Interestingly,

The bed bug infestation came to light last week after the Pinellas County Health Department received an anonymous call about the problem.

So do call those health departments to report bed bugs in public spaces, or your workplace, people.

Even more interestingly,

Unlike roaches, which can be spotted easily, bed bugs hide, so “we don’t even bother looking for them,” said Charles Minor, a supervisor with the health department’s environmental division. “If we get a complaint, we assume that they’re there. We focus on getting rid of them.”

We’ve heard some pest control operators treat bed bugs the same way, even though in many places, it’s illegal to treat without evidence. Yes, bites are a form of evidence, but they can come from other sources, and so don’t definitively indicate bed bugs.

Still, I appreciate the Pinellas County Health Department’s enthusiasm for treating bed bugs.

PEMHS stopped taking new patients, moved those in the facility elsewhere and tented the building for fumigation, said Erin Gillespie, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families, which oversees PEMHS. The building remained closed until Monday when employees and residents began moving back in.

It sounds like the building was treated with vikane gas fumigation. The facility may wish to educate employees and clients about bed bugs, since we can assume the bed bugs may have both been brought into the center from someone’s home, and may have been taken home by others, infesting their homes.

If employees or clients have bed bugs at home and do not get proper treatment, the facility can easily become reinfested.

• bed bugs clear Port Jervis, NY Hospital’s mental health unit
• Bed bugs in hotels: how to report (and check up on) bed bug infestations
• Freehold, NJ Social Service agency asks county for money to treat bed bugs
• Rockford, IL: half of Red Roof Inn shut down due to bed bugs

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As noted on our FAQ about who pays for treatment, the New Jersey Warranty of Habitability says landlords have to keep rental apartments pest-free.

However, things can be a bit more complicated than that.

Although the law says NJ landlords have to pay to eliminate bed bugs from rental units, they don’t say landlords can’t then turn around and charge tenants to cover the costs.

This Journal article details an example of this in action: seniors living in low-income housing, the 240-unit Grandview Terrace in Jersey City, are suffering badly from bed bugs, and have been for three years. Fifty units are now known to have them:

The state holds landlords responsible for extermination in “multi-unit” buildings of three or more apartments - if the bugs are found in two or more units or in common areas. But the state doesn’t take a stance as to whether landlord can then turn around and charge the tenants, said Jennifer Monaghan of the state Department of Community Affairs.

One-and two-family buildings are regulated by a different set of laws that can be superseded by municipal law, but in general the rules are the same: the owner is responsible, but has the right to include a provision in the lease charging the costs back to the tenants.

But despite the law most Jersey City landlords are shouldering the costs, said Charles Odei, director for Jersey City’s Division of Tenant Landlord Relations. “With all the other cases (but Grandview Terrace) we’ve been successful in getting the landlord to pay so far,” he said.

The 284-unit Grandview Terrace has had nearly 50 cases of bedbugs in the past three years, said Steve Lesko, president of Norman Ostrow Inc., which manages the building. He said the building’s tenant board voted in 2006 to charge tenants individually.

“Why should people who don’t have a problem pay for people who do?” he said, adding that the policy tends to prevent false alarms.

That kind of policy, decided by a tenant board or not, just shows an ignorance of bed bugs and how they work. They probably made this decision ignorant of the fact that a large percentage of people do not react to bed bug bites, and so have to have a pretty serious infestation before they notice it. They must also have been ignorant about just how easily bed bugs travel within a building.

And clearly, Grandview Terrace’s management is ignorant about how bed bugs travel:

Lesko said most infestations at Grandview come from tenants bringing the bugs into the building through used furniture or their clothes, not from the bugs moving from one apartment to another.

But tenants disagree, saying they’ve seen the bugs in common areas, and that the critters can easily jump from one tenant to another in elevators.

And charging tenants individually has the down side that many won’t report the problem, causing the infestation to continue to spread.

“Everyone that lives in Grandview Terrace is on a fixed income,” said Robert High, who has tried to deal with the bugs on his own. “We can’t afford it.”

Bed bugs don’t jump, but they do walk, and run.

I am not sure how the building management determined that those 50 cases were mostly caused by bed bugs being brought in from outside.

(Perhaps Lesko has little tracking devices planted on them?)

But I do know this: forcing elderly people on limited incomes to pay for their own bed bug treatment is a good way to ensure the entire building is eventually infested. And that’s not good for owners or tenants.

New Jersey needs to update its housing laws. If tenants are going to be forced to pay for bed bug treatment, then there must be a provision of financial assistance to help them do so. And of course, if landlords are suffering hardship, the government can certainly pass laws to help them pay for treatment too. But skipping or skimping on bed bug treatment is not a good idea.

People need to be encouraged to report bed bug problems, and they need immediate treatment, regardless of ability to pay. It’s in everyone’s best interest that everyone gets good, swift treatment for bed bugs.

Update:

This article, also from the Journal, reports on how seniors in a Bayonne Housing Authority building, Back Bay Gardens, at 535 Avenue A, are suffering with bed bugs, despite treatment.

One tenant there had 10-12 PCO treatments, and has now been free of bed bug bites for three weeks (much too soon to declare victory).

The problem there seems to be that tenants are only treated if they complain about bed bugs — there do not seem to be any routine inspections going on. And when they are treated, the article implies there is a one-month gap between treatments and follow-ups only occur if tenants ask for them:

[John Mahon of the Bayonne Housing Authority] said the Housing Authority provides an extermination service once a month and sends the exterminator when a tenant calls with a problem.

A tenant who had treatment several weeks ago reports continuing to see bed bugs. Why aren’t all the units in this building being inspected, and why aren’t treatments recurring at approximately 2-week intervals, which most PCOs who know bed bugs seem to recommend? Almost no one gets rid of bed bugs after one treatment, since traditional treatments do not kill bed bug eggs, which hatch in approximately 10 days.

This article is disturbing, and a good reminder that simply providing bed bug treatment to residents is not enough; buildings and housing authorities need good bed bug treatment protocols; they need to provide aggressive treatment with follow-ups, and to inspect units adjoining those with infestations even when tenants have not yet detected a bed bug problem.

More on bed bugs in Grandview Terrace, and on the spread of bed bugs in Hoboken, Atlantic City, and the rest of the Garden State here.

• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.
• landlords talking about bed bugs
• Bedbugs called “a new kind of roach”; building managment lies
• landlord’s duty to tell prospective tenants about bed bugs?

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College students move often, sometimes from semester to semester.

They also tend to travel a lot, going back and forth to one another’s dorm rooms and apartments, visiting parents’ homes, friends’ parents’ homes, and vacationing at frat houses in Madison, Wisconsin, hostels in Amsterdam or cheap resorts in Ft. Lauderdale.

Many students shop in secondhand stores and accept gifts of secondhand furniture from parents, friends, or even off the street.

All in all, they can be helpful in moving bed bugs around.

Now the Contra Costa Times tells us that college officials have been talking about how to deal with bed bugs in college housing at a recent conference.

Universities and colleges nationwide are trying to figure out how to keep the biting insects out of dormitories — no easy task when it comes to creatures that can survive pesticides.

At this weekend’s conference of university and college housing officers in Florida, two sessions deal with the pesky bugs, which also have boomed at hotels and major cities around the world. UC Berkeley residence halls had to be treated for bedbugs at least six times during the recently ended school year — up from no incidents the year before.

I am glad that university housing officers are spending time on learning about how to deal with this problem. I hope that Stanford was there to represent; the reports we’ve seen suggest the Stanford officials have a good protocol and are getting good advice from professionals about how to get rid of bed bugs when they rear their ugly heads.

• Bed bugs at the University of Vermont
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?
• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• Bed bugs at Stanford again

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According to the Carroll County Times,

Jeff Degitz, director of the Carroll County Department of Recreation and
Parks . . . . said letters have been sent home to the parents of all the campers who are staying at Hashawha this week, and parents of anyone who stayed at the center since June 1 are also being notified.

That’s good news: parents of recent campers should be notified so they can inspect their homes and have them treated if necessary. (I would personally go back more than 2.5 weeks and also notify earlier guests, however.)

I hope parents were also given some information about searching for signs of bed bugs, and what to do if they’re found.

The description of treatment in the infested cabin raises some questions for me:

Since the discovery, Degitz said, an exterminator has been to the cabin and treated the area with pesticide.

The cabin will be closed until July 6, and all of the mattresses with bed bugs on them have been thrown away, Degitz said.

We are told that it’s very difficult to get rid of bed bugs in one pesticide treatment. Bed bugs often infest rooms, not just mattresses and bed frames. I hope the room has been carefully inspected.

Also, throwing away mattresses is not necessary and not really a good idea. Doing so doesn’t necessarily remove bed bugs from the location, and mattresses can be salvaged with a good encasement.

Not tossing out the mattress also saves the camp’s neighbors from becoming infested, since someone will inevitably pick that mattress up for re-use or sale.

People who run camps (like hotel and hospital managers) need to devise a system for inspecting for signs of bed bugs. Visitors will bring bed bugs to camp, and other campers will bring them home.

And nobody wants to go to Camp It-Chee-Scrah-Chee.

—————————————————–

Update: The Baltimore Sun says eight “affected” mattresses were removed. The Baltimore Sun also clarifies why only those families whose kids stayed in the camp’s five cabins since 6/1 were notified:

The Carroll County Health Department, which inspected the cabin two weeks ago and found no bedbugs at that time, was notified of the insects’ presence, according to the news release.

I wonder if this was a routine inspection?

Finally, this second article tells us:

Campers were advised to wash all bedclothes, including sleeping bags, in hot, soapy water, and dry them in a hot dryer for at least 20 minutes, according to the news release. Temperatures of at least 140 degrees kill the bugs.

Not bad advice, except that a sleeping bag is a very thick item. Twenty minutes in a dryer is unlikely to kill bed bugs in a wet sleeping bag (maybe not even in a dry one).

• Gianaris’ Bedbug Legislation Passes
• NYC Bedbuggers: time to have some local politicians over for a bite or two
• More on the New York City schools and bed bugs
• Need help? Tales of Bed Bug Woe 2.0

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. . . a housing complex under construction in Vancouver will include what’s been dubbed the “bedbug sauna,” a room where furniture, clothing and other belongings can be heated to a point that kills Cimex lectularius, the common bedbug enjoying a worldwide resurgence.

The idea was born of frustration with the rising cost of treating bedbug infestations and the desire to find some way to get rid of them that wouldn’t force people to throw away their belongings, says George Simpson, operations manager for RainCity Housing, the non-profit group that has ordered the bug room for a 92-unit complex now under construction.

“Inevitably, belongings had to be disposed of that couldn’t be treated or laundered,” says Mr. Simpson, for whom bedbugs have become a major headache in recent years.

The room will be big enough to hold mattresses and other bulky furniture, and equipped with technology that allows contents to be heated to a point that cooks bugs and their eggs.

It’s not a bad idea.

Parakeets fantasized about her idea of an apartment with attached sauna for decontamination purposes repeatedly on the Bedbugger yahoo group. And along similar lines, I spoke about getting items decontaminated (”sauna’d”) here and elsewhere.

I think it’s a great idea that people are thinking about ways to help people get rid of bed bugs in the future, even while constructing new developments.

The planners got advice from pest control firm Steritech:

The concept is sound, says Judy Black, technical director with Steritech Group Inc., a U.S. pest-control company that last year briefed Vancouver hoteliers on the pests.

“Bedbugs are relatively insusceptible to cold, but they are very sensitive to heat,” says Ms. Black, adding that Steritech is investigating heat as a control method.

A blast of sufficient heat - about 55 degrees [editor’s note: 55 C = 131 degrees F], Ms. Black estimates, applied for a matter of minutes, not hours - would kill bugs without using pesticides that can leave rooms uninhabitable for days.

A room to heat large items may be advisable, so long as it meets applicable regulations, says the bedbug-prevention design guidelines from BC Housing. Currently, there are no standard heating units on the market.

The room could help rein in the cost of bedbug control - including compensation for staff members who pick up bedbugs on the job, which can amount to $800 or more. If the room proves effective, RainCity hopes it will become a model for other housing complexes in the city.

I am curious about some of the logistics about how the room will be used in bed bug treatment.

First, the management and tenants need to know how to safely get items to the room. They need to be sealed carefully in order to prevent infesting hallways, elevators, and other apartments en route.

Furthermore, the building needs to educate tenants about avoiding bed bugs in the first place. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure, where bed bugs are concerned.

Finally, I am wondering about the logistics of decontaminating furniture while treating the apartment. Let’s say I have bed bugs in my apartment. My furniture could be removed and baked, but not all at once (the hot room is not that big). Will it then be placed somewhere else until the room is bed bug free and all the contents are as well?

It’s essential to remember that rooms, as well as furniture and other “stuff,” are infested with bed bugs. Returning uninfested items to an apartment where the structure or other remaining furniture or other items still contain bed bugs would simply mean those decontaminated items can be reinfested.

However, RainCity seems to be on top of their game, and so I assume all of this has been worked out by those doing the planning. It is a great idea to provide this kind of service, and with some forethought and education of tenants, this building is has the potential to deal with bed bugs more efficiently than many others.

I am especially excited that RainCity Housing is leading the way by being the first we know of to install a decontamination room in an apartment building. According to their website, they provide housing to people who are homeless, in transition, have mental health or drug issues, and other challenges. They believe everyone should have a home, and clearly, they believe everyone deserves a home without bed bugs. Bravo, RainCity!

As a side note, kudos are also due to the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which is taking steps to help stop the spread of bed bugs. The article reminds us that:

The agency also educates landlords, outreach workers and housing agencies about bedbug control and provides some health care workers with “bedbug kits” that include an oversized Ziploc-type bag to hold briefcases and laptops to prevent bedbugs from hitching a ride from an infested site.

These are the kinds of small steps that can make a huge difference: a little knowledge and a cheap, reclosable ziploc. How expensive or hard is that?

I hope agencies in other cities (hello, New York!) will follow suit.

• Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher has some progressive ideas about bed bugs
• Vancouver public education forum on bed bugs is a start, but probably not enough
• More from Edmonton bed bug evictions case
• Vancouver community activists urge city to pay for bed bug eradication

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According to the state legislature’s website, these are the details of the Bill, sponsored by Representative Dale Mallory:

A BILL

To enact sections 3701.136, 3701.137, 3701.138, and 3701.139 of the Revised Code to establish the Bed Bug Awareness, Education, and Prevention Program and to make an appropriation.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:

Section 1. That sections 3701.136, 3701.137, 3701.138, and 3701.139 of the Revised Code be enacted to read as follows:

Sec. 3701.136. As used in sections 3701.136 to 3701.139 of the Revised Code:

(A) “Hotel” means every establishment kept, used, maintained, advertised, or held out to the public as a place where sleeping accommodations are offered to guests, in which five or more rooms are used for the accommodation of such guests, whether the rooms are in one or several structures.

(B) “Residential dwelling” means a building used or intended to be used as a personal residence by the owner, part owner, or lessee of the building, or any person authorized by such a person to use the building as a personal residence.

Sec. 3701.137. The bed bug awareness, education, and prevention program is hereby established in the department of health with the assistance of and in consultation with the research office of the division of travel and tourism of the department of development.

Sec. 3701.138. (A) The department of health shall make available on its web site information on the increasing incidences of bed bug (cimex lectularius) infestation and post notices that bed bugs are a public nuisance dangerous to public health. The director of health shall do all of the following:

(1) Educate hotel owners, residential dwellers, and citizens of this state on the difference between bed bugs and similar types of vermin so they can be easily recognized and treated accordingly.

(2) Encourage hotel owners and residential dwellers to closely monitor floors, carpets, and bed linen and mattresses for signs of infestation to facilitate effective, timely treatment to prevent the spread and incidence of infestation.

(3) Assist in and promote the development of safe and effective treatment methods or options to eradicate bed bug infestation in hotels and residential dwellings.

(B) The department of health shall adopt rules as necessary to implement this section. The rules shall be adopted in accordance with Chapter 119. of the Revised Code.

Sec. 3701.139. The department of health shall make available to the public a toll-free telephone number for any person seeking to report an incidence of bed bug infestation or to request information. The department may make the toll-free number available by maintaining a toll-free telephone line specifically for accepting calls regarding bed bugs or by using a toll-free telephone line that the department maintains for accepting calls regarding other matters.

Section 2. All items in this section are hereby appropriated as designated out of any moneys in the state treasury to the credit of the General Revenue Fund Group. For all appropriations made in this act, those in the first column are for fiscal year 2008 and those in the second column are for fiscal year 2009. The appropriations made in this act are in addition to any other appropriations made for the FY 2008-2009 biennium.

[Details of the appropriations are included, which –if I am reading it correctly — appear to constutute $335,000 in fiscal year 2009.]

The bill continues,

Within the limits set forth in this act, the Director of Budget and Management shall establish accounts indicating the source and amount of funds for each appropriation made in this act, and shall determine the form and manner in which appropriation accounts shall be maintained. Expenditures from appropriations contained in this act shall be accounted for as though made in Am. Sub. H.B. 119 of the 127th General Assembly.

The appropriations made in this act are subject to all provisions of Am. Sub. H.B. 119 of the 127th General Assembly that are generally applicable to such appropriations.

Section 3. The sections of law contained in this act, and the items of which they are composed, are not subject to the referendum. Therefore, under Ohio Constitution, Article II, Section 1d and section 1.471 of the Revised Code, the sections of law contained in this act, and the items of which they are composed, go into immediate effect when this act becomes law.

The key points here appear to be: requiring the Department of Health to educate the public about bed bugs, and the provision of a hotline where residents can call to report an incidence of bed bugs or call for information about bed bugs.

The requirement that the DoH:

Assist in and promote the development of safe and effective treatment methods or options to eradicate bed bug infestation in hotels and residential dwellings.

… seems a bit nebulous as written, but like the rest of the bill, only seems like it can help.

Ohio residents should write to their State Representatives and voice your support for this bill. You can look up your representatives here, then follow the links to email them or look up phone numbers or snail mail addresses. It is worth taking 5 minutes to send an email and help your state get better legislation to support those dealing with bed bugs now and in the future.

• New bed bug legislation: House Bill 565 from Ohio on bed bug treatment
• Update on New York State bed bug legislation (parental notification re: bed bugs in school)
• Nashua, N.H. laws may change in part based on recent bed bug cases there
• California fights bed bugs: good news from the golden state

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Ten months on, they’re in the news again. News 14 Carolina reports:

Last August, crews removed mattresses and spread polyurethane on the beds to stop bed bugs from hiding in the cracks. “Overall they were sympathetic, because they were amazed how one person could get bitten so many times,” said the woman.

In a statement, leaders at the shelter said “It’s unfortunate and a challenge. We’re being consistent and have hired a contractor to rework the plumbing and add a new washer and dryer to keep clothes and bed sheets cleaner. Along with new mattresses, we have recently added 60 new beds, and will add another 50 news beds in the near future.”

It’s not easy to get rd of bed bugs. And I hate to sound cynical, but it is probably quite a feat keeping a shelter bed bug-free even for ten months. Keeping in mind that many shelters are infested, the potential is always there for new guests at this shelter to bring them in.

That said, no one should have to live with bed bugs, and I am glad that the management is taking steps and I hope they have good, experienced advisors working with them on their bed bug treatment and prevention plans.

Unfortunately, fighting bed bugs can mean a less hospitable atmosphere to guests, who often carry their homes, in the form of their few worldly belongings, with them (a practice which likely contributes to the spread of bed bugs):

Last year, officials with the shelter suggested the bed bugs may have come from dirty clothing. They are now monitoring how many belonging are brought into the shelter to protect residents.

• Bed bug news round-up: South Jersey apartment complex; Charlotte, North Carolina Salvation Army shelter
• More on bed bugs at the Montana Rescue Mission in Billings
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs

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Denver’s Environmental Health Department says they have had complaints about bugs there for more than two years.

The property is owned by Shockor Management and is telling tenants they will spray once again this week. But the bugs don’t seem to be going away.

That has prompted many to move out, leaving many of their couches and bedding in the garbage.

Former tenant Jackie Howe moved in two months ago not knowing there was an ongoing bed bug problem. She’s now had to flee.

Renting units in bed bug infested buildings without notifying prospective tenants should be illegal.

The City says they know about the history of complaints and says that every time the owners are citied (sic), they comply and spray as they will again this week.

What is unanswered is why the spraying isn’t killing the bed bugs.

It isn’t clear what kind of bed bug treatment follows these citations, however, if treatments are not aggressive enough (approximately every two weeks, in every unit with bed bugs, until every last bed bug is gone) it would begin to explain why bed bug problems persist.

Tenants discarding possessions as they flee the building, some of which are surely being reclaimed by other tenants, are probably another contributing factor.

While pesticide resistance may be a factor, these other two considerations are even more obvious problems, and should not be discounted.

I hope Denver’s Environmental Health Department will work on more comprehensive solutions to fighting bed bugs in Denver (which we know are not just a problem in this one building). They should consider what actions are required by landlords and tenants once infestations are detected, ways of collecting bed bug-infested refuse to keep it from infesting other homes, and a public education campaign to help educate all of Denver on how to recognize, avoid, and fight bed bugs (once detected).

The same types of considerations should be undertaken by cities and counties and other authorities elsewhere.

Ordering landlords to treat once bed bugs are detected is too vague and simply not enough to get rid of bed bugs permanently.

• Toronto tenants camping outside to avoid bed bugs: update
• Bowling Green Towers: residents organize to demand proper bed bug treatment in low-income building
• Denver’s elderly, disabled, fight bed bug Shaq attack
• New Jersey’s laws designed to spread bed bugs in rental housing

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Carolyn Sistrunk, executive director of the Danbury Housing Authority, said Monday the complex had a problem with the bugs in 2007 and spent about $17,000 to get rid of them.

“They were here in the fall,” Alex Sixbey, one of the tenants at Ives Manor said Monday. “It took a lot of work — by the exterminators and by me — to get rid of them.”

But Sistrunk said the bedbugs returned. While last year’s outbreak was confined to Ives Manor’s fourth floor, they may have popped up elsewhere in the building.

“We’re going to treat the entire building,” she said.

It does not sound like the bed bugs were necessarily completely gone. While it’s possible they were and the building was reinfested, it is also possible that some units had bed bugs and the tenants were unaware and/or not reporting them.

Many times, visual inspections will turn up nothing, especially if there is a small infestation. In time, however, it would explain bed bugs springing back.

Carolyn Cutler, who has lived in city housing for about 20 years, moved to Ives Manor more than four years ago and lives on the fourth floor. Last fall, she said, the pests showed up in her apartment.

In recent weeks “I found one on my sheets,” she said. “I’m changing my sheets twice a day. I’ve never seen them before. I don’t want to put up with this.”

Sistrunk said Ives Manor hired Amtech, a local exterminating company that is getting increasing experience in fighting bedbugs, to do the work. The company has even purchased a beagle trained to sniff out bedbugs to help its staff find the vermin.

The initial contract for the work is about $9,000, Sistrunk said.

And with a sense of great foreboding, but no great sense of surprise, I present this PCO soundbite:

Richard Monastero, Amtech’s president, said Monday for the foreseeable future people should consider bedbugs an ongoing problem, not a one-time thing.

Ugh.

• How accurate are human bed bug inspectors, k9s?
• After a fire, bed bugs “rain down from ceilings” into other apartments
• More on flea market nightstand: new ozone treatment for bed bugs
• New Haven: another housing complex has bed bugs

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Teresa Bayliss, who has lived in her third-floor apartment for nine years, said the residents have been battling with the insects for more than a year. “Basically, this apartment building, since last May, has had problems with bedbugs,” she said. “I would say since like Easter, things are getting worse.”

That’s far too long to suffer with bed bugs.

One resident took a dangerous and extreme measure:

The problem at the apartment building was so bad that a resident recently decided to take matters into his own hands. Following the advice of a friend, he burned charcoal in his third-floor apartment. But because of the fumes, the building had to be evacuated.

“We were upset, but if you saw the bites on that man, who could blame him?” said Bayliss.

The man got bad advice and did something very unsafe. Looking back, what would have been a safe and rational reaction, instead, is if someone from the building had notified city officials.

According to the article, Warren Blunt, director of environmental health for the city’s Health Department, said,

The department was not aware of the bedbug problem at Ellsworth before last week’s incident, he said.

When the agency does receive complaints, Blunt said, an inspector goes out to confirm that there are bedbugs in the building. “The owner is basically responsible for the establishment. The owner is responsible for hiring an exterminator,” Blunt said. “We allow them up to two weeks. But in this case, we would make a recommendation that they begin immediately,” he said. Criminal penalties may be pursued if a landlord does not act to remedy the problem, Blunt said.

So one lesson here is that residents of Bridgeport with bed bugs should call the Health Department to notify them of the problem, so they can inspect and order treatment. It’s unlikely that residents were aware of this recourse, or someone probably would have called. I hope the Health Department will attempt to advertise this more widely.

Some treatments have already occurred. So far,

Bayliss said the treatments do not appear to be helping. “They had Orkin [pest control company] coming in spurts. I’ve had Orkin come to my apartment once. Other people aren’t getting treated at all,” she said.

But the article says the management is currently ripping out everyone’s carpet and the building supervisor seems to be saying the whole building will have to be treated at least twice. (I would not be surprised if it took more than two treatments spaced no more than two weeks apart.) I hope this treatment is aggressive and thorough and comes swiftly for the tenants, who have suffered for such a long time.

Officials quoted in the article remind us that tenants have to cooperate with preparation and treatment:

The problem is more challenging when tenants are not able, or refuse, to keep their apartments clean and orderly. Bedbugs can travel on people’s clothing or find their way into the apartment next door.

“There are agencies that will offer to come out, that will do the cleaning,” said Blunt. But if people don’t cooperate with the pest eradication efforts, “that’s what makes this compounded, makes this complex.”

As odd as it may sound, we often hear of badly infested buildings where one or more tenants simply don’t want to be inspected. In cases such as this, where the whole building is being inspected, it would not be surprising if the same tenants were not cooperative with preparations or treatment.

This hurts everyone else — both fellow tenants and management.

Those with physical or financial limitations absolutely need help and support in preparing for and undergoing bed bug treatment. But refusing or being non-cooperative is a serious problem: keeping your bed bugs is not an option.

• Still more from Nashua, New Hampshire: fewer bed bugs at 23-25 Temple St.
• More from Edmonton bed bug evictions case
• Vikane Fumigation Successful in New Jersey
• Bed bug notice: East Village, NYC, January 2008

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