LONGMONT — Bedbugs didn’t stop Heather Campbell and her 11-month-old daughter, Avery, from checking out books at the Longmont Public Library on Friday.
“It’s something to take into consideration, especially with having a young child, but it didn’t put me off from coming,” Campbell said.
A custodian spotted bedbugs at the library on Aug. 18. An exterminator the following day found five infested chairs and used carbon dioxide to freeze the pests. Exterminators returned to the library Monday morning after Macaroni, a bedbug-sniffing dog, found nine infested chairs, including two that had already been treated.
In an e-mail Wednesday to staff, library director Judith Anderson wrote that an employee had found a bedbug on her couch, near a bookbag she carries to and from work.
On Thursday, a chair next to the drinking fountain on the second floor — the same one where the first bedbug was found — was thrown away, according to a staff e-mail from Anderson. That chair had been treated for bedbugs three times.
No signs are posted on the front door or the affected chairs, and a library employee who asked not to be named expressed concerns that patrons who had not learned about the problem from the news were unaware of the situation.
“The signs have been taken off the doors as of Monday morning,” the employee said.
Karen Roney, director of the city’s community services department, which oversees the library, said signs were taken down after the nine chairs Macaroni identified were treated and deemed safe.
Macaroni, a beagle-mix who sniffs out living bedbugs, is scheduled to return to the library Wednesday to recheck the treated chairs.
The library is closed for the holiday weekend until Tuesday.
