Another raccoon had been spotted in the cafeteria recently, raising concerns over what seems to be a pest infestation.

A photo of the raccoon peeking out from the ceiling in the cafeteria area, near the public safety office, had been posted on the York Cardinal app.

Angel Taylor, an 18-year-old Physics major said, “My friend and I starting hearing little footsteps. At first, we thought it came from some people walking upstairs, then we saw something poke out.”

The students were told to move somewhere else by a public safety officer. “An officer told us we had to move. ‘There’s nothing else we can do about it.’”, said Taylor.

This happened not long after another raccoon sighting last semester in the cafeteria. According to Student Government President Rachelle Antoine, the previous incident had been taken care of. “I had been told by Alejandro Rodriguez, the supervisor of Building and Grounds it was caught in one of traps and taken away by pest control.”

“I’m sure the staff and Student Government try as much as they can within their power. There’s no reason for them to say they’ve looked into it if they haven’t”, Tarnjit Kaur, an Occupational Therapy major said.

According to Antoine, the infrastructure is one of many areas concern regarding pests coming into the building. “If you look at the location of York College and its surroundings, it’s hard to say there won’t be any pests coming in. When they do come in at nighttime, they find little areas to hide in and nobody’s around to monitor that. We may have to reach out to our representatives in our district to check the area, especially by the train station for pests.”

Another topic that had been addressed by some is how careless trashing by students could be contributing to the problem.

“I’ve heard people blame the janitors for not doing a good job, but it’s really not their fault at all”, according to Kaur. “I’ve seen students here and high school students leave everything and the janitor has to pick it up, but they can’t always be behind you to do that and they get tired”.

“Students should definitely clean up after themselves because anything that gets left behind will attract rodents”, Antoine said.

The raccoon has been captured.