Word: winthrops
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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MORE recently, my night-owl habits that often bring me to the Winthrop dining hall have brought me into more frequent contact with Harvard's rat community. The record for simultaneous observation now stands at three: one on the Coke machine and two on the conveyor belt for dirty trays. The scary thing is that where the rats once ran at my presence, they are becoming bolder with each passing...
...talked to dining hall personnel at Winthrop and Eliot who echoed similar views. They admitted that there is a rat infestation problem--not only at Winthrop but in many other dining halls--but pointed out that exterminators visit the dining halls once per week...
...least at Winthrop House, (where food personnel told me that they frequently open up in the morning to find rats walking across the grill) the feeling is that the University's and the exterminator's control measures are far from adequate: "I don't know what poison the exterminator feeds them, but they just keep getting bigger." At Eliot House, the sentiment is that for some unexplained reason the rats have recently been "more active" than normal...
...presence of rats on such a scale poses a serious health threat. Rats--carriers of disease and disease-infested parasites--are viewed by health officials as a serious health hazard. In New Hampshire, where my parents own a restaurant, health officials would have ordered Winthrop's dining hall to close until the rat problem was eliminated or at least placed under control...
INDEED, several Harvard dining halls--certainly Winthrop's--are sitting on what are essentially festering rat nests. Harvard officials have not addressed this serious problem and potential health hazard effectively. Having a weekly visit by an exterminator is not enough--especially when it is clear to service personnel and residents alike that the problem is becoming more acute rather than subsiding...