COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Bedbugs found inside an Ohio State University dormitory forced students in 114 rooms to pack up their belongings in plastic bags while exterminators sprayed chemicals to kill the tiny insects.
School officials also told students Wednesday to either wash all their clothes and bedding in hot water or dry them for 25 minutes on high heat to kill any remaining bugs or their eggs.
"It's definitely a major inconvenience," said Ruth Gerstner, a school spokeswoman. Several students said it took them hours to pack up, she said.
Students in the Jones Graduate Tower said they discovered bedbugs Monday in three rooms on the ninth and 11th floors. Bedbugs are bloodsucking pests that make their homes in mattresses and bedding.
While they can be unsettling, and leave a reddish welt behind when they bite, experts say bedbugs do not pose a serious health risk.
Because the bugs can spread, school officials decided to have exterminators spray all rooms on the ninth, 10th and 11th floors. Mattresses in the rooms are also being replaced.
Pesticides helped greatly reduce the presence of bedbugs in the U.S. until several years ago, when they began migrating here from other countries, health officials say.
"Having bedbugs is not unusual when you have this many people living together from such far-flung places," said George Keeney, an Ohio State entomologist. While the bugs have turned up in hotels, cruise ships and in some homes, it's the first campus infestation that Keeney recalls during his 21 years at Ohio State.
The pests have not been found in any dormitory rooms beyond the original three, said Gerry Wegner, an entomologist for Varment Guard, whose exterminators sprayed and dusted insecticides along the inside rim of each room and on bed frames as well as injecting them into electrical outlets.
"Since bedbugs are really flat, they can hide in some really tight crevices," he said.
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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com
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