Rats in the SU: An Examination of NCAD’s Regular Rodents

A new development in NCAD’s ongoing struggle with campus hygiene has emerged in recent weeks, as Luje and Saorla from the SU have released a series of angry videos over NCAD’s pink room’s latest rat problem. 

The pink room is the most disgusting room of any NCAD building, with, on occasion mouldy food having been left to rot between couch cushions due to student negligence.

The inability of students to clean up after themselves has welcomed the return of old residents to NCAD – the rats. 

While the pink room is designed as a student hangout space, fit with a pool table and facilities for food preparation, in practice the room becomes a pig stye of leftover food and wrappers.

Luje, much to his annoyance, has been forced to clean up after both the students in the pink room, and the rats shitting on his desk in the SU office next door. 

NCAD has had a repeated history with vermin dating back to at least 2020 and possibly earlier if the scant evidence left by students on social media is to be believed.

In what appears to be a now-deleted article by Nicola Byrne for the Irish Mail on Sunday, NCAD’s rat troubles circa February of 2020 are recounted. 

Identified by staff and students as a then, ongoing issue NCAD experienced significant difficulties as a consequence of its rat population when the college was forced to close one of its buildings temporarily. Byrne’s 2020 article begins its discussion of the college’s rat scandal after ‘a piece of plasterboard from a ceiling was apparently dislodged by a rat and fell on a student’s head.’

After the alleged incident, the college subsequently closed the Granary Building in which it took place. However, instead of hiring a professional pest control company to deal with the issue, the college supposedly opted to use its on-hand cleaning staff to plant traps and bait boxes inside the building.

This infestation resulted in staff and students contacting SIPTU to voice their concerns. Following the aforementioned rat incident, the college is alleged to have brought in a pest control contractor to find a solution to the issue. 

In the eyes of students at the time, this issue was addressed too late, as the presence of rodents on campus was alleged to have been known by college authorities. 

In a series of interviews with students, several statements were given in the since deleted article, including the disclosure that a student Twitter post was made in which photos of chewed clothes and student art from NCAD were included.

One student remarked that her friend was ‘genuinely terrified and phobic about rats. She can’t bring herself to come into the building,  Meanwhile, her education is going down the toilet’.

Another student said that ‘[e]verybody in college knows about the rats. I heard about them the first week I was there. But now we’re in a situation where there’s rats falling out of the ceiling. It’s disgusting.’

The college supposedly stated that the general decline of Dublin city hygiene in recent years was a catalyst for the presence of rats at NCAD, as there was a 60% increase in rat infestations as of July 2020.

Far from a recent issue, it appears that campus rats have been an ongoing staple of college life at Ireland’s premier arts and design college since at least 2010 if social media is to be believed.

In light of the pink room’s latest rat problem in the past weeks, the total lack of student hygiene has not stopped. Following the room’s re-opening, an unfinished pot noodle was found left in the room, much to the annoyance of the SU. 

A brief look at student social media demonstrates exactly how little students care about the campus rodents, labelling the rats as ‘grunge coquette urban planning run-down industrial boho aesthetic’ rather than a health and safety issue. 

Students appear to be more irritated by the SU telling them to clean up after themselves than they are by the rats. It remains to be seen when the next episode of NCAD’s rat saga will be released, though with campus hygiene in its current state, it cannot be too far off.