By Haley Huston
Editor-in-Chief
Warning, there is profanity in this video.
A video on Twitter showed rats in the cafeteria storage room, but the college passed a surprise health inspection on Jan. 15.
A video posted on Twitter in early January showed three rats on the shelves of a food storage room used by the Apache Junction. It was taken by students from the sidewalk behind Rogers Student Center after dark, when the light left on in the room allowed the students to see the rats jumping around on the shelves inside.
The video was retweeted over 25 times and then taken down by the end of the month, but college officials assure students that there are no rats in the cafeteria to worry about.
“The college was shut down,” said Mike Metke, President of the college. “Every time the college is shut down they’ll try to get in the doors because there is not a lot of food outside.”
Director of Environmental Health and Safety Compliance Robby Underwood said that the biggest problem faced on campus with pest control is the improper disposal of trash.
“I will find McDonald’s bags in the parking lot and food that has just been discarded, “said Juan Mejia, provost and vice president for Academic and Student Affairs. “It looks like people just opened the door and then placed it on the ground and that just draws something closer and closer.”
Metke and Mejia both agree that an incident like this could have happened anywhere, and Metke said he would continue eating in the cafeteria.
“The college went through inspections. We monitor everything,” said Metke. “If there ever is a problem we are aware of, we are on top of it immediately.”
The cafeteria is inspected yearly by the Texas Department of State Health Services and scores on a scale of one to a 100.
“I took the liberty of and went back over the last three or four years and pulled the inspections reports,” said Underwood.
Underwood said Apache Junction scored a 99 in 2013, 96 in 2014, 100 in 2015 and a 86 on Jan. 15, 2016 when the department responded to a call after someone saw the video.
