Those living on “Sorority Row” will have some unusual neighbors living alongside them beginning next week.
The FBI is moving agents, who had been working in New Orleans, into the Sigma Nu house because their offices in the city were destroyed after Hurricane Katrina.
Kathie Wylie, director of Law Enforcement Online support center, which works with the FBI on campus, said the agents will be living in the fraternity house while they set up their operations in Johnston Hall.
The New Orleans agents will join the FBI office already housed in Johnston Hall.
“They just need a place to sleep, and there aren’t any hotels left in Baton Rouge,” Wylie said.
Wylie said the agents were sleeping on mattresses in one of the racquetball courts in the Rec Center.
“The Rec Center started their renovations today, so they had to move out,” she said.
The FBI is paying to renovate the fraternity house because Sigma Nu members seriously damaged it after the fraternity was kicked off campus for hazing violations.
“The house has to have some of the doors replaced because they were kicked in and there is spray paint all over the walls,” Wylie said.
She said the house’s 21 rooms will have agents living in them indefinitely while they rebuild their operations, cover their temporary duty assignments and deal with losing homes after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and left New Orleans underwater.
“They should start moving in next week,” Wylie said. “All I can say is that I’m sure they will be good tenants.”    
Contact Jeff Jeffrey at [email protected]