The university said it believes third-party mattresses rented by students are the cause of three bed bug infestations since December 2021.
UPDATED: This article was updated on February 14, 2022 to include the name of the third-party mattress source.
After an initial infestation and treatment of bed bugs on the fourth floor of Lupton House in December 2021, students reported two further infestations on the same floor on 6 February. Eight students were transferred to the fifth floor of Lupton for three weeks as Vanderbilt Pest Control team treats affected homes.
Sophomores Mackenzie Higgins and Alexanne O’Dell first spotted what they believed to be a bed bug crawling across their floor on February 6. The control team set traps in their rooms on February 7, around Confirm or deny a bed bug infestation. Throughout the trial, Higgins and O’Dell expressed desperation at how the situation was handled.
“The next morning [Feb. 6], I went to class and wasn’t in the room all day and came back that evening to find they hadn’t come to set any traps yet. They just didn’t do anything,” Higgins said. “It was super weird sleeping in a room where we knew there were bed bugs, but they still didn’t do anything about it.”
The university’s pest control team confirmed that the eight students’ four rooms were infested on February 8th. The students received an email from Turney on February 8th instructing them to vacate their rooms by the morning of February 9th.
bed bug treatment This typically takes 1-3 hours, according to Vanderbilt’s pest control team, and the students were informed in an email by Turney that they could return to their rooms at the end of the day on February 9th. However, the email also informed them that the treatment and relocation process would be repeated several times over the next month.
“I know this is going to be an incredible challenge,” Turney said in the email. “We have to do our best to try and stick to the guidelines that pest control has given us.”
As such, Higgins and O’Dell told The Hustler that they are able and likely to remain in their temporary residence continuously for the next three weeks rather than moving in and out. Other students on the floor said they had not received any notification of the infestation.
“We had to pack up all our clothes, literally every single piece of clothing in our room, take everything out of the desk drawers, get everything out from under our beds, everything that was touching the walls, and basically get completely undressed before 9 am the next day,” he said Higgins.
A statement from the university emailed to The Hustler said staff have been in “continuous communication” with affected students. However, Higgins and O’Dell said there was a lack of clear communication, which created a major source of frustration throughout the process.
“They were kind of vague; At first we didn’t even know where we were going. They just told us to move out of our rooms,” Higgins said. “We had to ask a lot of questions”
Higgins and O’Dell also said the moving process negatively impacted their academic and social commitments, as they had to move out at short notice while remaining diligent in their schoolwork. Additionally, both Higgins and O’Dell said they were disappointed with the alleged lack of support from the university.
“It was a stressful situation for the school to put us in a situation where we didn’t offer any resources or help, didn’t offer to contact our professors or help them in any way,” O’Dell said. “I had two tests at the end of the week but I spent Tuesday from 7pm to 12pm undressing and doing the whole process.”
The university statement said the bed bugs were likely introduced via mattresses rented by students from a third-party source, which Higgins says is Black Star Rentals. This student run business rents full size beds to the Vanderbilt community. Higgins and O’Dell don’t have third-party mattresses, but their neighbors — who have also moved — do. In an email to The Hustler, Black Star Rentals CEO George Victor said the company is in touch with the affected students and the university and is working to resolve the issue. However, he said he thinks it is “extremely unlikely” that the bed bugs came from Black Star mattresses.
“As a customer-centric company, we immediately provided new beds to our two customers (roommates) who experienced an outbreak.” said Victor. “Our beds are all inspected upon collection from customers in May, stored together over the summer and thoroughly disinfected before being delivered to new customers in August. In addition, we have no other customers who have experienced this problem and our beds were delivered a few months ago (in August 2021).”
The university said in the statement that the situation on the floor was “resolved” by treating the affected rooms and replacing those mattresses with the original mattresses that came with the room. While O’Dell said she was optimistic the treatment would be successful, Higgins was more skeptical.
“Even if this was the source of the bed bugs, the fact that they treated them and they came back several times only shows that the treatment they gave was insufficient or that the bed bugs were also in other places and not those coming out of these beds,” Higgins said. “I have a feeling other people in the building have these mattresses, so why don’t they have bed bug bites if that’s where they come from?”
In December 2017, The Hustler reported on it another infestation in the now demolished Carmichael Towers. While bed bugs are not known to transmit diseases to humans, the insect bites cause red, itchy welts. If a student believes their room is infested with bed bugs, the statement said students should file a maintenance request immediately form to prevent an infestation from spreading.
