BY BARBARA LEWIS, Staff Reporter

Wellington’s Cafe, located in the Tunstall Commons area on campus, was shut down during the first week of the quarter due to a rat infestation.

“We received the complaint on a piece of paper anonymously in our office on Sunday,” Jan. 5, Holly Myers, environmental health supervisor at the public health department, said.

The day after the health department received the complaint, they sent someone to the site to inspect.

Washington health codes require facilities to clean up, look for areas where rodents can get into the building and disinfect if any evidence of rodents is found at a dining establishment.

These requirements are set forth to avoid any food borne illnesses such as salmonella.

“The manager of the facility had already recognized the issue, and began addressing it, so by the time our inspector conducted the inspection on Jan. 6, they had already contacted two pest control companies and started sanitizing and disinfecting,” Myers said.

According to Myers, there were no existing code violations, and the facility had done everything right.

Linda Schactler, director of public affairs at Central, noted that Wellington’s is in a rural area and that such instances are just part of business.

“At this point, we have caught all of them,” Doug Keith, student supervisor of Wellington’s, said.  “We haven’t had any finds now for two weeks.”

The health department confirmed Wellington’s assertion when they reported that they did not see any evidence of rats when they did their follow up inspection.

Management has taken the extra precautions by sealing up the Sue Lombard  building to prevent future instances from occurring.

Wellington’s reopened on Jan. 13, reportedly clean and ready for business.

As for the other buildings on campus, students should be aware that routine inspections of Central food establishments are conducted quarterly.

“I haven’t heard of any other reports [on campus],” Schactler said.

There has been only one other report on campus this school year, which took place last quarter.

“We received one complaint in November of an area near Brooklane, where the resident was concerned because they had seen several rats being brought home by their cat and that was unusual,” Myers said.

Rats are generally scarce in Ellensburg.  The last big report was two years ago; however, the rats remained outside in that instance.

“The city of Ellensburg noted seven instances in 2012 where power lines were damaged by rats,” Myers said.