Whether it's a bee in the dorm room, a mouse in the kitchen, or a woodchuck just hanging out on the side of the road, every student at UB knows the population here often includes much more than just humans.
According to UB officials, pest problems on-campus are more common than students might think, and to keep the pests at bay UB spends six to seven thousand dollars annually on exterminators.
According to Joseph Krakowiak, director of University Residence Halls, UB's most common pests are bees, ants and mice, depending where you are on campus.
"Traditionally for us, we'll get a lot of bees flying near Governors Complex," Krakowiak said. "In Ellicott we've had a few problems with mice. You tend to have that problem when you have food service in a building."
Krakowiak added that there have been similar problems in South Campus residence halls and in the transportation tunnels.
"Tunnels have a lot of heat and moisture, and insects enjoy it," Krakowiak said. "UB provides cleaning for this."
But even with regular cleaning and inspection, Mother Nature still knows how to throw a curveball. One of UB's odder tenants in the past few years was a group of bats that nested in Wilkeson Quad, Krakowiak said.
According to Brian Steinberg, the director of Hadley Village, exterminators come to Hadley at least once or twice a semester because of food that students dispose of improperly.
"We find food all over the place, which attracts ants," Steinberg said.
He added that ants have also been found in the community center building, mostly due to spilled food or beverages around and underneath the vending machine.
Hadley's grounds have also seen a few problems with voles, a pest that lives in mulch. But it's nothing extreme or dangerous.
"Exterminators come in and set up traps, and the problem is taken care of," Steinberg said.
Joseph Krakowiak said that although there have been numerous instances where extermination was necessary, none have proven to be a serious problem.
The on-campus location of certain housing complexes also seems to have an impact on the type of pests found in a particular area, officials said.
For instance, South Lake seems to have a lot more spiders than any other complex because of the moist climate, said Tom Tiberi, senior associate director for University Apartments University Residence Halls.
"With South Lake, you'll see more spiders because it's a wet area and it's going to attract more bugs," he said.
Tiberi added that University Facilities regularly cleans the complex windows to keep cobwebs few and far between.
Tiberi said he was happy to say that there's never been a consistent pest problem in the apartments.
"There's never been anything severe, and nothing that has gone past one (apartment) unit," he said.
Krakowiak agreed that overall there aren't any huge problems, and nothing very out of the ordinary.
"We don't have anything consistent," he said. "Some bees, some ants. Nothing we can't handle."
