With Halloween around the corner, spiders and other creepy-crawlers may be a commonly noticed theme, however real live bugs in the classroom could be considered a bit overboard in the festivities. Ladybugs, while not noticeably scary or necessarily creepy, seem to be infesting buildings around campus, primarily Main Hall. There have been students and faculty noticing a large amount of bugs crawling around the ceilings and walls of the classrooms and hallways, gravitating towards the lights, as most insects are inclined to do.
The issue seems to be generally unnoticed by facility and building administration thus far. Becky Mason, a Main Hall building administrator, said that anyone, student and faculty alike, can ask for a work order for any sort of problem that may arise in a building. Another WCU employee was very familiar with the insect issue, saying that he lays out fly paper and other insect deterrents on the bottom floor of Anderson Hall because there are so many bugs.
Ladybugs, a species of beetle, gained their namesake in the middle ages after “Our Lady” for their helpfulness in keeping pests away from crops due to their carnivorous nature. They enter buildings as cold weather begins to set in for winter lodging and hibernation. It has been rumored that some people resort to using vacuum cleaners to rid the bugs of their homes due to the sheer amounts of them.
The presence of the insects in classrooms can be a distraction and detrimental to learning, and also unsavory to those who dislike insects. In room 202 of Main Hall Thursday afternoon there were over 20 ladybugs on the walls and ceiling, some even crawling onto the pull down projector screen at the front of the class room. Senior Chris Botto said, “When I lived in the dorms there were always ladybugs inside in the fall and winter, all over the place, a lot of them dead because once they came in they didn’t or couldn’t get out.”
WCU employs a contracted exterminator in situations of infestation and no building closings would result from any work that may need to be done. To some it becomes a question of ethics as ladybugs are often thought to be an endangered species, although they are not.