RA: Housing asked me to lie about bedbugs

Selleck RA: Housing asked me to lie about bedbugs

By Frannie Sprouls

Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Since the afternoon of Jan. 23, Amanda Wekesser has not been able to sleep in her own bed, have access to all of her clothes or complete her homework.

Wekesser is a Selleck Quadrangle resident assistant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln whose room was infested with live bedbugs. And she said she wasn’t allowed to tell her residents.

“It’s not fair that I’d be asked to hide this from them,” Wekesser said. “(My residents) could be at risk and not even know it, because Housing is trying to hide it.”

“It’s like the Iron Curtain,” she said.

On Jan. 24, University Housing reported on its website that “a single dead bedbug was found” in the Selleck Quadrangle 8000 building.

But Wekesser said what transpired in her room was far from “dead.”

When she came back from winter break for spring RA training on Jan. 6, she said she began noticing bites on her neck, shoulders, back, arms and legs.

“At first, I thought it was some sort of allergic reaction to the swimming pool,” Wekesser said. “They started getting better after a couple of days and putting on calamine lotion. I didn’t consider going over to the health center.”

But some of the bites got to be so bad, she used green masking tape on her bites to prevent from scratching as she slept.

Two weeks later, Wekesser caught two tiny bugs crawling around her room. She killed the first on her futon and caught the second in a Styrofoam cup. Wekesser taped clear plastic wrap over the cup so the bug wouldn’t escape.

She contacted Selleck residence director Corrine Gernhart via email on Jan. 23 about finding what she called “mites” in her room.

“Please contact facilities today and let them know about the bugs in your room,” Gernhart wrote back. “With so many concerns with bugs lately, I’m guessing they will want to come look around your room and maybe spray the perimeter again.”

Facilities confirmed the “mite” had all the traits of a baby bedbug and gave Wekesser a laundry card to thoroughly do her laundry, she said. She was moved to a temporary room on a different floor.

Brooks Exterminating Service did not come until Jan. 24, and Wekesser said only a few things were sprayed, not the entire room.

“They figured a heat treatment would be a better option,” she said.

In the days leading up to the heat treatment scheduled for Jan. 28, Wekesser said she asked about holding a floor meeting or sending a letter to her residents. The answer was no.

She said her instructions were to tell her residents her room was under extensive repairs, and only if her residents asked her.

“So I wrote it down briefly (on both of my doors) so I was doing what they said and so I could think about it,” Wekesser said.

In an email, Gernhart wrote that she wouldn’t recommend Wekesser sending a letter to her residents.

“If your residents are asking and you feel OK sharing, you can let them know that facilities is treating the room just to be cautious,” Gernhart wrote.

But the deal was Wekesser could only inform her residents if she was asked directly.

Wekesser said on Jan. 25 she wrote on both her temporary and original rooms’ doors that her room had been confirmed: It had bedbugs.

She also posted a note on her group’s private Facebook page and slipped notes under a few of her residents’ doors.

“I am not dirty or nasty,” she wrote on her doors. “I feel that y’all should know about the situation though. I would want to know what was going on if I were in your position.”

Wekesser only left the notes on the board long enough for her residents to see them and before a Housing employee could notice the notes.

“I’m willing to lose my job if need be, because this isn’t right for them to not let the truth be known,” Wekesser said. “I don’t think it’s right.”

On Jan. 27, Gernhart sent a draft email to Wekesser, Residence Life associate director Keith Zaborowski and two others. The

email told Wekesser’s residents that “one dead bed bug was found” in Wekesser’s room and a heat treatment would occur the next morning.

Gernhart wrote that the email needed to be sent because “I don’t want them to think we are hiding anything from them when they notice the team on Saturday morning.”

Gernhart said she did not have time to talk to the Daily Nebraskan Monday and was also not allowed to comment. Zaborowski also declined to be interviewed.

Unlike in Abel, Wekesser said no dogs were led through Selleck 8200 before or after her heat treatment. A dog did go through the rooms on Selleck 8200 on Monday — Jan. 30 — a week after Wekesser reported bedbugs.

No floor meetings were held for her residents either.

Sue Gildersleeve, director of University Housing, was not available for an in-person interview on Monday, because she was out of town at an unspecified conference until Feb. 6.

In a telephone interview, Gildersleeve said she was reluctant to say much about the situation in Selleck.

“I was told very specifically that they found a single, dead bedbug on the futon,” she said.

“It might look like a cover-up,” Gildersleeve said. “We’re just trying to protect the student.”

Gildersleeve referenced Wekesser, but did not use Wekesser’s name at any point in the interview. Gildersleeve said she could not comment on what happened between Gernhart and Wekesser.

“If anything like that was done, it was done to help keep that student from feeling embarrassed,” she said.

Gildersleeve said she asked other chief housing officers at the conference how they would handle a bedbug situation on their

campus. She said she was told that they would work with the students directly, and only if there was a cluster of rooms would they hold a floor meeting.

“Quite honestly, I believe Housing has done everything possible to work with students when bedbugs are present,” Gildersleeve said.

Last weekend, Wekesser went against Gernhart’s orders to not openly discuss the bedbug situation with residents, because she felt it was the right thing to do. She told her residents about the bedbug situation in person. Wekesser held a non-mandatory floor meeting Sunday afternoon to inform her residents about what happened.

Her father and a UNL alumnus, Tom Wekesser, was present for the meeting.

Tom said Amanda has been keeping him informed of her bedbug situation on campus, even if Housing had not.

“I know what’s going on, so to hear what’s coming down and what you read in the paper, it’s just like whoa,” Tom said. “What’s being reported is not what I know to be true.”

Tom said he believes somewhere in the system, someone knows what is going on.

He said he was concerned that Housing reported it as a “single, dead bedbug.”

“I don’t know anything dead that bites,” Tom said.

One resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she had her room inspected for bedbugs just in case and the room across the hall was also worried about bedbugs.

“I feel like … we’re paying tuition for Housing,” she said. “They should be able to disclose everything to us, because we need to know what’s going on.”

Wekesser said the bedbug incident has taken a toll on how she views her job as an RA.

“I’m honestly debating quitting because I know the fallout is going to be bad,” she said Monday night. “It’s going to be a living hell for me.”

franniesprouls@dailynebraskan.com