Students in Dolliver House, the Simon’s Rock Llama Ledger tells us, found bed bugs last week.  But wait ’till you hear how they got the message across to the school’s staff, once they discovered the problem:

Last Friday, first-year and Dolliver resident Jonathan Slavid posted a status update on Facebook, announcing that he had found bed bugs.

“I put it in my Facebook status first because it was a Friday, and Health Services was closed. …

“It was so weird because I was away at Oberlin,” Slavid’s roommate Conrad Rothbaum says. “I found out my room was infested online.”

“I first was afraid of bugs when I got a bunch of bites around my ankles,” Slavid says. “But at first I thought they were just mosquito bites, but when they lasted longer than two days I began to wonder what they were. Then one day I found a bug on my sheets, and killed it and put it in the trash. I looked up bed bugs online, and sure enough, the pictures matched what I had found in my bed,” Slavid recounts.

Ah, the many wonders of the internets.  Thanks, Al Gore!

• Bed bug aggregate pheromone traps “within two years” says Dr. Gerhard Gries
• Songs for Bedbuggers
• From Time’s rich archives: a spider hungry for bed bugs
• bed bugs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Cornell University dorms

ShareThis

A law student has sued one of downtown Cleveland’s chicer high-rises, contending that bedbugs drove him from two apartments — and flying gnats from a third.

In his lawsuit, Joshua Bobrowsky said the blood-sucking vermin in three Reserve Square apartments left him with painful welts and months of psychological and emotional distress. He seeks $142,000 in damages.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Bobrowsky, 26, of Pittsburgh, said in an interview Tuesday. “It was just a very horrible experience. Life isn’t enjoyable anymore when you think that everything you own is infested with parasites.”

A few questions:

1.  It is very easy to move bed bugs from one unit to another.  Could this account for Bobrowsky’s second apartment in the building having bed bugs?

2.  The “chicest” high rises in Cleveland charge $1650 for a 3-bedroom?  

(I just heard a rush of Manhattanites and their offspring running through the tunnel to New Jersey– they’re on their way, Cleveland!)

3.  Flying gnats?  Aren’t they a lot easier to get rid of than bed bugs?

Thanks to the Bedbugger who tipped me off to this one!

• Another 23-25 Temple St., Nashua, N.H. tenant sues landlord over bed bugs
• New eco-thriller starring Val Kilmer has bed bug connection
• Infested student apartment building at Wright State University, Dayton
• Bedbugs in the news today: Peterborough, England

ShareThis

• Toronto tenants camping outside to avoid bed bugs: update
• bed bug nymphs, bed bug eggs, bed bug feces, on wood
• FAQ: I need legal advice but can’t afford a lawyer. What do I do?
• FAQ: Do I have to tell my landlord / co-op board / condo association / residents of attached house next door?

ShareThis

According to this site, Florida isn’t one of them. The site notes,

General Landlord Duties

Landlords are required to deliver possession of the rental property to the renter when the lease period begins. Failure to do so may entitle the renter to sue for damages. A landlord must ensure that residential property is habitable. This includes complying with all building, housing and health codes … Certain pests (e.g., rats, mice, roaches, ants, bedbugs) must be exterminated. … If a landlord fails to keep up with required repairs, a tenant should give the landlord written notice of the noncompliance. If the landlord fails to make the repairs within seven days of receiving notice, the tenant has the right to terminate the lease.

I’m not sure of the situation here (if there are exceptions, as in some places), but this Jacksonville tenant is tossing out her furniture and trying to self-treat because she can’t afford a pest control professional. Click here for the video, or here for the article.

• added to the “Tenants and Landlords FAQ”: Washington, D.C. and Florida
• Nashua, N.H. laws may change in part based on recent bed bug cases there
• FAQ: tenants, landlords, owners, and bedbugs
• landlord’s duty to tell prospective tenants about bed bugs?

ShareThis

Eight months later, the same complex (high-rise Ted Kuhn Tower at 13350 Old Yale Road) is still infested. This article from Surrey Now says,

[Tenant Janet] Genis-Bell said the entire building should be sprayed. Doing it suite by suite just moves the bugs around and doesn’t kill them all, she said.

“My mother, she won’t even come over to visit me and my children won’t bring my grandchildren over because they’re afraid they’ll take bed bugs home with them. It’s awful.”

Darin Froese is BC Housing’s the regional director for the Fraser region. He said Monday the agency is working hard to eradicate the pests at Ted Kuhn.

Froese said they’ve hired a pest control company that uses a specially trained dog to sniff out the bed bugs.

And Froese points out that residents need to cooperate with treatment:

Froese said tenants are also part of the problem at Ted Kuhn. Some tenants are reluctant to report bed bug infestations because of the attached stigma, but pointed out some of the world’s best hotels have been invaded, too.

“We need tenants to report immediately when bugs are discovered and to not bring in used furniture and mattresses. We also need them to use the special mattress covers we are issuing.”

The need for tenant cooperation is essential and cannot be discounted.

However, in cases where tenants are suffering with bed bugs after seven treatments, as Genis-Bell is, then it seems like something is wrong with the system. Surely not everyone currently suffering from bed bugs in Ted Kuhn Tower is uncooperative?

And if only some tenants are not cooperating, is there nothing that can be done to force those non-compliant tenants to cooperate?

If not, then something needs to be done to make this possible. I’m with Joe Fiorito in Toronto who said in The Star today that “… compliance [with bed bug treatment] ought to be compelled with a gentle hand; in some cases, help must be delivered with a dollop of social and psychological services.” Absolutely. Support must be provided. But treatment must happen.

And yes, I recognize that types of treatments should vary. If someone has medical reasons for not getting traditional pesticide sprays, alternate methods such as thermal heat, or steam and dusts, must be properly administered.

But people should not be living with bed bugs a year after they’re discovered in the building. Multiple units should not be treated, one at a time, 7 or 9 times — as Janet Genis-Bell and Bill MacLeod discovered, piecemeal sprayings of individual units are not enough.

To say, as the building management does, that the bed bug situation in Ted Kuhn Tower is “better now than it was a year ago” is simply not good enough.

• Bowling Green Towers: residents organize to demand proper bed bug treatment in low-income building
• Another suit at Presidential Towers: this one focuses on landlord’s non-disclosure of neighbor’s bed bugs
• Surrey, B.C. public housing infested with bed bugs
• Bed bugs at the University of Vermont

ShareThis

His questions and comments give a sense of how complicated a matter it is to solve a city’s well-established bed bug problem. Fiorito writes,

I have my own little Q and A in advance of the report:

Do most people know where and how to get help if they have an infestation? No. Does Public Health offer help and advice? They offer more advice than help. Is there any kind of help available right now? Not much, and it doesn’t come fast.

Can we compel landlords to spray an infected apartment? Not at the moment. Do landlords know that, for spraying to be effective in an apartment building or a rooming house, it ought to include the units above, below and to the side of the affected unit? Most don’t.

Can a tenant be compelled to submit to spraying? Not at the moment. Do bugs spread quickly if left unchecked? Yes. Should tenants be allowed to refuse help? Not in my opinion.

Does anyone have to power to compel such intervention? Not really. Should the city pass a bylaw to compel compliance? In my view, yes. But compliance ought to be compelled with a gentle hand; in some cases, help must be delivered with a dollop of social and psychological services.

Fiorito knows these are serious questions. He has interviewed countless bed bug sufferers and public officials about bed bugs in Toronto.

I will judge the report according to how it answers these and other questions.

I have a final thought, perhaps for inclusion in the report: We require restaurants to post notices assuring us we may dine safely here or there; why do we not require landlords to post similar notices indicating buildings are bedbug free?

Since bed bugs can appear at any time, it would have to be as quickly-changed as the “vacancy” signs in a roadside motel.

What a different world we would be in, if landlords had to declare their buildings’ bed bugs for all to see.

Please read Fiorito’s full article here.

• Toronto Star: there are endless numbers of depressing bed bug stories
• After a fire, bed bugs “rain down from ceilings” into other apartments
• Ted Kuhn Tower: bed bug situation “better now than a year ago”
• bed bug news for 2007-11-11: Lexington, KY and Toronto, ON

ShareThis

Kay Hammer lives in the 1900 block of Hasti-Acres Drive, and says the family started getting bitten shortly after they moved in.

The Hammer family may not be the only ones in the building suffering from bed bug bites:

Eyewitness News talked to several other neighbors in the apartment building, and some reported they had suffered with bug bites. The spokeswoman from the health department said those could be bed bug bites.

The problem has been expensive and disruptive to their lives, as it is for so many:

The Hammers now have almost no furniture in the living room. They sleep on air mattresses, except for one new bed that appears to be clear of bed bugs so far. Kay Hammer hopes the landlord will get the building professionally treated to get rid of the bed bugs.

“I can’t move,” said Hammer. “If I move I take them with me. So I’m just kind of in limbo right now.”

The article also contained a clue on what to do if you are a tenant in Bakersfield with bed bugs, and the landlord is not treating:

Hammer contacted Bakersfield City Code Compliance, but Officer Wanda Neal said her department refers any bed bug cases to the health department or professional pest control companies.

“Bed bugs are something that’s not easily visible,” said Neal. “So that’s why we’re not professionals, and we leave that up to the Health Department where they’ve been trained — and the professionals, where they’ve been trained.”

Neal said Code Compliance can send a letter to the landlord and tenant if there is an alleged bed bug infestation. Neal said that had been done in the case of the Hammer apartment.

You can read the entire article or watch the video here.

• Nashua, N.H. laws may change in part based on recent bed bug cases there
• Family of five “run out of their home” by bed bugs in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia
• Bed Bug Monday in Toronto: Joe Fiorito weighs in
• Jacksonville, Florida story: fighting bed bugs without a PCO

ShareThis

According to the Boston Globe, she’s been giving people advice on avoiding and getting rid of bed bugs since 2004.

She started her crusade in 2004 after a fellow parishioner at the Portuguese Baptist Church in Cambridge, among others, described their bed bug woes. The bugs lived in the floor, the woman told her, so she couldn’t let her 9-month-old baby crawl in her apartment.

Where others might offer sympathy, she took action. When the landlord’s response proved unsatisfactory, “I brought the case to the Health Department and started writing articles in the Brazilian Times about ‘percevejos,’ ” Portuguese for “bed bug.”

Heringer included her contact information in the articles. People started calling - some from as far away as Connecticut.

Heringer knows the importance both of support for bed bug sufferers, and the importance of activism.

… she has helped people directly, served on a city action group and the Greater Boston Bed Bug Task Force, and raised over $1,700 to pay for video services from Somerville Community Access Television.

Mike Ginieres, an environmental health officer with the Cambridge Public Health Department, is helping with the video.

And the wonder of it is, she’s never even had to deal with bed bugs in her own home. In my experience, many people don’t really understand the problem of bed bugs until they do.

It seems like one person really can make a difference.

Leonina Heringer is our first ever Bedbugger Hero/Heroine of the week!

I can’t wait to see Heringer’s video, and I hope it will go up on YouTube, so that our site and many others can share it with the world.

• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Gianaris- a champion for change
• National geographic on bedbugs / This Is London on bedbugs
• The NYTimes is back on the bed bugs story

ShareThis

Toronto Public Health reported yesterday that it has recorded a near 1,000% increase in bed bug infestation calls and they aren’t just from flophouses.

The blood-sucking bugs have prompted 1,444 calls to public health officials for help — up from 147 calls in 2006 — in the first seven months of this year.

And that’s seven months in to this year; I wonder how much higher that percentage will have grown by the end of this year.

However, with any luck, and a lot of work, the tide may be turning in Toronto, because public officials have ideas about ways to reduce the spread of bed bugs, and fight current infestations. And they’re doing their best to implement them.

The Toronto Board of Health is meeting Monday and will be hearing the Bed Bug Project Update including funding requests. As the Sun reports,

A report before the board of health — Toronto Bed Bug Project Update — is calling for $75,000 in funding to help elderly or vulnerable people receive bed bug treatment.

“We have ongoing concern regarding the ability of vulnerable residents to undergo the necessary treatment,” said city Councillor Paula Fletcher, a member of the health board.

“Increased education, increased funding for preparation and treatment and increased control mechanisms are required to bring the bed bug problem in Toronto to heel.”

There are also recommendations on the table to increase the city’s “Bug and Scrub” program, a provincially funded plan. “Bed Bug Project is a good working model to tackle these pests … city officials, community agencies, landlords, and the pest control industry working together,” said Rima Zavys, director of homelessness and housing help services at WoodGreen Community Services.

And working together is key.

We have heard about Bug and Scrub before and are excited the project may be expanded. Bug and Scrub pays people living in a shelter a very decent wage and trains them to do bed bug treatments; the company charges a sliding scale fee to those needing bed bug treatment.
Toronto residents can find out about hiring Bug and Scrub here.

Also, we have often called for assistance to those who cannot pay for bed bug treatment or who cannot complete (nor pay someone else to complete) the preparations required before treatment. We’re happy to see in the agenda for Monday’s meeting (see this PDF, page 3) that the Medical Officer of Health is calling on the Toronto City Council to

… approve a request for one time emergency funding of $75,000 gross and net in the Toronto Public Health 2009 Operating Budget to assist vulnerable adults who do not qualify for Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) support, to purchase services to prepare their residences for bed bug pesticide treatment…

This help in with preparations for bed bug treatment is sorely needed by the elderly, persons with disabilities, and others, everywhere. But such help is so rare. (One rare example: San Francisco City Assessor Chris Daley got $63,000 in the 2007 budget to help low-income people with bed bugs pay for laundry and the freezing of possessions. It’s discussed here if you scroll way down.)

You can read much more about the Toronto Bed Bug Project on New York vs. Bed Bugs, where Renee has laid out a detailed analysis and links to lots more of the juicy stuff.

Toronto Public Health’s Bed Bugs page.

Thanks to BugsinTO and LJ for tipping me off to the Toronto Sun article!

Updates (11/18):

More Monday from CTV and from Donovan Vincent in The Star, who says of the $75K requested today,

… that’s just one-time funding, and city officials are predicting that far more will be called for when a special committee tackling the city’s bedbug problem reports next spring.

“I don’t want to guess, but it’ll be a lot more than $75,000,” Councillor John Filion, who chairs the Toronto Board of Health, said yesterday.

The Toronto Sun reports today that

Public Health also decided to expand the city’s “bug and scrub” program, which helps residents on either Ontario Works or disability move their furniture and clean their apartments. It also struck a team of three board members to work with service agencies to decide what more Public Health can do to curb bed bugs in the city.

The Sun also notes that many do not think enough is being done:

But according to some social service providers, the city’s response to what they call a “health hazard” is not enough.

Sandra Van, of South Etobicoke’s LAMP Community Health Care, said her organization pulled out of the city’s bed bug steering committee when it appeared no one was taking the issue seriously enough.

“A comprehensive approach with adequate resources needs to be made immediately,” she said, noting she thinks bed bugs should be declared a health hazard. “This report, including the suggested future actions, do not adequately address the problem.”

Even some city councillors aren’t completely satisfied.

“It’s basically an excuses report,” charged Councillor Howard Moscoe, who told the board he represents one of the city’s most infected buildings. In a letter to the board, he urged it to declare the bugs a “health hazard”.

• Toronto’s Bug and Scrub: shelter guests being trained as pest control techs
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Toronto municipal councillor pushes for bed bugs to be declared a health hazard
• Toronto Public Health now has a Bed Bug Action Committee. Action, people.

ShareThis

The creepy crawlies have been seen at PS 16 in the borough’s Tompkinsville community for several weeks now and exterminators have already visited the school twice, parents and education officials said.

“But this is still a continuous problem,” Ms. Guzman said. “I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is my child is putting her coat in her bookbag and the school had to get rid of puppets and lots of classroom supplies, even snacks.”

Nevertheless a New York City Department of Education official played it down:

Margie Feinberg, a DOE spokeswoman, said the Department was in the process of analyzing the specimens and that pest control went to the school yesterday.

“This is not a health issue but a nuisance issue,” Ms. Feinberg said. “Bed bugs do not carry disease. They are usually brought into the building on heavy clothing. We are looking into the matter.”

Though not yet known to spread infectious disease, bed bugs are nevertheless a health concern. The World Health Organization sure thinks so.

An even more immediate concern may be the costs of treating for bed bugs carried by so many, including parents whose kids may bring bed bugs home from school, or their landlords.

Back in January, Seth Donlin of the New York City Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development (HPD) told the Daily News,

“The Bronx had the second-lowest number of complaints last year,” said Seth Donlin of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which keeps track of such calls to the city’s 311 hotline.

“It’s the lowest total after Staten Island, which is statistically insignificant,” Donlin said.

So Staten Island had the lowest number of complaints to 311 about bed bugs last year. It sounds like plenty of people in Staten Island are suffering now. One thing bed bugs do well is spread. Quickly.

Unless those bugs took the ferry in to school, or drove over the Verrazano Bridge, they may have come to P.S.16 with someone who lives in Staten Island. You can bet they’re probably going home with someone who lives in Staten Island.

• Excerpt from article re NYC Department of Ed policy
• Columbia Spectator on bed bugs, again with the HPD statistic soup
• Lexington, KY vs. New York, NY: a tale of two bedbugged cities
• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs

ShareThis