Exterminators Trying to Rid Peabody Terrace of Roaches

Residents of Peabody Terrace have been battling cockroaches for many months now, and it looks as if the students are at last less bugged by them.

Exterminators spray different entryways of the graduate student apartment complex weekly, and if a student so requests, private apartments as well, Erica Johnson, secretary to the superintendent of Peabody Terrace, said yesterday. She added that during the early fall the superintendent's office received approximately ten complaints a week about cockroaches, but is now averaging one complaint weekly from students.

One Peabody Terrace resident, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday he does not know one person in the building whose apartment is free from cockroaches.

The number of roaches seems heavier in the low-rise apartments facing Memorial Dr. he added.

The resident also said posters in the building had notified him to put all his furniture in the middle of his apartment and to remove all his supplies from cupboards because exterminators would be spraying, but exterminators never came.

But Robert A. Silverman, acting vice president for property management, said last night, "Every apartment at Peabody Terrace was exterminated except for those where there was a legitimate medical excuse not to."

"To my knowledge, there has not been much of a cockroach problem there for several months," Silverman added. "You can't really get rid of cockroaches; you just control them," he said.

A spokesman for the Astor Exterminating Company, which sprays Peabody Terrace, said yesterday it is not unusual for exterminators to spray a building weekly. "Every facility varies--it depends on the environment," he said, adding "We have places we go to every other day."

The spokesman added that Peabody Terrace is the only Harvard building he knows of that has had severe problems with cockroaches, but he added, "Cockroaches are quite common in Cambridge."