Roommates Brandon Manchester, a sophomore in First Year College, and Mark Molner, a sophomore in biomedical engineering, moved into their room Aug. 18 and so did a few hundred other roommates they didn’t know they were going to have.

The next morning was the first time Manchester and Molner noticed the fire ants in their room on the first floor of Bragaw Residence Hall.

At the Bragaw Help Desk, they were told to submit a work request to University Housing. They were also told it would be two weeks before anything could be done about their problem, according to Manchester and Molner.

The two sprayed their room with ant spray but it did not fix the problem, in fact, it got worse.

“The other day I was working out in my room, and when I looked down, there were ants crawling up my leg,” Molner said.

Manchester said they couldn’t have food anywhere.

“If we were eating, we would have to hurry up and finish it and then take the trash out,” Manchester said.

According to Manchester, they tossed any food that was not completely sealed.

The ants were taking over their room, according to Molner, and by Thursday night there were ants crawling all over the refrigerator, microwave and loft. The two could not sleep in their room that night. Manchester and Molner realized they could not wait another week for University Housing to get rid of the ants.

The next morning the two went to the front desk of Bragaw Residence Hall to find someone to take care of the ants immediately. University Housing sprayed in their room on Friday and checked to see how the ants were getting in, according to Robert Deedrick, a resident advisor in the residence hall.

According to Deedrick, University Housing will send out an e-mail reminding residents to wash out drink cans and not leave food in rooms because of fire ants. However, Molner said there was “not food everywhere” in their room.

The problem seemed to be under control as of Saturday.

“There were hundreds [of ants] all over our room before,” Molner said. “Now it’s just a few.”

Manchester and Molner both say they were disgusted by the state of their room.

“It really honestly makes me sick to my stomach,” Manchester said. “When I walked in [the room] Friday morning to get ready for class, I got immediately sick because of what I saw.”

Manchester said, had he known about the ant problem, he probably would have chosen to live somewhere else.

According to Molner, there were also a few crickets in their room and “some kind of flying gnats” in their bathroom.

“I thought it was ridiculous that [University Housing] wouldn’t come out and fix the problem right away, that we had to get on their case,” Molner said. “We don’t pay all this money to live here with bugs.”

Bragaw Residence Hall Administrative Coordinator, Joshua Fulbright, declined to comment.

Ethiennette Rodriguez, a sophomore in psychology, has a similar problem, only her’s has not yet been fixed by University Housing.

When Rodriguez and her roommate moved into Turlington Residence Hall Aug. 18, there was no sign of ants. The next day they discovered black ants in their second-floor room and submitted a work request to University Housing, according to Rodriguez.

Rodriguez’s problem got worse as the week wore on, and by Thursday, there were fire ants in her room as well. She submitted another work request to University Housing that day.

“We keep on cleaning [the ants] out with wet paper towels,” Rodriguez said. “We heard that we weren’t allowed to spray ant killer in the dorm, so we haven’t bought any.”

Rodriguez said she has had to keep everything sealed and elevated.

“We’ll find them crawling all over our computers if we don’t keep them cleaned up,” she said. “We’ve gotten bitten by them a couple times already.”

According to Rodriguez, she lived in the same room last year and did not have any of these problems.

University Housing had not sent anyone to the room as of noon on Aug. 26.

John Ashley, a pest control safety officer with University Housing, said most of the calls since residents have moved back into campus dorms have been for ants.

“This time of the year, we get a lot of work orders coming in. and we get backed up with them,” he said. “Ant problems are just real big this time of the year.”

According to Ashley, when the weather is hot and dry, ants come inside buildings, such as residence halls, looking for moisture.

There isn’t any real precaution University Housing can take to prevent ants from coming into the dorms other than bait for them around the outside of buildings, said Ashley. That is what he has been doing this summer.

The first thing Ashley does when he is called to a dorm because of ants is talk to the resident to figure out where he is seeing them. He then baits around those areas.

Baiting ants targets the queen, according to Ashley.

“You don’t really spray for ants unless you want a quick knock-down; to get rid of the ants long term, you need to bait for them.”

According to Susan Grant, the director of University Housing AVC Operations, if a resident has a severe problem that needs immediate attention, he should mark it as such on the work request form.