State Senators and Hudson County Democratic Assembly Members were already working on changing the laws in New Jersey so that landlords could not pass on bed bug extermination costs to tenants.

Now Jersey City politicians are trying to make the same change on the city level, ASAP. The Jersey Journal reported Wednesday via NJ.com:

The Jersey City City Council plans to introduce an ordinance sponsored by Downtown Councilman Steven Fulop [Wednesday night] that puts the financial burden for eradicating bedbugs and other annoying critters solely on landlords.

Fulop is pushing “a model the state can imitate.”

Unfortunately, the model introduced Wednesday night is not one the state should emulate.

A report from the Jersey Journal on Friday clarified the proposed legislation would require landlords to do one treatment and one follow-up treatment per year:

Sponsored by Downtown Councilman Steven Fulop, the ordinance says that landlords are not responsible for undertaking more than one treatment and follow-up treatment per year.

“If repeated treatments are necessary or if the extermination is due to the tenant’s failure to properly maintain the dwelling, the costs can be charged to the tenant,” according to the ordinance, which is up for final adoption in two weeks.

This is illogical. If a unit needs more than two treatments it can be because all bed bugs present were not eliminated in two treatments. It does not necessarily mean the tenant was uncooperative.

We’re told most bed bug infestations take three or more treatments spaced 10-14 days apart to clear, but the length of time it takes to eradicate bed bugs may depend on the skills and knowledge of the PCO, whether neighbors are infested (knowingly or not), how long the bed bugs have been established in the unit, and how far they have spread within it, among other factors.

In short, there is no rule that even careful simultaneous treatment of all properly-prepped infested units in a building will eliminate bed bugs in two visits. I believe that if bed bug experts are consulted on this legislation, they will be able to correct that idea pretty swiftly.

If this legislation goes through, bed bug problems will likely be more persistent, because some tenants who’ve had the problem spring back after their quota of two treatments will be reluctant to report them (because they can’t pay for treatment), and the problem will move around the building.

Instead, if landlords pay to eradicate bed bugs from any units they’re present in, the problem has a chance of being stomped out in a building, rather than spreading endlessly.

I know landlords also do not cause this problem, and am all in favor of government assistance for landlords for whom bed bug infestations cause a hardship. But blaming tenants for any infestations that are not eliminated in two treatments is illogical.

Update (9/25/2008):

Fulop’s proposed ordinance passed in the Jersey City Council last night. This is too bad.

Now units needing more than two treatments will probably not get them.

This shows what can happen when those passing laws do not understand what they’re talking about. Any bed bug expert could tell you that just because an infestation requires more than two treatments does not mean the tenants are necessarily at fault.

And no, I don’t think landlords are necessarily at fault either. But I don’t think landlords or fellow tenants are best served by a system in which tenants have a financial disincentive to reporting their bed bugs.

Bed bugs can be remarkably persistent, neighbors can have no reaction to bites and not know they have bed bugs or are sending them through the walls; it’s a complicated problem.

I hope the NJ Assembly is able to pass their bill.Similar Posts:

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Today’s bed bug news:

• CBBC Newsround | UK | Look out, there are bedbugs about How to scare the children, from the Children’s BBC. Remember it was just a few years ago when the CBBC thought bed bugs were the same as dust mites. We’ve come a long way, babies.
• San Jose Mercury News – Action Line: The bedbugs are biting at tenants’ apartments
  San Jose Mercury News tenants’ Q and A thinks rental insurance may sometimes pay for bed bug-related expenses (or landlord’s insurance, or PCO’s insurance). We had heard from readers renter’s insurance never covered this. Would love to be proven wrong.
• Scabies? Malaria? Chagas? Tapeworm? Bee Attack? Rat Bite? Rabies? Bedbugs? Hantavirus? Snake Attack?
  “The producers of ‘The Deadliest Catch’ and ‘Ice Road Truckers’ are producing a new show for Discovery Channel and are looking for all types of unique and interesting tales of and disease and infestation… We can’t wait to hear yours!” Seriously, they consider your bed bug story (or, indeed, your scabies story) to be on par with these other horrors. Click the link above to audition, and be glad you did not have rabies.

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According to Channel 12 WKRC in Cincinnati (doesn’t Howard Hesseman work there?), residents at the Hillrise Apartment building, which is owned by Cincinnati Business & Professional Women’s Retirement Living Incorporated, are suffering from various issues including bed bugs.

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

“Mostly bugs, roaches and all that…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Channel 12 reports,

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

I love the Cincinnati Health Department. But you knew that.Similar Posts:

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Bed bug news, even the important stuff that can make a difference, is often considered unimportant, and squeezed into a paragraph under the bottom of an article on something else.

NJ.com reported Friday that in Freehold, NJ,

Keith Hamilton said that bedbugs have returned to some local social-service facilities and asked if the county can make money available to help smaller organization exterminate them. Hamilton said his employer, SERV Behavioral Health System Inc., must spend $200,000 to exterminate the insects at one facility after they were brought in by someone who stayed at another facility.

Hamilton said the extermination costs may be too much for smaller organizations. He noted that bedbugs can return after exterminations if they continue to live in other local facilities. Mair said county legal staff would review the county’s options.

That’s all they wrote. And you have to scroll right down under the article on fireworks to read it.

But it’s important news. Governments will have to assist both social service agencies–and, in my opinion, landlords and homeowners–because otherwise, bed bugs will continue to spread at an alarming rate.

And remember, an infested social service facility does not just spread bed bugs to other facilities (via clients who move around). It spreads them to workers and their families.

I am not sure if what kinds of facilities are included in SERV’s work, but consider this: when people who are homeless, or in need of a detox center (or in need of health care of other kinds) hear that the facilities are infested with bed bugs, they are less inclined to seek assistance there. This means, for example, more homeless people sleeping out, at greater physical danger to themselves, or people who need mental health or drug treatment services staying away from treatment. It hurts them, and it affects everyone else.

Remember, with bed bugs, we’re living in a matrix, a web. We’re all interconnected and the bed bugs are going to show just how closely, by moving from one place to another. If we don’t make sure everyone can pay to have their bed bugs eradicated, more and more of us will end up becoming infested.Similar Posts:

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