was like, ‘There’s a mouse’ and then she was texting the exterminators,” Levitsky said. “It was like 1 a.m.”

Levitsky added that after camping in the woods for the First-Year Outdoor Program, she was “unbothered by the mice” — unless they interfered with stored food.

Maddux G. Reid ’28, who lives in Thayer Hall, said he was in a meeting in his dorm when he heard evidence of a furry friend.

“I was on a Zoom call, and then I just heard scurrying in the wall,” Reid said. “They were going back and forth for 10 minutes.”

“I just hope it never comes back,” he added.

For some students in Greenough Hall, cockroaches — not mice — have been the most noticeable pest presence since move-in.

Greenough resident Hailey M. Neuner ’28 described her cockroach sighting as “like an ambush attack.”

“We used a toilet brush,” Neuner said. “It was massive, and I’m just flushing it down the toilet. It was a very scary experience.”

“I felt violated, because that’s my space,” she added.

Yerosen K. Daba ’28 said he “screamed very loudly” when he first saw a cockroach in Greenough and called in his “more brave roommate” to kill a second one last weekend.

“It was very scary, but low-key we did it to ourselves,” he said. “We didn’t have a big garbage can, so we just stacked takeout boxes beside the garbage can.”

Many freshmen said they had not seen any mice or pests, and only infrequently heard of sightings from their peers. Still, they said certain dorms maintained a notoriety for being rodent-ridden.

“When I say I’m from Canaday, they say ‘How many mice have you seen? How many cockroaches have you seen?’” Levitsky said. “It’s very much a part of my identity at this point.”

Grayson E. Caffrey ’28 — who has not seen any mice in his Grays Hall suite — said a particular nickname comes to mind when he meets Canaday residents.

“Somebody will tell me they’re in Canaday — I’ll be like ‘Oh, rat house, hell yeah,’” Caffrey said.

—Staff writer Madeleine A. Hung can be reached at madeleine.hung@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.