“This might just be Jurassic Park, here in the C-Building. All these bugs are pre-historic.” – Chef Smith

The Lincoln Auditorium and C Building have a problem: a bug problem – and it’s a big problem. 

Lincoln High school is well known as one of the most recently renovated high schools in the SPS district, with major upgrades made to the roofs, interior and overall structure from 2017-2019. In the second phase of the Lincoln renovation project, major interior and ADA-compliant accessibility upgrades were made to the performing arts, auditorium and CTE building, also known as the C-Building. With the amount of money and effort put into transforming Lincoln High, the last thing anyone would have expected was a major bug infestation. 

“I honestly thought I was hallucinating at how much the floor was moving, but it wasn’t the floor, it was this colony of ants” (Charlotte, ’26). Charlotte Leu was attending her sister’s orchestra concert last spring when she had her first encounter with the C-building ants.  While attending the concert alongside her mother, she noticed that the packaged Banh-Mi sandwiches they’d brought to enjoy post-performance had been discovered by one or two hungry ants. She quickly brushed them off, thinking nothing more of it, until she looked back down at the ground and spotted something strange. 

“I kind of looked down at the ground, and I realized that, you know how it’s like a gridded carpet, I realized that they were not just grids, the grids were moving. It was just ants, all over the floor, the little black dots I thought were like part of the grids, but the grids don’t move and the carpet was moving.”

Unfortunately, her experience didn’t end there. She described how she soon realized that her shoes, which had been resting on the carpet near the sandwiches, were also covered in ants.  Panicked she curled into a ball on top of her chair, she sent a frantic email to Ms. Sullivan (performing arts teacher), stating nothing but, “Ants. Ants, ants, ants.” It was through this email that was later relayed to me by Ms. Sullivan, that I came to know about the C-Building bug infestation. 

After speaking further with Ms. Sullivan about the matter, she directed me to Chef Smith to find out more.

“We have the biggest student body, so why not the largest ant colony.” (Chef Smith)

Sitting down with Chef Smith before our interview, I was not prepared for the story she would soon be telling me. She explained to me that when the position of the new culinary teacher at Lincoln High opened in April of 2023, she had no idea about the pest situation that was occurring. 

“I spent a good part of that summer starting, you know, working with the people to finish [the kitchen] up. And in the midst of that, there were some ants, just a few which is totally a common occurrence in the Pacific Northwest.”

Several months had passed at this point since the ants had been discovered in April, and the problem had grown much worse.

“The ants kept getting worse, and so I was given some ant traps…and I just kept bothering several people and saying, the ants are still here. And so finally, one of the folks from downtown came and I was just like, we can’t cook and bake in here.”

She told me that at first, the c-building staff believed they were sugar ants, which are often found in bakeries and are drawn to sugar, water and electricity. However, as the ants continued to increase in number, she soon realized this wasn’t the case. 

“By this time, they were against this back wall, and then they had worked their way down the wall. And so, they sent somebody…and he was like oh, these aren’t sugar ants. These are called odorous house ants.” 

Odorous house ants, named for the rotten smell they give off when crushed, are notoriously difficult to get rid of. They have the ability to split into multiple colonies, with multiple queens (even up to 30), spreading the infestation deeper into a building. They are also incredibly resistant to insecticides, especially the queens. 

“So, this didn’t get fixed in the spring. It didn’t get fixed in the fall. Occasionally, students would be standing there with an ant crawling on their finger and naming it, you know. So we got really friendly with the ants.” 

After months, Chef Smith was finally able to contact her supervisor down at the district and get people to come in again to take care of the problem. It wasn’t easy, they had to get the treatment back to every single colony, but eventually they were able to get them out of the kitchens. But it was only the kitchens.

“And they did move along, you know, kind of down the building. They used to just be in this corner, and then they kind of moved. Apparently, they’ve been in the auditorium.”

Break/Second Part

“The issue with the cockroaches, I was handling before school started.”

Prior to starting this interview, I had no idea there were cockroaches in the building along with the ants. I was shocked.

“I saw some baby ones. German cockroaches, they’re all over outside. They’re not the ones that we see in the tropics, they’re kind of littler, but they’re still part of that freakish, prehistoric thing.” CS

Following my discovery of the additional bugs, I knew I needed to find out more. Luckily, I was able to get the name of the exterminator (who chose to remain anonymous) that handled the roaches.

She told me that in her initial inspection, she found them in the classroom across from the kitchen, specifically in the cabinets. She explained that although they were difficult to get rid of, after a liquid insecticide treatment she was able to clear them out. But how do we ensure that they stay out?

“If you see something, say something,” is what Chef Smith said to me when I asked her what we as students could do to prevent the cockroaches from returning, and the ant problem from getting even worse. Keeping food off the floor and out of the auditorium altogether is a great way to keep the ants from spreading. 

In terms of the cockroaches, the exterminator I spoke to explained that they were often brought on students’ backpacks or in their lunchboxes. So, remember to check your bags before entering the C-building, and watch out for insects crawling on your shoes. It’s important for us as students to do everything we can to keep our school clean and bug-free.

Rumor has it the cockroaches have spread to the art wing, as well as ants to the counseling office, so check back in next week to find out if Lincoln has managed to work out the bugs in its system.