Remember Joyce Cohen’s New York Times column “The Hunt” — which features New York tenants searching for just the right apartment?  In 2007, two separate columns in three months described young couples ending their searches in an apartment with bed bugs.

In September 2007, it was Tabitha Shick and Benjamin Klein.  Then, in December, we heard about Jon Werberg and Helene Mattera, who moved to a semi-gut-reno on East 117th Street, with bed bugs.

Now, in the fifth anniversary “The Hunt” column, we get an update on Mattera and Werberg, who were stuck in their apartment on 117th St. for one year:

… it seemed location was the only thing their apartment had going for it. They gladly left last summer, the day their one-year lease expired.

The $1,550-a-month apartment, on East 117th Street, was badly maintained, they said. They had several bouts with bedbugs, spending a small fortune on laundry and dry cleaning.

They hoped to buy a home — doing so remains “somewhere between a goal and a dream,” Mr. Werberg said — but their priority was to get out. When they left, they took nothing upholstered.

They were relieved to return to the Bronx. They liked the Parkchester condominiums, but they wanted a dog and dogs aren’t allowed, so they found a big one-bedroom rental nearby for $1,350.

Their new superintendent “is the kind of man who dusts outdoor breezeways,” Ms. Mattera said. “He is meticulous to a T. It makes a world of difference.”

Although a meticulous, well-kept apartment has so much going for it, readers need to know that it does not mean the home will not get bed bugs, nor does it mean that the landlord will handle them properly if it does.

Cleanliness does not prevent bed bugs.

And any landlord who has not dealt with bed bugs before faces a learning curve.  Many good, meticulous landlords are not informed about how easily bed bugs spread, and how hard it is to detect them.

The truth about bed bugs is that you can clean like the Dickens and not get rid of or prevent them.

The good news is that it sounds like Mattera and Werberg are done with bed bugs.  Let’s hope they never have this problem again!

Read the update in full here: The Hunt – So Where Are They Now? – NYTimes.com.Similar Posts:

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Several dorm rooms at the University of Manitoba are infested with bed bugs; they’re undergoing treatment, and residents have been relocated to temporary accommodation.

While university officials here are “taking the issue very seriously,” according to CBC, they’re also assuring the media that bed bugs are “not a health risk” (as officials almost always do).

But universities should take note: bed bugs are stressful.  They cause anxiety and make people lose a lot of sleep.  Bed bug bites can cause intense itching and sometimes more serious allergic reactions.  They can make people miserable.

Magali Leveille told CBC News, bed bugs made her want to drop out of her program at the university:

Leveille moved to Winnipeg from Montreal to brush up on her English through a program at the university that includes accommodations at the campus. The program brings in students from Canada and abroad that want to improve their English language skills.

Some say the bed bug experience has ruined the program.

“With me, I just want to go home, and I’m just upset about that, and it’s enough,” said Leveille. “The bed bugs, it’s really not funny, and I don’t want to be in the program anymore.”

[Emphasis added.]

Note: we have heard from many students dealing with bed bugs on the Bedbugger Forums.

And infested dorms are often the best case scenario; students living in private rented accommodations often have less hope of seeing the problem sorted out; they are often new to the world of rented apartments, don’t know where to turn for advice, and usually receive no assistance from their colleges in dealing with deadbeat landlords.

Some are thinking of dropping out of their programs.  Some are failing exams.  Some are suffering from extreme anxiety and depression.

If that doesn’t ring parents’ and university administrators’ warning bells about bed bugs, I am not sure what will.

See the full article here: University of Manitoba residence fumigated for bed bugs.Similar Posts:

• University of Central Missouri (and other Missouri colleges) vs. bed bugs
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• Bed bugs — and bed bug legislation — in the news
• George Washington University has treated 60 student rooms for bed bugs since Fall semester
• Back to school: news media focuses on bed bugs in college dorms

The New Jersey Assembly considered the “bed bug bill” A-3203 on Thursday, and it passed 74-3!

You can read more about it in the Press of Atlantic City, which writes,

Under the bill approved by a 74-3 vote in the Assembly, landlords of multiple-dwelling units must have bed-bug infestations removed as soon as they learn about them. Landlords must also give tenants pamphlets, which will be developed by the state Department of Health and Senior Services, warning them about bed bugs. It also establishes deadlines by which landlords must deal with bed bug infestations.

Landlords who don’t take appropriate actions face fines of $300 for each infested bedroom and $1,000 for each infested common area.

“Renters should not have to live silently with bedbug infestations,” said Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, D-Hudson, a bill sponsor. “Tenants who want to live in a clean and safe environment need the piece of mind that their landlord will work with them to ensure the sanctity of their home.”

You can read previous Bedbugger stories on A3203 here.

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James F. McCarty of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Monday that

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! Similar Posts:

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Edmonton Journal: Bed bugs in the Newton Place apartments at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

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Or so it would seem.

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.

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Remember this guy?

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.Similar Posts:

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• Fixing up a ‘Crappy Apartment’ — amNY.com

  amNY has a series called “Fixing up a ‘Crappy Apartment.’” Perhaps a bedbugger will get in touch, though our problem is both too complex and too simple to make a good fix-em-up story. “Get rid of bed bugs” is the simple–but not easy–fix.

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• Apartmentratings.com is a way to check what other tenants are saying about your building. It is not widely used, but like anything else, can be another tool, along with the bedbugregistry.com. Don’t forget to leave your review and warn others. There are 623 posts today featuring “bed bugs.” Don’t forget to search for “bedbugs” too!
• This Information Really Bugs Me!!! : Real Estate Blog for the Golden Isles of GA including St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Sea Island, and Brunswick, GA. Georgia coastal islands realtor warns customers about bed bugs.
• Google Search for “bed bugs” on tenant.net Search for “bed bugs” on tenant.net (a NYC renter’s discussion board) yields 54 results, “bedbugs” 64.
• YouTube – Bed Bugs Gone Wild!Another WLWT CHannel 5 News video from Cincinnati about bed bugs and their hold on that city. This appears to have first aired in September.

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Remember back in September, when the New York Times column “The Hunt” featured a young couple who moved five times in two-and-a-half years, only to end up in an apartment with bed bugs?

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. Similar Posts:

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