BOSTON — Since Boston 25’s reporting on the temporary closure of Beatty Hall due to mouse sightings, parents and students have reached out with more concerns about rodents on campus.
Tuesday, city officials said the dining hall on Wentworth Institute of Technology’s campus had mouse droppings and nests. They claimed in a report that a community member called their attention to the matter, and reported multiple mouse sightings near food.
The school on Tuesday said the facility had received a passing inspection the week before.
Thursday, they said in a statement:
<i>“Pest management in urban environments, especially on active construction campuses, is a challenge facing institutions across Boston. Wentworth takes this issue seriously. </i>
<i>Specifically, Wentworth has more than doubled its pest control budget since last year, consulted with the City of Boston Rodent Action Plan, added a second specialized provider, and increased residential service from once weekly to two to three times per week, with additional visits based on real-time feedback."</i>
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The university remains committed to ongoing improvement and will continue to address this issue proactively.
One Wentworth student and his mother said the issue goes beyond the dining hall.
“She was surprised, I wasn’t,” said the student, regarding Boston 25’s initial report.
The student shared a video from this past school year where he reportedly captured a rat in the Beatty Hall dining area.
He also told Boston 25 that his roommates found a mouse in their oven in December.
“[My roommates] had taken the oven out of the socket,” he remembered. “It was in, and they’re like banging it with a broom.”
A mother of an incoming Wentworth student said she’s already been in contact with school representatives since the hall shut down.
She said they, “Basically admitted, ‘Yes, this is a problem. We’re working on it.’”
The New York mother also has been communicating with other parents through Facebook, who reportedly told her this was not a new problem on campus.
“A lot of parents responded like, ‘Yeah, this is a normal thing there,’” she said. “To me, it’s crazy the amount of money we pay in tuition and for housing alone to have kids living like this.”
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