Pyle Inn shut down for 24hrs

Rat reported near kitchen forcing College to shut Co-op down

An animal as big as a house cat was spotted at Pyle Inn Co-op Monday, giving the custodial staff something to rat about. The suspected rat was reported to Residential Life at around 8 a.m. Monday resulting in a 24-hour closure of the Pyle Inn.

After receiving the call, Residential Life then gathered OSCA Area Coordinator Tracy Murray and OSCA operations managers to decide what should be done.

The first decision was to close the Co-op, a right outlined in the OSCA rent contract with the College.

"It was really the only choice given the considerations," operations manager first-year Ben Newton.

When Pyle Inn Dining Loose Ends Coordinator Rachael Keast was notified of the problem around 9 a.m. that morning, she and five other Pyle Inn Co-op members cleaned the kitchen for about four hours. The College had already decided to close the Co-op, however, and required the Co-op to hire a professional cleaning service for the day.

"They cleaned mostly the problem areas, like behind the stove," Murray said.

After the cleaner, an exterminator was brought in to assess the situation. According to Murray, the verdict is still out about whether there are vermin or not. The exterminator uses live-animal traps and looks for evidence of droppings to determine whether there is a problem.

"My guess is it isn't a big problem," Murray said, "But the real potential problem that we were worried about was that there wasn't exposed food that was left out and could have been contaminated."

This was a first-time experience for Murray, but he said that the decisions made were common across the board. "Since I've been here this has been unique, but everybody was pretty much on the same page as to what should be done," Murray said.

Pyle Inn Co-opers were less convinced.

"First of all, there is no rat. There was no rat," Keast said. "I was just annoyed always. At all times I remained annoyed. I still remain annoyed."

Keast felt the Co-op kitchen was not in poor condition and that shutting it down was unnecessary. "I really don't think it was a problem," she said.

She laughed when she was told of the evidence that a rat had been in the kitchen. "They said there was evidence of rats because there was partially eaten bread. That's evidence of co-opers!"

The exterminator will report back to the College about the vermin situation next week.