Earlier this week, there was the bed bug bill in the U.S. Congress.

And yesterday, an article in the Maine Switch (a website for those in Greater Portland) about the city’s yearly trash pick-up of bulky trash items. Not surprisingly, the day is a yearly impromptu festival for bargain hunters and curb-crawling small-time entrepreneurs:

Just like spring flowers, the sprouting of ratty recliners and beat-up toys on the sidewalk is a sign of the changing seasons in Portland. These cast-off belongings cluttering the grassy strip between the pavement and the sidewalk represent the city’s annual bulky waste pick-up. And like a siren song, yard sale buffs, bargain-hunters and freegans can’t resist this annual opportunity to turn trash into treasure.

I’ve known people who’ve practically furnished their whole apartments with curbside finds. One of the best was the gorgeous sleigh bed a friend found a few years ago. One of the worst was a couch covered in cat hair (and god know what else), which, thankfully, only made a brief appearance in another friend’s apartment.

But the main point of the article, discussed at length, is the dangers of bed bugs lurking in used items.

Oh, but beware those mattresses. Should you haul one home (like one hapless Craigslist poster did recently), you may gain some unwelcome roommates.

“If you’re picking up a mattress or other pieces of furniture, you need to be conscious that they may have bed bugs,” says Doug Gardner, Portland’s director of health and human services. “There’s no way to tell with 100% accuracy.”

That is until you install your lovely find in your home and begin to wonder why you’re suddenly covered in little red bumps.

Unfortunately, unlike Doug Gardner, the author mostly fixates on “mattresses,” whereas any used items might potentially bring bed bugs to your home. Although to her credit, the author later notes wooden furninture is also a problem, I’d stress that other items are also potentially infested. Many, many people throw out everything they own, even though it’s almost never necessary (and they’re not usually acting on the advice of bed bug experts). Throwing everything out can cost you lots of money, won’t get rid of your bed bugs, and will spread them to neighbors and others.

The article has two other Bedbugger points of interest.

First, because of bed bugs, Portland started giving their refuse collectors Tyvek suits last year for the annual bulky trash pickup day. Unfortunately, the city isn’t itself attempting to warn trash pickers about bed bugs, for example here, or here on this PDF flyer. Even a brief one-line warning would help. I understand from this article that they don’t want to seem to be condoning the practice of trash picking during the bulky trash days, but warning against it would not do so and would be germane to avoiding further spread of the problem.

Second point of interest: if you have bed bugs and rent in Portland, the article notes that your landlord does need to get rid of them. If not, you can call the city inspections department:

If apartment renters find themselves assaulted by bed bugs and can’t get their landlord to respond, [city inspections director Jeanie] Bourke’s office fields the complaints. Her team of inspectors then makes sure the landlord hires a pesticide company to spray the place down and that the residents follow a tightly regimented routine requiring the washing of everything and the sealing of clothes and mattresses in plastic.

Thanks to the Maine Switch for focusing readers’ attention on the dangers of trash picking in 2008.

• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• Chinches de cama en Espanol
• bed bugs at Pace University; bed bug buzz in Portland, Oregon
• Manhattan Mattress Mystery

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Well, he’s back. And it’s hard to believe, but he sounds even less charming than last time. He updates the world that his dorm bed bugs have come back, and he is now moving to a non-bed bug-infested apartment in Greenpoint.

(Dude, no bed bugs in Greenpoint?!? Maybe that old landlord has a bridge he wants to sell you next.)

He writes,

OK, so I HAVE bedbugs; what if you have herpes? - m4w - 29
Reply to: pers-502210415@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-12-07, 7:31PM EST

Yeah, the little buggers came back. Oh how I wish there were something like valtrek that you could use to keep them from biting, but the last group must have hatched a new batch of eggs with their dying breath (do bugs breathe?), deposited them in the cracks of the linoleum beneath my bed, and so here I am, arms covered in welts, looking like a fool while you look so elegant and kewl. But does that make me any less interesting, any less handsome, any less good in bed than the next guy you let have you? The odds are that this next guy has some crummy, there-for-life STD (herpes? hep-abcd?) that bug killer can’t get rid of, and he is going to give you something that insecticide won’t fix. So if you don’t have herpes, I am definitely the kind of man you should want to meet, even if I do have bedbugs. And by the way, I am out of the dorms soon enough. I’ve got a sweet deal from some old Polish dude on a nice sunny apartment in Greenpoint, and I’m going to be moving in with a new bed and new bedding, sterilized clothing and not much else. My new place will be as clean as a whistle and bedbug free. So why not give me a second chance, stuck up hipster girl, and let me show more of the man whose blood bedbugs covet.

Again, I think there is something there between us worth pursuing, and we should not let talk of bedbugs or blisters get between us.

* Location: Williamsboard/Greenpoint
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 502210415

What a difference ten days makes.

This may not actually be the same guy. In the first post, he spells valtrex correctly, but he botches it up in the second. And was he really a mutual fund manager living in SoHo per the first post, or a dorm-resident as per the second?

Or maybe it’s all a joke?  If so, it’s pretty lame.

You can see the original post until Cragislist pulls it like they did the other one. Or you can click the photo above to see my screenshot.

• only in Greenpoint: m. with bed bugs, 4 w. with “herpes”
• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case
• Bed bug news round-up: USA Today, Minnesota Star-Tribune, and the Astral in Greenpoint
• Bedbugger readers: multiplying faster than bedbugs?

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• The Simpsons namechecks our little friends
• New Britain, CT: how can building managers turn a good building bad? Ignore the bed bugs.
• Share your tales of Bed Bug Woe
• Share your tales of bed bug woe, questions, etc.

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• Use bed bug registries and warn others about infested buildings and hotels!
• Bed bugs invade Chicago’s Presidential Towers, and another Vancouver Island detox
• Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”
• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay

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I am astonished to find that, not even three months later, a second “The Hunt” column results in a bedbugged apartment. In this case, a young couple (Jon Werberg and Helene Mattera) moved into a semi-gut-renovated apartment on East 117th Street, only to find various troubles, including the elusive cimex lectularius, Mr. Bed Bug.

When the two arrived in late summer, the workers weren’t quite finished. “The hassles started right from the beginning,” Mr. Werberg said. They included sporadic hot water, trash in the hallways, rats and — worst of all — bedbugs. The couple spent hundreds of dollars on laundry. They now wish they had thought harder about building maintenance and general cleanliness.

Although bed bugs can often accompany poor building maintenance and hygiene problems, there is no relation between them, and it’s important to keep this in mind.

Ms. Mattera continues,

“My favorite thing about the apartment is the fact that two of my good friends live within minutes,” Ms. Mattera said. “That is the greatest thing, just calling them and saying, ‘I’ll meet you downstairs.’”

Which is fine, if the bed bugs are gone. If they’re not, it kind of takes all the fun out of the apartment.

It does make you wonder, if the New York Times can follow two couples in an apartment search leading to bed bugs, twice in twelve weeks, how many people in NYC are moving into bedbugged digs?

We know bed bugs in NYC are spreading like wildfire.

Maybe the New York Times should spend some time investigating how far bed bugs have truly spread, and how common they now are. Besides the two “The Hunt” columns, and an op ed, the paper last covered bed bugs in October 2006, using the city’s data on bed bug violations from the summer of 2006 (only those cases reported to 311 and declared “bed bugs” by city inspectors). It’s time to challenge the relevance of data that relies on people calling the city’s information hotline to report a pest most only call their landlords or a PCO about. It’s time for real  data.

You can read all about this failed “Hunt” and weep, here.

• Bed bugs: now appearing in news articles which are not about bed bugs
• Washington Post prints correction thanks to bed bug activist
• Fox employee suing building management, maintenance over bed bug bites
• How bad are bed bugs in Toronto? Nobody knows for sure.

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• added to the “Tenants and Landlords FAQ”: Washington, D.C. and Florida
• Nicholas Brown’s “The Bedbug Chronicles: Part 6″ sounds pretty familiar
• Washington Post prints correction thanks to bed bug activist
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto

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In this installment, we learn that bed bugs are taking a significant toll on Brown’s self-identity and social life:

Despite my anger, even our bug-laden living situation is finally normalizing. This process started first as a change in identity: I now think of myself as ‘the guy with bedbugs.’ It’s how I introduce myself. Maybe it’s not the first thing I say, but it will come up in the first five minutes of a conversation. I am taking an acting class and in the first session I said “hey, I am Nick and I have bedbugs,” as if I was in some particularly gross AA session. When I hear someone mention bedbugs in a conversation at a table next to me, I feel obliged to chime in.

They’re also making home very disorganized and uncomfortable, no small problem for someone whose office is at home. Things are not where they used to be; instead, they’re in bags all over the place:

While I am tempted to reassemble my room and my office (which are the same place), I realize there is every chance that the bugs will be back again so I have stopped trying to create a livable space and now just settle for someplace with interior heating.

We also learn that Brown still has bed bugs, well past the 30-day window landlords are given to eliminate bed bugs, under local housing laws. It is not unusual for landlords to need more time, though. Turns out, there are other reasons to be angry at the landlord:

Day 39

Our landlord, we discovered today, knew this apartment had bugs. The previous tenants moved out because of the bedbugs. The whole building - minus our apartment - was sprayed for bedbugs in the months after we moved in. No one mentioned this to us.

Isn’t this illegal? As I commented on the paragraph above, on Nicholas Brown’s blog, this should be illegal. Landlords should not be able to rent out an apartment that is known to be infested with bed bugs, to an unsuspecting tenant. I have a suspicion, however, that it already violates the housing laws. If any NYC rental housing experts are reading this, perhaps they could clarify.

Moreover, if the entire building except one apartment was being treated, any experienced PCO and even the landlord should realize that this might drive even more bed bugs into this unit.

What strikes me most about Brown’s saga, through these six installments, is how very typical it is. We at bedbugger.com have heard it all many times. While I am horrified to hear Brown’s tale, I thank him for sharing it in such a public medium.

By doing so, he may just convey the mess that bed bugs create in one’s life, as well as how easy it is to get them, and how very difficult it is to get rid of them, to those not yet in the know. And that recognition, my friends, is the first step in getting everyone else to help us fight the problem.

• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay
• landlords talking about bed bugs
• Brooklyn tenant not warned of bed bugs before moving in
• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.

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UPPER WEST SIDE—It seems there is a little detail about the condo conversion at 30 Lincoln Plaza that may have been overlooked: “You failed to mention that the building is infested with bed bugs…the management has confirmed this and is handing out pamphlets and they have even had a bedbug sniffing dog in some apartments..who knew! I would think this situation is going to really boost sales on those $1,185,000 647 sq/ft one bedrooms.” Bedbug sniffing dogs?!? Excellent. [CurbedWire Inbox]

While it’s always surprising to find out another building has bed bugs, it’s a good thing that the building management is aware and is taking action. I hope they undertake aggressive treatment throughout. (Imagine, hypothetically, the legal activity that would ensue if some units were infested but did not identify the presence of pests, were not treated, and were sold infested.)

This item from Curbed.com reminds me that a lot of the interesting bed bug “news” in the last four days has been leaked via gossip blogs: legal gossip, real estate gossip, ivy league college gossip (although this one probably had another itchy culprit).

Unlike “real” news–which is covered in the newspapers, and on TV and radio–like the spread of MRSA drug-resistant staph bacteria, which tragically killed a 7th grader in Brooklyn, bed bugs aren’t yet confirmed to cause disease and death. They have been unofficially confirmed to cause distress, stress, anxiety, sleeping trouble–and in rare cases, allergic reactions so severe they can kill. But nothing compared with the threat of deadly MRSA. I saw an ABC news segment here in NYC Friday night–kids at the school that youngster attended, were carrying bottles of purell, and startled parents and teachers were looking on in amazement as they reported washing their hands after using the lavatory (ABC7 produced multiple clips in which the students admitted this was new behavior.) The segment also featured a poster on the door of the school, and though it was not shown close-up, I am pretty certain it warned that the school had been exposed to MRSA and that people had to take precautions not to catch it.

Since bed bugs aren’t on the same level of threat, the reasoning seems to go, we don’t need to actually warn people about bed bugs in specific locations. And so “bed bug reports” are confined to the realm of gossip blogs.

Yes, it is true that hotels, real estate developers and brokers, restaurants, theaters and other businesses that are reported to have bed bugs in the mainstream media, will face worried customers and may lose business. The hotel industry in NYC, in particular, will be hard hit. One can only assume Mayor Bloomberg chooses to avoid confronting and admitting the true number of infested homes and businesses in this city (which I first considered in this post), because it would scare off tourists, who contribute so much to the city, as well as negatively affecting real estate, and maybe even how people spend their leisure time (and money).

But it does not follow that if we do not discuss bed bugs, publicly, then they will go away. The opposite is true: as long as businesses are in denial, or putting up a bed-bug-free front, the problem will keep spreading at an alarming rate, and eventually, I believe, the hit on businesses will be greater.

• Maya Rudolph’s former loft (again): bedbugs ADD value!
• Bed Bug Helloise is shocked…
• The strange case of bed bugs in Bushwick
• What means this *TIPPING POINT*?

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His lease was terminated Sept. 27, about a month after he said he posted fliers alleging that bedbugs had invaded 11 apartments, including his own. A hearing on the eviction notice will take place Oct. 26 at Superior Court in Morristown.

Rutgers Village, in an Oct. 2 court filing, placed the bedbug blame squarely on Veghte.

The apartment complex alleged that Veghte, on or before Sept. 17, “either intentionally or through gross negligence, created an infestation condition within his apartment” that he initially failed to report. The landlord also alleged that Veghte refused to cooperate with extermination efforts.

How could Veghte have “intentionally” caused a bed bug infestation within his apartment? Does this mean he sought out bed bugs, brought them in, and infested his home?!?

How could he have “created” the infestation through “gross negligence”? While it is true that someone might have bed bugs for a time and not report them, thus allowing the problem to escalate, we know that different people react to bites in different ways, and bed bugs can be hard to find. Unless they are crawling over the walls all day, it seems like it would be nearly impossible to prove how long someone had them and known about it.

Failing to report the infestation promptly is another matter, and we really do not know what went on there.

Parsippany housing coordinator Rena Plaxe said she was contacted by Veghte several times but did not intervene in the dispute. Plaxe said it appeared that the landlord had acted reasonably.

“From what I understand, he found a bedbug. He put it in a Ziploc bag. He took it to the management office. They set up an extermination process for his apartment, but he’s been unable or unwilling to properly prepare the apartment. Therein lies the problem,” said Plaxe, adding that the landlord was able to do only “a cursory treatment” as a result.

It does sound as if “unable” to prepare is more likely than “unwilling” to prepare. Read on:

Veghte, a former truck driver who said he had not worked since 2002 due to three herniated disks and osteoarthritis in his neck and back, said he was unable to remove items from cabinets and closets as requested by the landlord to aid in extermination.

“I’m disabled. I asked them for help,” Veghte said.

What should disabled people do, if they ask landlords for help with prep and do not get it? Who can they, or the landlord, call?

And why would a landlord evict a disabled person who could not do their prep? Veghte claims there’s more to the story.

Rob Jennings reports for the Daily Record that Veghte feels he is being evicted because he told neighbors about the bed bugs via a flyer he distributed on August 25th. He received the eviction order on Sept. 27, and the building sent tenants a letter about bed bugs on October 10th. Regardless of anything else that happened, the building clearly did not warn Veghte’s fellow tenants about the possibility they were infested until six and a half weeks after Veghte distributed the flyers. They had to have known of this possibility since at least late September, at least two weeks before October 11, since the man was evicted then.

Assuming Veghte did distribute the flyers without notifying the landlord of his infestation directly, which was not a good idea, several weeks at most could be proven to have passed between his knowing about the infestation and his notifying the office as per Plaxe’s description.

His lease was terminated Sept. 27, about a month after he said he posted fliers alleging that bedbugs had invaded 11 apartments, including his own. A hearing on the eviction notice will take place Oct. 26 at Superior Court in Morristown.

Veghte’s being represented by Legal Aid.

This is not the first time someone has been evicted for not doing the prep required for treatment. Last December, multiple families (including one with a disabled son) were evicted from an Edmonton, Alberta building for not properly preparing for bed bug treatment. Read more about that here. In that case and this one, the evicted individuals claimed to be unable to complete all the steps of required preparation. These can vary depending on the PCO. In the Edmonton building, the tenants complained of not being able to move furniture and other items, and not having anywhere to move them to. As the article implies, they may not have fully understood the reasons for prep, or how to go about it.

In the current New Jersey case, Veghte is disabled. Although I understand that landlords do not feel they can do tenants’ prep, it simply is not acceptable that disabled persons, or for that matter, elderly people, busy single parents, or anyone else who has difficulty doing required preparations, should be evicted. Preparations can be time-consuming and demanding on one’s energy and physical abilities. If people need help, then there must be government agencies who will provide assistance in cases where people simply cannot do the physical labor, or do it quickly enough.

Make no mistake: tenants must report bed bugs promptly if they are aware of them (and whether Veghte did or not is uncertain), and prep needs to be completed properly before treatment. Not doing so puts neighbors as well as the property in jeopardy, and I am not supporting anyone who fails to do those things. However, people who need help with prep must get this help. We cannot expect disabled or elderly people, or those with other legitimate limitations, to simply find help somehow. As a society that does not evict people for being physically challenged, we simply have to provide help.

If this man is really being evicted for not doing prep, his eviction amounts to discrimination, and it’s just plain wrong.

Let this story be a warning to tenants: notify your landlord promptly, and in writing, the minute you suspect a bed bug infestation. People whose first instinct is to simply self-treat could conceivably be accused of not reporting an infestation. In NYC, landlords are often happy to try and evict you, since they can raise the rent for the next guy. Don’t give them any excuse for doing so.

And a warning to landlords: make sure your tenants understand how and why they need to prepare. Many good PCOs will give a talk at the building for tenants about the hows, the whys, and the wherefores. Education is key here. However, you have a responsibility too–to let tenants know of neighbors’ infestations. If you don’t, you may be sued, like this Chicago landlord. All’s fair in love and torts.

And a warning to the rest of the world: we must find ways to help people who cannot prepare for treatment.

Or there are soon going to be a lot more disabled people, elderly people, and parents of young children on the streets. What a shame.

• More from Edmonton bed bug evictions case
• Bedbug evictions: Edmonton tenants evicted because they did not prepare for spraying
• Still more from Nashua, New Hampshire: fewer bed bugs at 23-25 Temple St.
• Bed bugs & tenant organizing: don’t take this lying down

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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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