The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority will show the Health, Environment and Education Committee a presentation on the pests.

Officials said bed bugs are a big problem in the city’s public housing, which is overseen by the Housing Authority.

According to Channel 12, Cincinnati politicians are claiming some success against bed bugs:

The health department says it received 737 bedbug complaints last year, more than 300 in September and October alone. Since then, the numbers have gone down.

Dale Grigsby, Cincinnati Health Department: “It appears as though at least what we’ve been doing for the last 6 months has been effective, but I don’t want to say conclusively until we’ve seen some more data.”

The message not to re-use discarded mattresses and couches may be sinking in. But housing advocates say the bedbug problem is here to stay for at least a while longer.

Surely the work Cincinnati is doing is having an effect.

However, I would not use statistics based on complaints during the last two months as a barometer. It’s my sense that people taking action on their bed bug issues goes down between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. My sense is that people are celebrating and preparing to celebrate. Money and time are going to other things, and they do not want to deal with problems–especially one they may think they can deal with a bit later. I don’t think that –based on fewer calls to the city about bed bugs in November and December–one can declare any improvement just yet. It really is premature.

And a few months isn’t really long enough to assume those treated homes are really bed bug-free. Bed bugs are notoriously tenacious. Even though Cincinnati was helping people discard furniture carefully, and providing information, there is no reason to think existing bed bug cases have been abated and that they have not spread further. It can take months for people who were treated to realize their bed bugs are not actually gone, yet. Rick Cooper helpfully suggests that people wait 55 days after last seeing a bed bug or suffering a bite to declare themselves bed bug free. My own sense is that in a multi-unit building with multiple infestations–and especially possibly undiagnosed and untreated ones–you aren’t really sure the problem is gone for some time after that.

The article also contained a strange estimate of how many would suffer bed bugs:

Charles Tassell, Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Association: “It’s going to be one in seven houses by the year 2008 that will be infected. We’re at 2008 and we’re not at that number yet, but we’re going to see it continue to grow.”

On the video, Tassell attributes his estimate that 1 in 7 houses would have bed bugs by 2008 to unnamed “professionals”. I do not recall hearing this statistic before, and I don’t know if it refers to Cincinnati alone or some larger region. I Also assume Tassell means “homes” in particular, and “homes,” not houses. Perhaps a reader will know the source of this statistic.

The Local 12 article did not give any real basis for thinking things were either that bad, or that improved. We can consider the one actual case mentioned in the article:

Joyce Jones has the bites to prove it. When bedbugs showed up in her apartment last fall she asked for help.

Joyce Jones, Stanley Rowe Apartments: “I did everything…I called in a work order. They come in and I tell you what they do. They do this here and say we don’t see nothing.”

Joyce is one of many residents of Stanley Rowe Apartments that are fighting bedbugs. Because of complaints, city council demanded answers from the Metropolitan Housing Authority and health department. CMHA says it’s doing the best it can. The health department says bedbug education programs seem to making headway.

Reading this tells you little. Watch the video. It’s hard to tell exactly what Joyce Jones’s housing inspector did, but her implication is that the inspection was cursory and this is a familiar story to our readers. Some readers tell us they have PCOs, and in some cases housing inspectors, who do very limited “inspections.” While we know bed bugs can live in the baseboards or other places in the room, and in furniture besides beds, some inspections still don’t go beyond looking under the sheets and mattress, and if they do not find a live bed bug, the inspection is over. (Some PCOs and inspectors, readers tell us, don’t inspect at all.) There have been isolated reports from people in NYC of HPD inspectors unwilling to come into apartments after people filed bed bug complaints. Of course, that is clearly not HPD policy and any person making this accusation simply must pursue the matter further with HPD.

Local 12 says Jones is simply using extra bleach in the laundry until someone comes to help. Since Jones lives in the same bed bug-beleaguered high-rise senior apartment building as Samuel Blackmon, the man shown in this harrowing video, where his “apartment that was treated a month ago” was not surprisingly still literally crawling with bed bugs. (The full story was not clear, but that video implied Blackmon’s apartment may have been treated just once, as of October, and that a month had elapsed with nothing more being done.) I would hope inspections in every unit of the building would be very extensive indeed, and that treatments are much more aggressive and regular.

I appreciate the steps Cincinnati has taken, but I would guess they still have a long way to go in fighting bed bugs.  We have not heard anything about monetary assistance for tenants, landlords, and homeowners who need help both preparing for treatment and for covering costs of treatments themselves. 

I hope they will add such assistance to current programs of public education and refuse removal, and make sure everyone is getting proper, thorough inspections and treatment–until their bed bugs are truly gone.

View the brief Channel 9 article by Alyssa Bunn here.

View Local 12’s article here.

• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Adult home shut down in Monticello, NY with multiple housing violations; 40 beds contained “bed bugs and bed bug eggs”
• Last week’s Town Hall Meeting in Cincinnati
• Cincinnati: awareness spreading, funds needed to fight bed bugs

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The week before Christmas and raining, to boot, some 14 families were tipped out of a Ventura inn because of electrical hazards and an infestation of bedbugs.

— Richard Neal, his fiancée and her mother with late-stage lung cancer.

— William and Tina Kirkpatrick and their two children, 7 and 5.

— Franchine Ivans, Steve Jordan and their four children.

They are among the approximately 40 people — including about 15 children — staying in the 37-room Travelers Beach Inn told 4 p.m. Tuesday by the county Building and Safety and Health divisions that they would have to leave until the motel’s problems are fixed. It is not known when the motel might reopen, as reported by Star reporter Kevin Clerici in his Wednesday article, “Bedbugs, electrical issues force tenants from motel.”

Tenants at Travelers Beach Inn, 929 E. Thompson Blvd., pay $275 weekly rent. Although it is more costly than renting a small apartment, many can’t afford to pay first- and last month’s rent.

Whoever you are, whatever the state of your bank account, bed bugs are a burden. But they seriously worsen the already bad conditions many are living under. In this case, people who can barely make their current rent are temporarily displaced, with no means of moving to a new home.

We hear time and again of people with serious illnesses, disabilities, infirmities related to age, Alzheimer’s disease, single parents, parents of small children–all facing bed bugs. Their battle with bed bugs is not easy, or quick. If you think it’s hard for young, healthy professionals like Nicholas Brown, consider how bad it can be when the deck is stacked against you.

When people say “it’s just a bug”–well, yeah. I get that. But it can seriously wipe many people out financially, energy-wise, timewise.

We need bed bugs to be taken seriously, and for motels and other establishments to be proactive in identifying and treating problems–and educating residents about how to spot and prevent bed bugs.

And we need the government, as well as private industry, to take responsibility. Not just for shutting things down when codes are violated. But for helping avoid such drastic measures in the first place.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. The Christmas story is about a couple with no where to sleep and a baby on the way. I’ll be thinking about those homeless Travelers Beach Inn residents on Christmas.

Update (1/12/2008):

This article  says the Traveler’s Beach Inn has reopened, “pest-free” and with the other repairs done:

The motel also was thoroughly fumigated, and a health inspector says it is now free of bedbugs.

It is unclear whether the motel was actually fumigated with vikane gas, which has a high success rate as a one-off treatment (we’re told), or whether “fumigation”
is being used as a shorthand for pest control spray treatments, which often require many follow-ups.  I am not sure how well this works when people are not present.  (We do know that in serious infestations, when inspectors or others come in after the room has been vacant, bed bugs often appear, in daylight, looking for food.)

Perhaps soon housing inspectors will take advantage of bed bug dogs as an aid to doing visual bed bug inspections?

• entomologists podcasting; bed bugs and disease; another bedbugged motel closed; Singapore, Hawai’i
• Bed Bugs and Christmas
• Spring break bed bug warnings!
• Bed Bugs in Hampton Roads, Virginia hotels

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newyorkshitty.com » ‘Tis The Season: Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite!

miss heather of newyorkshitty.com shares a current photo of suspected bed bug refuse at the Astral Apartments in Greenpoint, and shares an article from exactly 121 years ago, decrying the need for “quality affordable housing”, free of vermin.

Glenwood Springs Post Independent - Valley News (Colorado)

“Tom Cornwell, president of the Colorado Pest Control Association, will be speaking to representatives from hotels and motels, … and public and housing personnel from 11 a.m. to noon Friday, Dec. 7.” Public education is the key to beating bed bugs.

Stamford, CT: The Advocate - Flooding and failing health leave residents seeking help (flood evacuees get bed bugs in hotel)

“During the spring nor’easter, a Stamford senior housing complex was flooded, and residents were forced to move to a hotel temporarily. Upon returning home, residents discovered their building was infested with bed bugs.”

Some Crazy Garbage: Away, ye critters

A blogger’s first-hand account of a Pest Control Operator’s visit. Yes, google alerts sends me multiple such posts a day from various “newbites” around the world. But this one was entertaining to read, even as it conveyed the tale of woe you have come to expect.

• Bed bugs at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?
• Surrey, B.C. public housing infested with bed bugs

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• “Bombs don’t work on bed bugs.” Citation, anyone?
• Richard Fagerlund knows how to kill bed bugs in one visit
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Bed bugs in Norwood Apartments, Washington D.C., say tenants

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• bed bug news for 2007-11-11: Lexington, KY and Toronto, ON
• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto

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Calvin Merritt’s problems at Hillrise Apartments are pretty simple.

“Mostly bugs, roaches and all that…”

The “all that” is bed bugs. Dead ones were easy to find under Calvin’s mattress, and piles of them behind the bed. When exterminators come in to spray here, their work’s easy to see, pesticide stains run down Calvin’s walls. Calvin pays 313 dollars a month for this one bedroom…what little furniture he had was mostly pitched, because it was infested.

Calvin Merritt, Resident: “I done lost everything got here, my couch, my other chairs, all the stuff I had was new, I had to get rid of all of that.”

At the other end of the hall, Jeanette Jessie doesn’t have any bedbugs, but she worries about them just the same.

Jeanette Jessie, Resident: “They just spread them from one end of the building to the other, this is crazy, get this place cleaned up, spray it at one time and get rid of this mess.”

It sounds a bit like the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in Washington DC, Halcyon House in Denver, and Warren Towers in East Moline, Illinois. Elderly people, disabled people, and anyone in low-income housing is being dealt a raw deal when it comes to getting rid of bed bugs. Let’s face it, bed bugs are expensive to treat. They’re also a rather sudden problem no one was expecting and no one has budgeted for.

Bed bugs are difficult to treat, too. Traditional treatments require multiple pest control visits at short intervals. Residents must prepare for treatment, which can be a lengthy process and costly too (especially for those on a fixed income).

However, make no mistake: non-aggressive treatment (treating only some of the infested units, treating at too-long intervals, or not coming as many times as needed), waiting for tenants who might be unaware they have bed bugs to report them, and not providing assistance with preparation costs and physical labor–all of these reactions from landlords and housing managers mean that bed bugs will be around longer, spread into more units, and cost much more to get rid of.

It just does not make sense on any practical level to not be aggressive, thorough, and quick to treat bed bugs in a building you are responsible for. It is simply a display of ignorance about the nature of this beast.

We can’t entirely blame landlords for this ignorance; none of us were expecting bed bugs. But we need to educate the public about the signs of bed bugs, and we need to educate professionals in all walks of life (from those who provide housing, to hospitality services, to health care, education, and on and on) about the need for a bed bug protocol which includes both proactive searching for signs of bed bugs, and swift reactions to any bed bug signs or sightings.

Too many people seem to be hoping they’ll just go away. Good luck with that. In the meantime:

Channel 12 reports,

Officials from the Cincinnati Health Department tell us they’ll soon be taking a closer look at conditions in the apartments.

I love the Cincinnati Health Department. But you knew that.

• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Cincinnati fights bed bugs, declares some success
• Cincinnati: “best weapon against bed bugs is … education”
• Cincinnati government discovers bed bugs are not easily treated, news at 11

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The brief article describes how Raymond Leavitt sees “dozens of bed bugs” at night in his Portland apartment.

Officials with the Portland Housing Authority, who oversee Franklin Towers where Raymond lives, say bed bugs are a problem in most of their properties.

They say they aggressively attack the bugs, but they can only hope to manage the problem, not get rid of it.

Ron Keeler of Modern Pest Services says intensive professional treatment combined with a follow up program can be successful. Experts say it doesn’t matter how clean or dirty your home is. Once bed bugs get in, an infestation can happen quickly.

If bed bugs are a problem in most of the public housing buildings in Portland, you can guess this is probably even more true in cities with more widespread infestations. Public housing officials in some other cities are a bit more reticent about admitting it, which is a shame. Because having bed bugs in your building doesn’t mean you’re a bad building manager. It’s what you do once you discover them that makes all the difference.

• Cincinnati government discovers bed bugs are not easily treated, news at 11
• bed bugs at Pace University; bed bug buzz in Portland, Oregon
• Reg Ayre of Toronto Public Health: bed bugs a “health concern,” not a “health hazard”
• YMCA housing for men in need is called deplorable (yes, bed bugs are part of this)

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Housing Authority director Jimmy Miller quipped,

“It’s not something that would go unnoticed. You do get bites from them,” he said.

Well, actually, Jimmy, if your PCO knew his stuff, he’d tell you that many, many people (some professionals even claim it’s most) are not allergic, and so do not react to bed bug bites. I would bet actual cash that more than 15 of your units are infested– for in addition to the non-allergic, there are always also the non-reporters. And who’d blame them, after all, since your office rushed to blame the poor cat lady, with no explanation of how you can prove which unit was ground zero?

Angela Carter of the New Haven Register updated readers on the saga on Friday. residents of 13 of the infested 15 units are back home, after their hotel stay. The other two units’ occupants have been moved to new units and still have bed bugs.

The housing authority has provided Witherspoon and the other affected tenants with new beds and bed linens, pillows and lamps. “They’re supposed to give us sofas, too,” she said.

Housing Authority Executive Director Jimmy Miller said about $15,000 has been spend fighting off the stubborn pests. “These little critters are hiding in the chases,” he said. “We did a second application this week of a pesticide. There will be one more application later on.”

I am glad treatment is persisting and that Miller knows the bed bugs may be hidden in the building itself. However, people fighting bed bugs should not say things like “there will be one more treatment.” Those who know bed bugs know that you must treat every two weeks until all bed bugs and signs of bed bugs are gone. That means never assuming how many treatments will be required, and never letting residents off their guard. Those not highly allergic might not notice a bed bug or two remaining, and then in time, they will have a full-blown infestation again.

I hope the new mattresses and pillows were encased with bed bug-proof coverings, so that bed bugs would not easily hide in them.

Meanwhile, Carter updated us on the other New Haven public housing bed bugs case at the Essex Houses.

The housing authority also had to exterminate two units at Essex Townhouses off Quinnipiac Avenue in Fair Haven three times.

Officials were unsure why the infestations were occurring repeatedly at Essex Townhouses but Chief Operations Officer Karen DuBois-Walton said units would be treated until the problem clears.

DuBois-Walton has exactly the right idea about persistent treatment. (Every two weeks, mind you!)

But why are bed bug infestations occurring repeatedly? It’s likely that:

a) Some tenants have bed bugs and either are not allergic and so do not notice bed bugs, or (in rare cases) notice but do not care or fear the consequences of reporting them. If some units harbor bed bugs, the problem will continue; and / or

b) The bed bugs are hiding out in walls or pipe chases or other parts of the building, and coming back; and / or

c) Wherever your tenants or employees got bed bugs, and tracked them in, they are still getting them and bringing them in. This is a real problem for all kinds of people. You need to really examine your life and the patterns of when bed bugs are (re)introduced. It’s hard to pinpoint.

Does anyone in your life have a bed bug problem? (They –and you– may have no idea. You can still catch them.)

Could they be at work? Exclusive designers’ offices, law firms, hospitals, social service agencies, homeless shelters, have all been infested. No line of work is “above” this. Again, you may have no idea if you are not highly allergic. If you are allergic, and now have them at home, you may not realize work is the source.

Are local stores now infested? (When people purchase and return things, this is possible.)

The questions are frightening, and the answers lead us back to the need for a larger approach than each building trying to stamp out bed bugs that tenants report.

Instead, we need to think big. That means we need public education, we need standards of treatment to be established, we need government to track locations and duration of infestations, and we need financial assistance to individuals and to landlords to help get rid of bed bugs.

• more on bed bugs in New Haven: they’re only using steam cleaning?!?
• Reno; and New Haven: bed bugs cause unsuspecting officials to run around like confused flour beetles
• New Haven: another housing complex has bed bugs
• Still more from Nashua, New Hampshire: fewer bed bugs at 23-25 Temple St.

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“I lost my 2-beds, lost most of my clothes, lost my shoes,” said Kathyrn.

The New Haven Housing Authority exterminated her apartment over the weekend after an entire wing of the Essex Townhouses on Quinnipiac Avenue became infested with the creepy critters.

The City has replaced Kathyrn’s beds and 2-sofas, but she says it is the second time in 2-years that she’s had some unwelcome house guests.

“It makes me nervous and I can’t take this stress,” said Kathyrn.

The 73-year old escaped this infestation without getting bit, but her daughter was not so lucky.

“It was bad, very bad. It was red,” said Kathyrn Yukness.

Yukness says last week her arms were unrecognizable before she sought treatment at the hospital.

It’s worth noting that Abreu may well have been bit, since the infestation spanned an entire wing of townhouses, and so it was not likely localized in Yukness’s room. You can be bit and not react to the bites with marks or itching.

• New Haven housing officials confused: why can’t they get rid of these bed bugs?
• more on bed bugs in New Haven: they’re only using steam cleaning?!?
• bed bugs at University of Bridgeport
• Share your Tales of Bed Bug Woe

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VANCOUVER - City councillors aren’t jumping at a chance to swap their homes with a group of women living in poverty in the squalid Downtown Eastside.

Eight of 10 city councillors who reflected on an eight-week housing challenge put forth by the Power of Women Group in a July 2 letter declined to participate.

From what I gather, the other two were unreachable.

What was the exact nature of the challenge?

In the detailed letter, the group challenged Mayor Sam Sullivan and each councillor to live on $610, sleep in a single-room occupancy residence and give up driving their cars.

“We believe that politicians far too frequently make declarations and decisions about ‘resolving’ poverty, particularly in the Downtown Eastside, without having any idea about the painful reality of those who live in the DTES,” they wrote.

Refusal or excuses weren’t acceptable, they said, saying this would be a confirmation “that there is absolutely no political will to eliminate poverty.”

The 40-member group is still waiting for a response from council, said spokeswoman Harsha Walia of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre. “Nobody’s called us,” Walia said. “We’ve left messages but they’re not returning our calls.”

The idea of politicians living in low-income housing is not new. Mayor Jane Byrne did it in Chicago in 1981, when she briefly moved into the Cabrini Green housing project. Since a politician is hardly likely to have the same experience as people forced to live in such conditions indefinitely, it’s surprising that the politicians were unwilling to swap houses, and in many cases said even a night would be too long.

And why might that be, you’re wondering? Bed bugs. The Downtown Eastside has probably been mentioned more than any other single neighborhood in any city, in this blog.

Bedbugs — common in low-cost SROs — are a big deterrent, said COPE councillor David Cadman. “It’s a huge challenge to go down there and get bedbugs,” Cadman said. “It’s not something I’m going to do, nor am I going to bring that home.”

NPA councillor Kim Capri said the wording of the letter was hurtful. “The ultimatum at the end, quite frankly, hurt me,” she said. The fact that she doesn’t intend to take up the group’s challenge doesn’t mean she doesn’t care, Capri said: “I think this council deeply cares and moreover, I think this council gets it.”

Vision Vancouver councillor Raymond Louie said he would consider the challenge if he didn’t have three children to consider. “I’m not going to be taking the kids to the streets of our city for eight weeks . . . .” Louie said.

And NPA councillor Peter Ladner said he doesn’t see the point of spending one night — let alone eight weeks — living in the conditions outlined by the challenge.

“I’m not sure what it would prove,” Ladner said. “I’m going to take this as an invitation to go down and see what’s going on.”

NPA councillors B.C. Lee and Suzanne Anton declined the challenge too. Anton said she was “interested in doing a night, but I don’t think I’d be interested in spending a long time.”

Vision councillors Heather Deal and George Chow both declined as well. “I sympathize with the women, their frustration of having to live in the Third World condition that is some of the SROs . . . . They are crying out for help,” said Chow.

Sullivan declined because, he said, he’s already familiar with housing issues. “Before becoming mayor — and after my accident — I collected welfare and spent several years in a social housing co-op and a paraplegic lodge in Vancouver’s east end. This experience has stayed with me.”

To be fair to the councillors, I would not want to move into the Downtown Eastside either. Or any other place I thought might have bed bugs.

Some of these politicians quoted above appear to understand and take the plight of local residents seriously, and so perhaps they will continue to work towards alleviating those conditions. We have to remember that Vancouver appears to be doing more about its bed bugs than any other city. It is not yet enough, by any means, but in many ways, it’s still admirable.

Still, I think extending this invitation was a good way for the group to get the politicians to seriously consider the conditions their neighbors and constituents had to live under. Perhaps it will spur on further change.

• Vancouver official blames hanky-panky for bed bugs in nice areas
• Itchy the Bed Bug: an Olympic Mascot for Vancouver
• Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher has some progressive ideas about bed bugs
• And another ray of hope from Vancouver’s VANDU

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