U of R sprays for cockroaches at Riddell Centre

The University of Regina (U of R) will be keeping watchful eyes out for cockroaches in the Riddell Centre building, including the food court after spraying for them last weekend.

Darren Cherwaty is the director of health, safety and wellness for the U of R.

“Some of the social media posts have indicated that we have an infestation of cockroaches and that certainly isn’t the case, we have found evidence of cockroaches in our Riddell building, particularly in the basement and some on the main floor as well,” Cherwaty said.

He noted the U of R’s pest control management contractors put down sticky traps to find them and did find some in the food services area of the building. He said the university is being very proactive and diligent to deal with the issue to ensure the health and safety of people using the building and food services.

Last Saturday, the school temporarily closed the food services and tented the areas using floor to ceiling plastic in order to treat the building with insecticide to kill the cockroaches.

“We shut down the food services just for a short period of time Saturday night and reopened on Sunday, but certainly after the treatment we went back in and we cleaned those areas very thoroughly,” Cherwaty said.

While the university did see the need to provide advance warning of the treatment to any students and staff on campus at the time, Cherwaty said they did secure the area with appropriate barriers and posted notices along the plastic tented area at the time.

Cherwaty added the university also sent out a statement to staff and students on Thursday about what was done to deal with the cockroaches. He said the pest control company will be closely monitoring for any sign of cockroaches over the next few weeks.

Cherwaty said this is the first time the university has needed to treat for cockroaches in this building in recent memory. However, he did acknowledge a public health report on the restaurant inspection website that identified pests at the Lazy Owl Campus bar in May 2018.

There was no report made by the university to public health officials about the cockroaches found this month.

A communications person with the Saskatchewan Health Authority responded by email to 980 CJME, noting there were no cockroach infestations identified during recent inspections of the kitchens at the Riddell Centre. However, a public health inspector did visit the building Thursday to ensure there were no concerns associated with the spraying for cockroaches.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to a public report of cockroaches at the Lazy Owl bar from May 2018. The report only identified pests, not cockroaches.