Battling Bedbug Infestations in School Devices: How Student Chromebooks Are Falling Victim

Bewildering Infestations Alert: Students’ Computer Bugs on the Rise – Latest Case Involving Chromebooks Revealed

SEAN GLADWELL/Getty Images

You can expect some computer bugs when dealing with laptops designed for students , but what about actual bugs?

According to WRAL , families of students at Riverside High School in Durham, N.C. are dealing with the latter after school employees found bedbugs in student Chromebooks in the school’s media center over the summer.

Also: 6 reasons why a Chromebook is the best laptop for most anyone

The laptops have been housed in student homes since orientation on Aug. 26. School officials are asking students to return the Chromebooks to school and to check their homes for bedbugs.

This issue apparently isn’t uncommon. A post on r/k12sysadmin, a subreddit for school system administrators, asked about the issue earlier this year, saying that when students turned in the devices for failure, a school employee found bedbugs inside. Several users responded with similar stories, with one adding “We’ve had this issue way too many times.” Other posts over the past years show similar stories, with users saying the affected devices are usually bagged up for recycling.

Newsletters

ZDNET Tech Today

ZDNET’s Tech Today newsletter is a daily briefing of the newest, most talked about stories, five days a week.

See all

Despite the pest’s name, the inside of a laptop is a fairly cozy place to live for bedbugs since it’s a generally warm, dry environment with plenty of crevices to hide in. While it is uncommon for bedbugs to infest an electronic device, it does happen, especially if that device has been in close contact with an infested bed or backpack.

Also: The best laptops for college in 2024: Expert tested and reviewed

If you have a laptop infested with bedbugs, removing the infestation is not easy. The pest control company Terminix notes that typical treatments involve either very hot or cold temps, which can damage electronics. If a device isn’t used often, you can place it in an airtight bag for at least 10 months. That’s obviously not an ideal solution, so the recommendation is often to simply discard the laptop.

So far, there have been no reports of an infested laptop transferring bugs into a student’s home.