Photo by: Jill Hamilton

Eight students were displaced from MacFarlane Hall last week after DU officials returned to heat-treated rooms infested with bed bugs.

“DU and Housing and Residential Education are aggressively working to find and destroy these bed bugs and their eggs,” said Justin Price, executive director of Housing and Residential Education.

The students were relocated to assess the condition of the rooms.

“We had to discover and address areas where bed bugs might have been that were difficult to reach with treatments,” said Price.

This involved stripping the drywall and chemically treating the inaccessible places in four rooms.

DU also chemically treated the five hardest-hit rooms. Another seven rooms in the wing were subjected to thermal extermination, a chemical-free process that involves using heat at a level of over 120 degrees for several hours to effectively kill bed bugs and their eggs.

The residence halls will continue to be monitored by bed bug detection dogs.

In spite of what has happened, Price said it’s important to note how isolated the events have been.

“We have a total of 2,450 students on campus and approximately 1,420 rooms, and to date we have confirmation of bed bugs in five rooms,” he said.

There was one report of bed bugs in Towers at the beginning of the year, but according to Price, the room was treated even though bed bugs weren’t confirmed to be there.

As for the confirmed cases, Price hopes they will be over soon.

“We realize there has been a disruption in the daily routine of the students impacted,” Price said. “But we feel it is vitally important that we do everything we can so that the bed bugs are gone for good.”