Parakeets helpfully recommends this upcoming bed bug educational event being run by Mass Housing on 11/17 in the Boston area. She tells us it costs $40, and directs you to the full information (and registration details) in this PDF.

Bed Bugs: A Team Response

An infestation of bed bugs can be very costly in terms of treatment and the impact on your housing community. Find out what you should know about bed bugs and how the Property Manager, Maintenance Supervisor and Resident Services Coordinator can work together as a team immediately and effectively. Learn the steps to take when an infestation of bed bugs is suspected, how to engage a pest management company and prepare for extermination. Gain an understanding of the roles of manager, maintenance staff and residents when addressing the issues.

Instructors: Jonathan Boyar, Watch All Pest Management and Thomas A. Stokes, Beacon Communities

Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Time: 8:45am-1:00pm
Location: The Pines, 469 Pine Grove Drive, Brockton
Parking: Street parking or in visitor spots in lot.

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The Boston Globe reported Wednesday on how record numbers of families are now being sheltered in motels.

In October 2007, 27 families were housed in Massachusetts motels. The number rose steeply in the last year, as the economy collapsed, many became unemployed, and foreclosures skyrocketed. The number of families sheltered in motels went from just over 100 in May 2008, to 751 families (including 1,000 children) in 39 motels as of June 2009.

This is necessary because there just aren’t enough places to rehouse people right now. But one effect is that people are living in places not equipped for cooking, bringing up children, or other aspects of daily life.

One of the problems people rehoused in motels often face, according to the article, is bed bugs:

The city’s health department is concerned about bedbugs, after complaints from residents and reports from school nurses that children from the [Cambridge Gateway Inn] motel appeared to have suffered bites. Sam Lipson, director of environmental health for the Cambridge Public Health Department, said officials worked with the motel in February to address the problems and have heard no new complaints. But hotel guests might be reluctant to complain for fear of being forced out, he added.

“They should feel confident that reporting the presence of bedbugs won’t put them at any risk,’’ Lipson said.

Of course, bed bugs are a problem now in many shelters as well as in permanent housing of every kind (from subsidized affordable units to fancy condos and mansions).

But the state does need to be accountable for keeping people safe and in appropriate housing.

And people living in any kind of housing should not have to worry they will be kicked out if they report the presence of bed bugs.

You can read more here.Similar Posts:

• Ohio County, WV Health Dept. official: bed bugs “public health nuisance” and “psychological disaster”
• San Diego State University: don’t wait for students to show you a bed bug

Mark Sheperdigian has a new brief — but important — article in Pest Management Professional, about the limits of bed bug inspections.

The author is stating truisms known to those who know bed bugs — not radical new insights.  And yet it is crucial for the pest management professional working on bed bug cases both to understand these facts — and to communicate them to their customers.

First, Sheperdigian comments on the difficulty of knowing whether a unit is infested:

We can discover with 100 percent certainty that an account is infested; we cannot discover with 100 percent certainty that it is not.

This is the most frustrating factor for people who think they have bed bugs.  Many will spend hundreds of dollars in human and canine scent detection and still have no certainty whether they have bed bugs.

Sometimes people feel they have hired a lousy PCO or dog team; sometimes that is so, but the truth is: bed bugs are stealthy and hard to detect.  That’s just how Sneaky Simes rolls. And so, Sheperdigian suggests, the key is for bed bug pros to communicate the difficulty of detection.

And Sheperdigian reminds us that “Most infestations are established before they are discovered,” and

This also means that in a multiple-unit dwelling situation such as apartments and senior housing, the units reporting bed bugs are only a portion of the problem. Therefore, a program that begins by treating only units that have reported bed bugs is treating only a portion of the problem. There are almost always units that have a light infestation unbeknownst to the tenants — and units that have heavier infestations unreported by the tenants.

Perhaps that is the one piece of information I wish all tenants and landlords knew. People tend to complain about bed bugs if they see them, or if they react to bed bug bites — and even then, they will often hesitate while they explore other possible causes (and in some cases, until they hear for the first time that bed bugs exist!)

When tenants or landlords assume that only those who have complained about bed bugs have bed bugs, we can forgive their ignorance of just how bed bugs work.

The problem is that pest management professionals who know bed bugs should know that there are almost always other infested units.

We hear some PCOs insist customers pay for inspection of adjacent units and/or all of a building’s units.

We hear others try to encourage this but are understandably ignored by customers who just don’t get it, or just can’t afford it.  Many of the latter will treat the isolated unit anyway.  Only later, it may become fully apparent to the homeowner, tenant, or landlord that this was not enough to get rid of bed bugs in the unit.

Frankly, I think Boston is on to the only possible solution for this problem; the Boston Inspectional Services Department requires landlords to treat all horizontally and vertically adjacent units and inspect the entire building.

Few landlords do this voluntarily.  And many buildings end up with seriously chronic bed bug problems.

Here, as in his previous articles on bed bugs, I appreciate Mark Sheperdigian’s knowledge and wisdom.  All in all, these are important issues that bed bug professionals and customers need to be aware of.

I know you will want to read the full article: “Know Your Limits in Bed Bug Inspection” at Pest Management Professional.

Thanks to Renee for the tip!Similar Posts:

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A new article from the Boston Herald warns of a difficult bed bug spring, and notes a continued yearly rise in bed bug complaints to the Boston Inspectional Services Department.

The bedbug resurgence that began in the early 21st century is creeping and crawling with a vengeance, according to national and local experts, who warn of a particularly pesky spring.

“As the weather gets warmer, we typically get more complaints,” said Boston Inspectional Services Department Assistant Commissioner Dion Irish. “The bedbugs get more active as the climate gets warmer.”

According to ISD, as of April 15, Hub bedbug complaints already had surpassed yearly totals for the two previous years: 223 complaints in 2009 versus 182 complaints in 2007 and 210 complaints in 2008.

However, there are some things Boston is doing well.  For example, as the Boston ISD website states,

Our Standard bed bug notice of violation also requires that owners inspect all units in the dwelling, and they must treat all horizontally and vertically adjacent units to the infested unit(s).

(Emphasis added.)

We hear from tenants in other cities that many (if not most) landlords will not voluntarily pay to have adjacent units inspected, let alone the entire building — even though their PCOs or entomologists may recommend this.

Having a policy that requires adjacent units to be treated means small and difficult to detect neighboring infestations may be nipped in the bud.  And having the entire building inspected means there’s more chance of detecting additional infested units.

All of this costs money, but when you think of the amount landlords in other cities pay to perpetually treat units one by one, piecemeal (a process which may never remove the problem), it does not seem like a bad idea economically.

The article notes that the city’s aggressive response to bed bugs in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood has made a difference.

Irish said the department is working to make sure there’s quality pest control available to property owners, and noted landlords are responsible for extermination costs or face housing court.

“Whenever we’re aware of an infestation, we require multiple exterminations and monitoring,” Irish said, touting the city’s get-tough policy for improvements in the Allston-Brighton area.

That neighborhood had seen a concentration of bedbug complaints dating back to 2003. Thanks to outreach efforts, a strategy of quick street-side pickups of discarded furniture by the Department of Public Works, and aggressive treatment of infested and surrounding units, “those areas are no longer troubled areas,” Irish said. The number of complaints in Allston- Brighton dropped from 38 in 2007 to 27 in 2008. There are 25 complaints there so far this year.

(Emphasis added.)

Obviously, Allston-Brighton is still troubled by bed bugs, but it appears to have been much less troubled in 2008 than in 2007.  Keeping in mind that bed bug problems will tend to get worse in time, as the problem spreads through a neighborhood, a reduction in complaints like this is good news indeed.

On the other hand, there are 25 complaints in 2009 so far — suggesting 2009 is on track to be big for bed bugs in Allston-Brighton.  Is this a factor of a less aggressive recent approach in the neighborhoods?  Or is it a sign that this is indeed “a particularly pesky spring” for bed bugs in Boston?

In any case, it looks like Boston has lots of work to do.

See Bedbugs back on attack – BostonHerald.com.Similar Posts:

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Leonina Heringer of Somerville, 55, known to many as “The Bed Bug Lady,” is making a video for Somerville’s public access cable station.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It seems like one person really can make a difference.

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

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

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That’s the title of a video on YouTube that Paulaw0919 pointed me to today.

In the video, three young people who say they live in several apartments at 46 Westland Avenue (including the basement and apartment 4) appear in the video, along with three cavorting rats, and some cockroaches.

The tenants speak of being bitten by bed bugs and seeing them, and display what appear to be many bed bug bites on each of them. Two (at least) claim to be students at Boston’s Berklee College.

This is the building on ApartmentRatings.com and The Bed Bug Registry.

I hope the tenants have called Boston’s Inspectional Services Division, who put out a Bed Bug Advisory flyer (click here for a PDF) which states:

If your Landlord fails to take proper action as required by State Housing Regulations, contact the Housing Inspection Division at: (617) 635-5322

If the tenants have already contacted Boston’s ISD, I hope they will do so again.

Finally, a disclaimer: we have no way of verifying if these claims are truthful or not.

And a warning: there are no actual bed bugs shown in the video, but it is pretty disturbing nonetheless. Unless rats are your thing.

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News 7 in Boston reports that Boston University students living in a dorm at 575 Commonwealth Avenue have been complaining about bed bug bites, and bed bugs have been found.

The school did not release the number of infested rooms, nor how many students complained about the issue.

An exterminator was called to fix the problem.

It’s not the first time BU has had to deal with the itchy problem. In February 2007, they were in Shelton Hall, and the Daily Free Press at BU said students were asked to keep quiet and not spread panic.

The same student newspaper argued rightly that all students should be notified about the problem. This is sound advice, because administrators need students to come forward if they think they have bed bugs.

And then, eight months later, in October of the same year, students in a London (UK) Boston University dorm were bitten by bed bugs.

The Daily Free Press reported that students claimed a London BU administrator told them they were lying about bed bugs, and that they’d be banned from studying abroad again if they discussed the problem with others. BU admin later claimed the students’ accusations were false, so we’re not certain what actually happened in London except that the incidence of bed bugs in London was not itself denied according to The Daily Free Press.

It’s great news that the media is reporting the current story, but I hope BU is also now telling students about bed bug infestations as they arise. Since many people do not react to bed bug bites, and since it can take a long, long time to actually see a bed bug after becoming infested, everyone deserves to be notified that their neighbors have encountered bed bugs.

The recent history of bed bugs at BU highlights the need for university housing administrators to have an up-to-date bed bug protocol, taking advantage of the latest detection technology (which may include bed bug k9s and maybe one of the soon-to-be-released bed bug traps?) and treatment protocols which include careful and thorough inspections, prepping students for treatment, and options such as thermal heat or aggressive and repeated applications of an appropriate combination of steam, residual pesticides and dusts.

Colleges should not worry prospective students will choose another college; they should get on board with the best bed bug protocol they can, and publicize that fact, like Dan Mizer, Associate Director of Residence Life at Texas A&M, who is happy to tell the media the school is proactively employing bed bug sniffing k9s and planning to use TempAir when bed bugs are found. Would you rather send your kid to a college with a good bed bug plan in place? Or one where they try to avoid alarming people by discussing the problem which we know can arise at any college, anywhere?Similar Posts:

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This article was not primarily about bed bugs; it was mainly about college students, and how it’s harder than ever to furnish a student apartment from things you find on the curb.

The reasons given: more competition, including not just students, but from people who buy and sell used items, and also young professionals who are into the environmentally positive effects of used furniture.

Bed bugs were also mentioned, and rightly so. Boston has a serious bed bug problem. The Boston Globe reports,

Competition isn’t the only challenge facing students seeking freebies. There’s also the bedbug threat, particularly in the transient Allston and Brighton neighborhoods. This year the city has received 210 requests to inspect for bedbug infestations, 46 of them in “student-heavy” neighborhoods, said Dion Irish, assistant commissioner of Boston’s Inspectional Services Department.

Because bedbugs have an affinity for mattresses, the city is dispatching inspectors to the area over Labor Day weekend to slap orange warning stickers on mattresses and other cast-off items and to spray-paint wooden furniture where the bedbugs could be hidden.

The bedbug problem has had a chilling effect on students like Darius Wilsey, a Northeastern University junior. Last year his roommate brought home two mattresses from the street only to discover, too late, there was a reason they were there in the first place. “They were infested with bedbugs,” Wilsey said. “Our place became uninhabitable. We had no place to live. I had to live on people’s couches for three weeks.”

Bed bugs not only have serious negative economic, emotional, and social effects on the people who bring the used furniture or mattress home. They also easily spread to neighbors, friends, and relatives, costing them a lot in terms of money, time, and sleep.

Bed bugs also, it must be stressed, have a negative effect on the environment. The amount of plastic bags and pesticides involved in one bed bug infestation may well offset the environmental (and economic) benefits to those young professionals mentioned above, and other budding freegans.

Nevertheless, the Globe reports,

. . . none of this has put an end to Boston’s thriving underground free furniture industry.

Well, that’s kind of a shame.

Maybe, instead of “First come, first served,” the article should have been called, “First come, first bitten by bed bugs.”

Just a reminder to everyone in Boston: just because the item you find on the street does not have an orange bed bug warning sticker, does not mean it isn’t infested with bed bugs.

You can read the full article by Linda Matchan here.Similar Posts:

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Annie Rourke reported for News Channel 8 in New Haven on Thursday that residents of the Bella Vista complex in Elm City feel their management is not treating bed bugs aggressively enough.

New Haven (WTNH) — People living in one Elm City apartment complex say they have unwanted guests: bed bugs. And, they’re saying there’s not enough being done to get rid of them.

Residents say exterminators only do one apartment at a time and only when someone complains.

This piecemeal approach is entirely the wrong one where bed bugs are concerned. Pest Control Operators who know bed bugs tell us you need to inspect carefully, find bed bug harborages, and treat them aggressively.

All adjoining units (vertically and horizontally) — if not the entire building — must be inspected professionally by a PCO that knows bed bugs. And it’s an even better idea to treat those adjoining units even if bed bugs cannot be found.

News 8 spoke with a resident on the 7th floor of the Bella Vista:

“I had bites all over my arms, I was sitting on the sofa and one crawled on my leg and one crawled on my back,” Joanne Buccetti, of New Haven, said.

She got an inspection and treatment after she complained. Meanwhile,

Down on the 5th floor, the tenant’s place is so bad News Channel 8 was not allowed inside, even though the exterminator’s come repeatedly.

“Three times and three times they’re right back again,” Sal DeFelice, of New Haven, said.

Treating single apartments, only after residents complain about bed bugs, simply does not work. Units must be treated simultaneously, and repeat treatments must come in 10-14 days, until the problem is entirely cleared up.

You cannot wait for tenants to see bed bugs, since they can be hard to spot, and you can’t rely on reports of bed bug bites, since many people do not react to them. By the time the tenants realize they still have bed bugs, the number of bed bugs can have increased greatly. If treatment occurs every 10-14 days, you have a chance to nip hatching nymphs and other survivors in the bud.

Apartment building managers simply need to become educated about bed bugs. And pest control operators need to insist that proper protocols be used (including — at the bare minimum — inspections of all adjoining units before treatment begins).

Many PCOs who value their reputations already do insist on this, because the piecemeal treatment plan simply does not work to rid a building of bed bugs.

And many reputable PCOs will recommend even more is done. In a building like this, where tenants have been discarding infested furniture, searching horizontally and vertically adjacent units isn’t enough: you really need to have a pro search the entire building.

Why? Because some of that bedbug-infested refuse has no doubt been judged to look “just fine” and has been carried back from the curb or dumpster into other units as yet not known to be infested. It’s a pattern so common in multi-unit buildings that if I were a betting woman, I’d put money on the fact it was happening in the Bella Vista.

But don’t take my word for it: so would the Boston Inspectional Services Division. When they hand out a bed bug violation, they require landlords to inspect the entire building, and to treat all vertically and horizontally adjacent units; as their website states:

Our Standard bed bug notice of violation also requires that owners inspect all units in the dwelling, and they must treat all horizontally and vertically adjacent units to the infested unit(s).

That’s how you start to stop the spread of bed bugs in a multi-unit dwelling. That’s the start. Follow-up inspections and treatments will also be needed.

This is what a building like the Bella Vista needs: an aggressive bed bug treatment protocol. (That and education for tenants about how to avoid spreading the problem further.)

The Bella Vista is primarily a senior citizens’ building; how many of us want to think of our elderly relatives, or ourselves, with regular bed bug bites and no relief in sight?

You can read the full article from News 8 here.Similar Posts:

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The Hamilton Spectator reports on the spread of bed bugs in that Ontario city.

The story focuses on Lisa Courtney’s bed bug battle:

Courtney tossed out her bed, mattress and linens. CityHousing, Hamilton’s social housing agency, had her Cumberland Avenue apartment treated and life returned to normal.

But now, the bedbugs are back. Courtney’s anxiety has shot up with reports of three neighbours with the same problem.

“I’m psychotic now, because people down the hall have them, too,” she said.

Landlords need to learn that you can’t simply treat the unit of the person who complains about bed bug bites. You have to have all adjacent units (above, below, and on all sides) carefully inspected and treated if necessary.

Apartment managers would be advised to read this article from Techletter.com about dealing with bed bugs in the properties under their care.

Since bed bugs can be hard to detect, especially in the early stages of infestation, landlords may also consider that treating all adjacent units where bed bugs have not been found may be a good idea. The City of Boston’s Housing Division actually requires this when the Inspectional Services Department finds bed bugs in an apartment:

Our Standard bed bug notice of violation also requires that owners inspect all units in the dwelling, and they must treat all horizontally and vertically adjacent units to the infested unit(s).

Boston landlords treat adjacent units even if they turn up no visible signs of bed bugs.

You don’t know how often Bedbuggers tell us (often in the forums) both of the following: (a) I have had 4+ bed bug treatments and the problem persists, and (b) none of my neighbors have bed bugs. When pressed, people invariably say neighbors were “asked.” Since as many as 50% of people don’t react to bites, asking doesn’t do much. Many times, inspection also turns up nothing. And then a few months later, lo and behold, bed bugs are back.

You also don’t know how often I hear (often in discreet emails) about professionals eventually discovering the badly-infested unit, with so many bed bugs they’re falling from the walls in broad daylight — invariably a bed bug infestation later discovered in a building where some other poor soul thought they were the only ones infested. Sometimes neighbors don’t know they have bed bugs because they can’t see them.

Other times bed bugs are clearly visible, but residents don’t know what they are, or fear repercussions for bringing the problem to light, or are impaired in some way such that they cannot recognize the problem or act on it, or (in rare cases) they know and just don’t care (shudder).

The good news is Hamilton is taking bed bugs seriously:

Stan Yung, a Hamilton public health manager, says the city is already intervening. It has been tracking cases since 2005 and now has a new public education campaign.

(I look forward to hearing how they are tracking infestations.)Similar Posts:

• Residents at the Bella Vista apartments learn their building has bed bugs by watching the news