‘Kakkerlak’ infestation too much for school’s resources

A WESTERN Cape school is deep in the “kakkerlak” as a cockroach infestation threatens to bankrupt it.

Oudtshoorn’s De Villiers Primary principal, Glynis Lekay‚ said she realised the magnitude of the cockroach problem when the school’s general worker attempted to find the source of a bug in the alarm system and found that the insects had chewed through numerous wires.

The plight of the 750-pupil school in Bridgeton is so dire that it was raised in the Western Cape legislature last week‚ when MPL Lennit Max asked Education MEC Debbie Schafer how she planned to help.

Schafer replied that the school was using “norms and standards funding‚ as required‚ to deal with the cockroaches”.

But Lekay said the school was struggling to balance general maintenance of the 1970s asbestos building with the need to buy large quantities of cockroach spray.

Schafer said the school would undergo maintenance in 2019-20 and was due for replacement starting in 2024‚ but Lekay said yesterday: “We won’t make it.

“If we have to go into a contract with pest control, I don’t know where our school will end with money – and I don’t think the governing body will approve it.”

She said the cockroaches even hitched rides home in handbags and briefcases.

“I open my bag and leave it outside my house to see if they will climb out. They lay their eggs in between the papers‚” she said.

She dismissed the suggestion of having a period when the children stamped on cockroaches.

“The kids aren’t afraid of the cockroaches. They run and stomp when they see them running around.

“But by day when there’s a lot of movement in the classrooms they hide in the drawers.”

Lekay said the cockroaches had been quiet for a while but the general worker had given her an ominous warning: “Ma’am‚ just watch when the school opens after the holidays.”