Students in the Journalism Building had to miss out on use of the vending machines in the first floor student lounge Monday due to a raccoon.
When custodian Richard Avalos got to school that morning, he didn’t think he would celebrate his 10-year anniversary with the University with cleaning up the mess left by an unexpected visitor.
“At first, I thought that someone had vandalized the room because there were magazines all over,” Avalos said.
Several of the magazines that usually are stacked on shelves in the room had been knocked on the ground and torn. When Avalos saw what else had been done in the room, he deduced a raccoon had somehow got into the lounge.
“It had cut itself, and there was blood all over,” he said. “There was droppings and urine on the sofa. I think it went there for the food.”
“It was bad. It had left feces all on the floor. There was blood all over,” Brenda Gadlin, custodian, said. “It had knocked a picture down and there was urine?-?it stank so bad. I couldn’t go in there.”
“I asked Margaret, who used to work here as custodian, what she thought, and she didn’t know,” Avalos said. “I thought they might be coming through the roof?-?I didn’t know.”
This was not the first time either had dealt with animals on campus.
“We’ve had one come in this last semester in 110 through the ceiling into the classroom,” Avalos said. “I was cleaning (Room) 110, and I heard something. I went in and saw something scurry across. I looked in and it peeked up and looked at me.”
That time, university police came out and tried to capture it. But when the raccoon acted like it would charge, the officer called animal control.
“He crawled up the trellis and pushed up the ceiling tile to get away,” he said. “They’re smart.”
Gadlin said she had experienced a smellier concern.
“I almost got sprayed by a skunk over by the Heritage House one morning,” she said.
Facilities personnel caught a “juvenile raccoon” Tuesday morning, according to Gadlin.
“They said there were footprints all under the building and that they thought there was a whole family,” she said.
She said there was another trap on campus for a skunk.
David McKenna, facilities director, said this was the first time it “had happened in the ceiling” in the Journalism Building.
“It happened a few months ago in the library,” he said. “They’ll periodically get into the buildings.”
McKenna said his department doesn’t set out traps routinely, but, if there is an occurrence, they will set them out. He could not confirm the capture of a raccoon Tuesday.
The student lounge has been closed due to health concerns. Dr. Lamar Bridges of the journalism department said he was looking to replace the furniture affected in the incident.