Georgia Southern finds no evidence of bed bugs in Henderson Library

Tara Bailey

Georgia Southern University found no evidence of bed bugs in Zach Henderson Library following a student complaint on social media.

On Thursday night, a GS student’s tweet went viral after posting photos of what looked like bug bites when she was in the library Monday night.

{{tncms-inline account=”Mallory” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Monday night I was in Zach Henderson library sitting on the second floor chairs with shorts on.. Tuesday morning I woke up to this horrific sight. <a href="https://twitter.com/GeorgiaSouthern?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GeorgiaSouthern</a> would you care to explain? I have never EVER had skin problems until now. <a href="https://t.co/JUaeDpZk4L">pic.twitter.com/JUaeDpZk4L</a></p>— Mallory (@_malzay) <a href="https://twitter.com/_malzay/status/1032612792107524097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2018</a></blockquote>” id=”https://twitter.com/_malzay/status/1032612792107524097″ type=”twitter”}}

GS hired Knox Pest Control to inspect the library this week. No bed bugs were found.

“I don’t know what the cause might have been, but so far we have no evidence of any bed bugs,” Bede Mitchell, Dean of Libraries at Zach Henderson Library, said.

This is not the first time that bed bugs have been reported in the library. Mitchell said there were bugs found in a localized area of the library during the summer of 2017.

“Now, because it was summer and there weren’t that many students around, we did go ahead and close the library for several days so that they could confirm that it was not anywhere else in the library, and so that they could mitigate thoroughly in the area without anybody being around,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell also said that the GS Student Health Services confirmed that the student did not have bed bug bites.

The student later said on Twitter that a visit to the doctor confirmed that the bites are not bed bugs but some type of skin reaction perhaps from cleaning supplies. 

Tara Bailey, The George-Anne Enterprise Reporter, gaspecial@georgiasouthern.edu.