The University is treating rooms in Munson Hall for a “pest issue,” a University spokesman confirmed last week.

At least two students who were assigned to live in Munson said they had a cockroach issue in their room that was so bad they will now live in 1959 E Street for the semester while their rooms are being treated.

University spokesman Kurtis Hiatt said in an email that staff began “aggressively applying treatments” to a “pest issue” in Munson Hall. He said that the University offered alternative temporary rooms for students in the affected rooms “to allow more extensive treatment to particular rooms where requested.”

“The treatment is proving effective at reducing the existence of pests and we will continue to monitor the building and apply treatments until the issue has been fully resolved,” Hiatt said.

Hiatt said the University has also investigated reports of bed bugs in the residence hall, but that no cases of the insect were confirmed.

Sophomore Lily Assefi, who said she used to live on the third floor of Munson near the trash chute, said her room had a “huge roach problem” when she moved in this fall, until she moved out to have her room fumigated. She said she had noticed them all over her room, including climbing up the walls and on her arm while she was sleeping.

“They weren’t treating it effectively,” she said. “As time went on, they got bigger.”

She said she moved out of her room into the hall on E Street at 4:30 a.m. last Sunday after her roommate woke up in the night and saw the bugs all over the room.

“When we woke up and saw all of that, we had to run out of there,” Assefi said. “It was really gross.”

Gabby Granata, a sophomore who was assigned to a room in the first floor of Munson Hall this year, said she saw the cockroaches when she moved into the room, and she arranged to move into 1959 E Street the next day while her parents were still in town.

“When I moved in they were literally everywhere. They were crawling up the walls,” Granata said.

Assefi and Granata both said officials initially said they could stay in 1959 E St. for two weeks — but they now plan to stay for the full semester and return to Munson Hall in the spring.

John DiDomenico, a sales manager at Amendt Pest Control Co., said that exterminators typically kill and remove cockroaches by spraying the room with “gel bait,” which would require the person to stay someplace else for 10 to 14 days. He said if there are large amounts of the bugs in one place, an exterminator could vacuum them away.

“It’s pretty neat and clean, compared to the old way,” DiDomenico said, referring to the vacuuming method. “They don’t scatter as much.”