By Melvin Keldo, The Whetstone

Remember that old saying that you heard as a child: “Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite”?

A nostalgic childhood rhyme has become a serious situation at Wesley College.

Students in rooms on two floors of Zimmerman Hall say their dorm rooms are infested with bed bugs.

“I was freaked out at actually seeing them” said junior Jessica Collins. “Then I was frustrated because we had gone through this twice last semester.”

In fact, students seem to go through this every year. In a Whetstone article two years ago, it was reported that college dorms are one of the most common places to find bedbugs, and college officials had said that there are one to two cases reported per semester.

Collins made a complaint.bedbug450

“We talked to the dean about everything” Collins said. “We are now waiting for our room in Zimmerman that we are moving into is completely cleared.”

The dean of students expressed sympathy.

“It saddens and disappointments me that our students have to deal with bedbugs,” said Wanda Anderson, dean of students. “Bedbugs are an ongoing challenge at most colleges in the U.S.”

Anderson said there is a system in place to deal with the situation.

“We have standard operating procedures in place to educate, relocate and provide emotional support for students who experience bedbugs” she said. “Unfortunately, there is nothing that we can do to stop this from happening.”

RA’s in Zimmerman said they were concerned about the bed bugs.

“This whole situation is getting out of hand,” said Jasmine Oden, an RA on the second floor. “We have a lot of people moving up to the second and third floors.”

Oden said she wishes that Wesley could solve this problem quickly.

“They should take out all the mattresses of Zimmerman just to play it safe,” she said. “If they have money to do certain things they can do this.”

Junior Laura Vargas said she had bed bug in August.

“They sprayed the room and it was fixed,” she said.

After her roommate was bitten, she requested a new bed.

“After that, we had bed bugs three more times,” Vargas said. “They sprayed our room again but we found out that my roommate had a bed bug implant in her skin and she had an allergic reaction.

Before winter break, Vargas and her roommates asked for the room to be sprayed again. There were no issues then until two weeks later.

“I was frustrated because I heard that this was a reoccurring situation at Wesley College” said junior Ashly Bendorovich. “Multiple rooms in Zimmerman had bed bug problems.”

Bendorovich said she hates the situation.

“I do not want anyone to go through the problems my roommate and I had to go through,” she said. “I was highly upset on how the situation was handled at first. I just want this to be over, be comfortable in my room and get what I paid for.”

Vargas and her roommate got a new bed on Feb. 6.

“That night she lay down in the bed and she felt five bed bugs crawling on her,” Vargas said.