UTMSU has reported that there is currently no pest “infestation” inside the food centre.
Two weeks ago, Erik Hernandez-Oberding, the UTMSU Food Centre coordinator, told The Medium that cockroaches were discovered in the food centre office in Davis.
“I was unpacking the donation boxes and a few skittered out,” he said in an email to The Medium.
“We contacted the relevant officers at the university to ensure that a pest control company [was] sent to investigate,” said UTMSU president Ebi Agbeyegbe in an email on Friday. “The preliminary report I have received from UTMSU staff is that there is no pest infestation at the food centre.”
The original reports of cockroaches came from a post by Hernandez-Oberding on the food centre’s Facebook page. In an email on Friday, Agbeyegbe referred to reports of the pests on Facebook as “unverified”.
“We do not believe that any recent donation was a source of any infestation,” Agbeyegbe said.
In a follow-up email, Hernandez-Oberding confirmed to The Medium that he had been the one to initially discover the roaches.
“When I initially witnessed [the roaches] it was four to six crawling out of a box, [so] my fear was that over the weekend more crawled out and that they would be inhabiting the centre or somewhere close by as there would have been ample time for others to crawl out and find homes,” he said.
UTMSU is expected to receive the official report from Abell Pest Control early this week.
The food centre had relocated its office from Davis earlier this month after the initial reports of cockroaches. According to Hernandez-Oberding, food items, cardboard boxes, packages which the roaches could eat and lay eggs in, and clothes and hygiene bars were removed from the office.
Various reports had circulated since then alleging that the cockroaches had originated from a donation to the food centre.
As of press time, The Medium was unable to confirm the reports.
Currently, the food centre office has relocated to the Student Centre, room 241.
“We hope for the food centre to reopen its doors in the Davis Building as early as next week,” said Agbeyegbe.
