Thika town has in the last few years emerged as an education hub housing several colleges and a number of local universities.
This has led to increased pressure for these institutions to provide accommodation to their regular students who are mostly not from the area but from other parts of the country.
However, a quick check in most of these institutions will tell you that most of the students prefer looking for alternative accommodation away from the school for an obvious reason; lice infestation.
So, which are some of the notoriously lice infested institutions in the town that students shy away from their hostels?
Thika Technical: Many students here say that they are bundled just like in high school and up to 10 students are forced to share a single room. This, they say makes maintaining hygiene become a pipe dream and therefore lice have found refuge there.
Many Mount Kenya University 'border' students also prefer residing outside school due to heavy lice infestation of their hostels.
The cause of the infestation can, however, not be explained because the hostels are modern and divided into small cubicles.
Many students who reside outside, however, blame it on poor hygiene among their colleagues as well as lack of regular fumigation of the hostels. Other institutions with lice infestation problems include Jodan College hostels, TIBS hostels among others.