The intellectually challenged woman who had been part of our lives for the past two years exists in a complicated, yet porous social safety net. Living semi-independently, she has access to a support worker about four hours a week who helps with everything from shopping to doctor appointments to hygiene to money management to just talking with her on the phone when she’s lonely.

But this is a bed bug website, so you know where I am headed, right?

Yes, she got bed bugs.

Mohan noted how devastating bed bugs were to this woman:

It’s hard to give quality care for someone who has the mental development of a six-year-old in just four hours a week. When her apartment was overrun with bedbugs, all her belongings were thrown out without proper explanation to her. She had to start all over again, including relocating.

This bed bug case may have been mismanaged. In most instances, throwing everything out is not a good idea. It is not necessary, costs the resident a lot of money and heartache, and doesn’t actually solve the problem. It also can help spread the bed bugs to surrounding neighbors. Most PCOs we know don’t tell people to throw everything away, but instead treat mattresses and furniture, direct people to encase their mattress, and give instructions on how to wash and dry clothing, so most or all belongings can be saved.

To throw away a disabled person’s things without even explaining it to her is simply horrible.

Besides the need for thoughtful and proper bed bug treatment, this heartbreaking story also reminds us of the need for better emergency social services for people with bed bugs.

It is not just people with intellectual challenges, as this woman, who might need extra help with preparing for bed bug treatment. The elderly and physically challenged also need help with prep (decluttering, obtaining and fitting mattress encasements, washing and storing belongings, etc.).

Four hours a week of assistance might be reasonable for normal circumstances, but this woman needed a lot more help during her bed bug infestation. With proper assistance, this infestation would not probably have been so devastating.

• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again
• Vancouver public education forum on bed bugs is a start, but probably not enough
• Dumpster-diving tenant evicted after Winnipeg apartment seriously infested with bed bugs
• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)

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Toronto has had a serious bed bug problem for some time, just like New York, London, San Francisco, Vancouver–I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

The Toronto Star also has a journalist called Joe Fiorito who wrote extensively and repeatedly about how serious a problem bed bugs were, for everyone who gets them, but especially for the poor, the elderly, the disabled. You can see links to just some of Fiorito’s articles on my del.icio.us page. I mention Fiorito because I do not doubt for a moment the effects that good (or bad) journalism can have on public perceptions of the bed bug problem. In Fiorito’s case, the journalism was very good.

Then in November 12, 2007, Toronto City Councillor Paula Fletcher asked the Board of Health (of which she is a member) to take action on bed bugs. This is a PDF of her letter.

Fletcher wrote,

Traditionally Public Health officials consider and have categorized bed bugs as a nuisance because they do not carry and spread communicable diseases. However, ailments stemming from a bed bug infestation can range from secondary infections due to scratching to anxiety, embarrassment, and loss of sleep.

Moreover, residents who experience infestations are faced with considerable financial costs associated with fumigations as well as replacing furniture deemed to be unsalvageable.

Here is a politician who understands the bed bug problem. Clearly, she’s been listening to her constituents.

In the letter, Fletcher specifically asked the Board of Health to

• Review and report on the current procedures for bed bug inspection and control, including changing categorization of bed bugs as a public health ‘hazard’ and the harmonizing pest control under Municipal Licensing which currently deals with pest control relating to mice, cockroaches and termites
• Investigate and report back on a Bed-Bug Furniture Pick-up program
• Investigate and report back on North American best practices, including by-laws relating to sale and disposal of used furniture and mattresses
• [To provide an] Expansion of public education initiatives on measures, particularly to tenants, occupants of multi-residential units and users of shelters
• Report on the City’s regulatory authority to require action from property Owners, Operators of Hotels and Other Multi-unit dwellings including
  o Requirements for control and prevention, including pest control management plans included as part of landlord licensing requirements
  o Requirements for responding to complaints
  o Procedures for reporting to City officials
  o Treatment and control of bedbugs in hotel rooms
  o Guidelines for pest control companies
  o Responsibilities of tenants and homeowners

Fletcher noted that even though property owners are responsible for bed bug eradication, there is a need due to the “resilient and migratory nature” of bed bugs, for government agencies to re-examine their practices regarding the pest.

In response, Dr. David McKeown, the Toronto Medical Officer, unveiled a proposal for dealing with bed bugs last month. He asked the Board of Health to take action, outlined in this PDF.

McKeown’s report opened with a brief introductory paragraph, followed by this statement:

Bed bug infestations occur in all neighbourhoods and communities in the City and most households deal with the problem without assistance from the Municipality. This is not the case with the most vulnerable populations in our community. In recent months, Toronto Public Health has devoted significant resources to deal with severe infestations impacting on the health of the elderly, those living with physical and mental health issues and people living in poverty. This report is intended to focus primarily on strategies to ensure that vulnerable people get the assistance they need to lead independent, pest free lives.

The Medical Officer of Health’s made a series of proposals to the Board of Health (outlined in the same PDF) to deal with bed bugs.

The Board of Health then met on 2/26, and (as outlined in this PDF):

1. requested the Medical Officer of Health to establish an action committee comprised of city divisions, housing providers, health care organizations, social services, community groups, representatives of landlords and tenants, and other appropriate stakeholders to develop a comprehensive action plan to reduce bed bug infestations in the City of
Toronto with particular emphasis on vulnerable populations;

2. requested the Medical Officer of Health to report on the progress of the action committee within six months;

3. requested the government of Ontario to incorporate the issue of bed bug infestations in their poverty reduction strategy; and

4. referred all communications/submissions, and the following motions to the new Action Committee described in Recommendation 1:

Motion by Valerie Sterling:
“That Recommendation 1 be amended by adding the words “and in addition, consider broader public education and social marketing strategy to address the stigma associated with having bed bugs.”

Motion by Councillor Fletcher:
“That the Medical Officer of Health and TorontoPublic Health be requested to educate the medical community in identification of bed bug bites.”

This CBC article which was written in advance of the meeting notes that Toronto’s public health department surveyed PCOs about the increase in bed bug cases. This is the easiest way to get a realistic picture of the number of cases in a city, though of course those who self-treat will be left out.

Toronto Public Health surveyed 12 pest control companies in December 2007 and received six responses. All six reported an increase in numbers of inquires and calls related to bedbugs from 2006 to 2007. The majority of calls were in apartment buildings.

This was an informal check with just 12 companies. Remember the study done in Toronto in 2003? That year, every PCO reported every case of bed bugs in the city (well, theoretically, anyway). Most cases then were in single family homes. That might sound strange to some, since bed bugs are now a much bigger problem in apartment buildings, but it’s fully plausible.

Anyway, the Toronto officials know that if you want to know who has bed bugs in your city, you don’t simply rely on tracking official housing violations (as the New York government is trying to do) or official complaints to the Toronto Public Health Department. You ask the PCOs. Obviously, in this case this is just an informal inqury, not an official study (like the one in 2003). But the principle is the same.

A Toronto Sun article last December noted that the Toronto Public Health Department had gotten 160 calls about bed bugs in the first nine months of 2006. But Reg Ayre, the city’s Healthy Environments manager, said back then that anecdotal evidence from PCOs showed much higher incidence of bed bugs. One PCO claimed to be treating 1200 cases a year, another claimed to treat 400-600 a month (more on that below). You can read more about this here. (Sadly, I cannot link to the original article, since the Toronto Sun is holding out on us, so you’ll have to make do with the report I did on it in December.)

There were other documents associated with the Board of Health meeting, including several fact sheets and this: a PDF of a Toronto Community Housing proposal for dealing with bed bugs in public housing. (The key components, not surprisingly, are educating staff about bed bugs, educating tenants about bed bugs, getting both to cooperate, and using only qualified pest control contractors).

Bed bugs are clearly a problem that is far more serious than current Toronto Public Health data. The officials in Toronto are smart to recognize this. Here in New York, city officials seem happy to cite the number of bed bug cases in NYCHA public housing, or the NYCHPD housing violations for bed bugs, though it is obvious to us that these are just the tip of the iceberg.

The action we’re seeing in Toronto seems to stem in part from

• a vocal and forward-thinking city councillor taking up the cause of bed bugs,
• a persistent and talented journalist taking up the cause of bed bugs,
• a Board of Health willing to re-consider the definition of a “health hazard,”
• a Medical Officer of Health looking deeper into available bed bug statistics, and prioritizing the issue.

Doubtless, there are many more factors I can’t yet see. In any case, I am grateful for all those working to solve this problem in Toronto, and anywhere else.

I can’t overestimate how significant it is that Fletcher and the Board of Health were willing to consider bed bugs as having a significant effect on health. On February 26, other issues the Board of Health was dealing with included the provision of dental care to people on low incomes, and a plan for dealing with an inflenza pandemic. Deadly possibilities like an infleunza pandemic must be planned for, but we also need to deal with bed bugs, even if the health effects are not deadly.

I hope that cities which have not yet taken action will use the work being done elsewhere as a starting point. McKeown’s report, for example, cited what was being done to deal with bed bugs in Vancouver, and Hamilton (Ontario). Problems may vary from place to place, but the bed bug enemy is the same, and cities would do well to use the best practices beginning to be developed elsewhere as a starting point.

I look forward to hearing more from Toronto.

Many thanks to hopelessnomo for helping me think about this issue and for providing the location of the Board of Health’s document stash.

• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher has some progressive ideas about bed bugs
• Toronto Public Health now has a Bed Bug Action Committee. Action, people.
• New York vs. Bed Bugs: NYC is the underdog!

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Apparently there was at least one professional bed bug treatment a few weeks ago. But bed bugs have now apparently spread more widely.

According to this article from WBKO News on Thursday, one man thinks they started in his unit (though it would be interesting to know how he knows; people are often wrong about this):

“The bed bugs started in my apartment and was not dealt with right away and the bed bugs started migrating to other apartments on that side,” explains Bowling Green Towers Residents’ Association Vice President John Baize.

“From what I know, it’s on five different floors now,” adds Bowling Green Towers Residents’ Association President Debbie Bell. “I believe it started on the A tower and it spread four floors on that tower and then spread to B tower on one of the floors.”

I don’t know how many units are known to be infested today — it’s now three weeks after the first treatment — but Debbie Bell, President of the building’s Residents’ Association, told WBKO news (in a second article on Friday) that “five floors” are now infested and that every unit on those five floors is to be treated:

“With the bedbug issue, we are having exterminators come out on a regular basis, and they will be spraying all the apartments, all the affected floors,” Bell explains.

I hope they also pest control operators professionally inspect the floors above and below those five affected ones.

Apparently, the tenants’ group met with Kentucky Housing Corporation, which runs the building, between the times the two articles appeared on Thursday and Friday, according to these two sources.

No matter how many units on those five floors are now known to be infested with bed bugs, this seems like good progress, and a reminder that tenant organizing can go a long way towards getting real help from landlords.

The reporters said traditional methods did not work, but I suspect that what appears to have not worked in this case was that (a) spraying must be done repeatedly at approximately 2 week intervals until all bed bugs are gone, and (b) all affected units must be treated (and this requires all units adjacent to, above, or below affected units to be professionally inspected, in every bed bug case).

Thursday’s story also has associated video content.

• Bowling Green Towers: another infestation in elderly and disabled housing
• Another suit at Presidential Towers: this one focuses on landlord’s non-disclosure of neighbor’s bed bugs
• Bed bugs in Danbury, Connecticut senior housing
• After a fire, bed bugs “rain down from ceilings” into other apartments

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O’Farrell St., between Hyde and Leavonworth, San Francisco

Some exciting things are happening in California, and have been for some time. Since we’ve been giving a lot of love to Cincinnati lately, I wanted to fill you in on the California scene.

First, Bedbuggers should know have a friend in California: Dr. Laura Krueger. She’s the Associate Public Health Biologist in the Vector-Borne Disease Section of the California Dept. of Public Health. Laura has commented here a number of times, and has been reading the site for a while. She co-wrote the Guidelines for the Control and Prevention of Bed Bug Infestations in California (February 2007) (click here for a PDF). The California Bed Bug Guidelines were based, in turn, on other similar documents. A footnote tells us: “CDHS adapted these guidelines for bed bug control from the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the Australian Environmental Pest Managers Association.” (Click here for a PDF of the 2nd edition of the Australian Guidelines (June 2007; California based their guidelines on the first edition); the San Francisco Guidelines link is currently down.

The California Bed Bug Guidelines are just that: suggestions, a good plan, for how PCOs, and owners of hotels and multi-unit dwellings should work to prevent and control bed bugs. The Guidelines are not enforceable in and of themselves.

As an example, the Guidelines suggest that PCOs should come a minimum of three times, spaced two weeks apart; that hotel or apartment managers should respond to complaints of bed bugs within 48 hours with a plan of action (and that the plan of action should be executed within 72 hours of the complaint being made); and that tenants should should not remove anything from the infested room until the PCO comes and directs them.

I would argue that some aspects of the guidelines need to be revised. For example, one guideline states that tenants should report bed bugs to the owner or operator “within 24 hours of the pest sighting”. This seems like good advice, but many people are bitten by bed bugs for a long time without actually seeing a pest. PCOs and other professionals are still learning how very stealthy bed bugs can be.

Nevertheless, the Guidelines are impressive and I am grateful that the California Department of Health Services has compiled them.

There have also been some recent positive developments in California in terms of government funding to help those with bed bugs fight the problem. In San Francisco, as the second item down on this page of the Central City SRO Collaborative (CCSRO) website states,

The Central City SRO Collaborative organized with tenants and other community groups to demand funding for subsidies for low-income tenants. At the urging of this activist group, [City of San Francisco] Supervisor Chris Daly got $63,000 in this year’s budget for subsidized laundry and freezing services for low-income tenants with bedbug infestations, a huge public education campaign for tenants and landlords, and 2 annual forums–one for landlords/tenants and one for social service workers/tenants–that will teach public health code, bedbug cleanup, and tenant advocacy.

Let’s pause a moment and reflect on the historical context of this: the hearing happened three months before NYC held its city council hearing on the resale of mattresses (one which has not yet borne fruit), and a good 16 months before Cincinnati’s recent fabled town hall meeting on bed bugs.

This is a wonderful example of how a tenants activist group (CCSRO) helped pressure the city to take action and provide funding for bed bug remediation and public education campaigns. Of special note is that this funding covers assistance to tenants who cannot afford laundry and “freezing services” (love to hear more about where that’s done!) as part of treating their posessions.

And we have also learned that in San Francisco, the Department of Aging and Adult Services (part of Adult Protective Services) can assist, in some cases, with preparation for bed bug treatment for elderly people who have trouble doing this for themselves.

This is something that is much needed, and I hope the provision of such assistance–for elderly people and those with mobility issues–will increase here and everywhere else.

• Toronto Public Health now has a Bed Bug Action Committee. Action, people.
• New York vs. Bed Bugs: NYC is the underdog!
• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay
• Toronto Board of Health gearing up to fight bed bugs

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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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Rocky Mountain News Service has an article today by a journalist whose friend Steve is a quadriplegic living in Halcyon House, with bed bugs. It may be the worst thing I’ve read about bed bugs, period. The building has all kinds of other problems, which are horrific in themselves, but the bed bug problem is a particularly sinister one for the mostly disabled and elderly population housed there. And an alleged $15,000 of PCO treatments per month wasn’t cutting it.

The journalist, Tina Griego, describes paying her friend a visit after seeing the article the other day.

We find Steve in his usual spot, in bed. Hey, Dave says, scanning a note from management, you can’t use the emergency doors to get in and out of the building anymore.

I’ll make a note of that, Steve says. He’s paralyzed from the neck down, can’t feel a thing from his Adam’s apple south. Quadzilla, he calls himself. He turns on the lights, the fan, the television and stereo with a plastic straw. Puff or sip. With his breath, he controls his environment.

During the day, he has home health care aides. At night, he is alone. He was helpless when bedbugs infesting his building found his bed. He felt them crawling in his hair, on his neck, his face. He lay there and the bugs bit. It was like being stuck with pins, he says.

“I was scared,” he tells me and Dave. “I wanted a blowtorch. I wanted to die.”

It went on, some months worse than others, for a year and a half.

When you first encounter this story, you think, “Shame on the landlords!” as I did.

Maybe you read the story Dave was talking about. Halcyon House management was cited for failing to maintain pest control. The building has had bedbugs for years. The company, Urban Inc., said the owners, Maine- based American Housing Preservation Corp., ran into a cash shortage. The hearing was reset for next week so the owner’s lawyers could attend.

It’s the kind of story that had me wishing a judge would order the owners to live in the apartments themselves.

But as the discussion of the last post on Bedbugger about this issue suggests, getting rid of bed bugs in a high-rise takes a certain level of involvement–time, physical effort, and money–that these tenants may be unable to provide. Many younger people not dealing with physical conditions, and with more funds, are unwilling or unable to participate to the required level. Just imagine how much harder it is in this situation.

Urban’s managing director, Mark Shulman, acknowledges the Halcyon has problems and says the owners are working on them. He says the building “has faced some pretty serious financial needs” in the last two years and pest control ran the owners $15,000 a month. The owner cannot easily raise rents to cover rising costs because the building is taxpayer-subsidized.

Spraying resumed in mid-May on a twice-weekly schedule after nearly a month’s hiatus. Shulman says the owners also have been negotiating a rent increase with government agencies for more security. “We will have uniformed personnel in the building 2 4/7,” he says.

At the Colorado Housing and Financing Authority, spokesperson Kristine McLain also acknowledges “ongoing concerns” with the Halcyon and says her agency is working with the owners. “In a perfect world, you close down the building,” she says, “but . . .

We finish the sentence at the same time: “. . . where would the tenants go?”

Dave and I visited Steve on Tuesday, a spraying day. He didn’t answer his intercom to buzz us in, so we walked in the way most people do, slipping past a departing tenant. The lobby was empty save for a resident who shot us a disapproving look. We signed in on a clipboard outside the closed office.

Steve was in good spirits. Someone sprayed his room a few weeks ago, and it’s made a difference. He’s also regularly dousing his bed, which has a vinyl mattress, with Real-kill bug killer.

“The whole thing took a lot out of me,” he said. “But I consider myself one of the lucky ones in the building. Some people here can’t communicate at all. Think about them.”

He told us to make sure and check our clothes after we left. “Bedbugs like to burrow in fabric.”

That night, I imagined I felt bugs in my hair. My arms itched. I thought a lot about Steve.

I am still angry at the landlords. But I also think the government should be stepping in. Someone has to do something. This is such a shameful situation–and I am talking about only the bed bugs, but all the other hazards to their physical safety that these tenants are having to put up with. Doesn’t anyone enforce housing codes? Not having working elevators in this place is a serious safety violation, since people can’t get out in an emergency.

• More bad news about Denver’s bed bug-infested Halcyon House
• 25 Grant Street in Denver, Colorado: bed bugs for two years
• More bed bugs in Nashua, NH: rooming-house tenant goes to court
• Denver’s elderly, disabled, fight bed bug Shaq attack

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Elderly, disabled fight filth, bedbugs

Court case drags on as residents cope with filthy building

By Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News
June 15, 2007

“This is never going to end,” Kevin Grimsinger said as he exited a Denver courtroom in his wheelchair Thursday.

The 39-year-old, who lost his legs to a land mine while serving in the U.S. Army in Kosovo, and his fellow residents at a downtown affordable housing building have wrangled with corporations as their rooms became infested with bedbugs and trash collection was interrupted because contractors weren’t paid.

For almost a year, the elderly and disabled residents of Halcyon House have been left wondering who is responsible - Urban Inc., the Greenwood Village management company, or American Housing Preservation Corp., the Maine-based company that owns the building at 1955 Arapahoe St.

They were hoping for some answers Thursday when the manager of Urban Inc. appeared in court after being cited by the city for lack of pest control. But the case was continued until June 28, so an attorney representing the building’s owner can be present.

“It’s just like a continuous running circle,” said Grimsinger as he maneuvered his wheelchair down a narrow hallway of Denver Environmental Court.

In the meantime, the Denver Department of Environmental Health may issue additional citations to Halcyon House’s owners for unsanitary conditions, said Bob McDonald, division supervisor for Public Health Inspection.

Actually, it’s been 16 months so far (read on). And here we see another variation on the blame game: this time the question of who pays for treatment. It sounds like this kept things tied up while bed bugs bred and the problem spread.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which subsidizes 70 percent of the residents’ rent, knows about the bedbug problem, said Marcie LaPorte, director of the Denver Multifamily Hub.

“A worse-case scenario would be to not pay the subsidy part of the rent, but we would like to do everything we can before it gets to that point,” LaPorte said.

Cutting off the subsidy would only worsen the situation because there would be less money for the upkeep of the building, said Cris White, chief operating officer at the Colorado Housing and Financing Authority, which ensures residents qualify for the assistance.

Mark Shulman, managing director of Urban Inc., said the “challenges at the Halcyon House are many.”

Chief among them is the widespread bedbug infestation, which prompted the city to take the matter to court.

“There was simply no funds for which to pay” the pest-control company, Shulman said. The company that owns the building stopped providing the money in late April, he added.

American Housing Protection Corp. did not a return a call for comment Thursday.

Denver Environmental Health officials said Urban Inc. resumed pest-control operations after they were cited May 14. But since bedbugs can never be completely eradicated, the spraying has to continue indefinitely to keep them under control.

Grimsinger said if things don’t improve, residents will picket in front of their building.

“We deserve the same treatment as anybody else in this city,” he said.

To say that “since bedbugs can never be completely eradicated, the spraying has to continue indefinitely to keep them under control” is not accurate in itself. Bed bugs can be eliminated from an entire building. To do so using routine sprayings is very difficult. It may have been possible to eradicate them using traditional methods (sprays and dusts) if the PCO had known what they were doing and treated aggressively enough and regularly enough and had the residents been educated about the process and the do’s and don’ts. At this point, the building may need to be treated with Vikane gas (if this is legal in Denver). If Vikane is not legal there, perhaps thermal treatment is possible.

To make matters more interesting, here’s a tidbit the article leaves out. Back in August, the Denver Post reported that this affordable housing building is owned by a group of investors (American Housing Preservation Corp) that includes Shaquille O’Neal.

In August 2006, the Denver Post also said:

Eric Pusch, a resident who uses a wheelchair, said it is “such a tragedy to wake up in the middle of the night and briefly turn on my television and, from the light of the television, I can see the bugs swarming all over the pillow next to me. I might reach over and try to brush them off or smash them, and a blood spot is left.”

Ellen Dumm, spokeswoman for the city’s department of environmental health, called the company cooperative and said the owner has been using an extermination company to get rid of the bugs.

Mark Shulman of the Greenwood Village-based property-management company Urban Inc. said the level of treatment the company has been maintaining is “status quo,” but it became apparent last week that it needed to eradicate the bugs and move to another level of treatment.

Shulman said the owners are pursuing an aggressive treatment proposal, going apartment by apartment this week, evacuating and treating entire floors.

“We recognize the problem,” Shulman said.

Efforts to reach O’Neal through his agent or the Miami Heat basketball team were not successful.

Either the problem was “recognized” too late, or the treatment was not aggressive enough. For whatever reasons, all in all, these people have had bed bugs since February 2006 (16 months), and the disabled residents are now living with more bed bugs than ever.

Yeah, yeah, I realize it’s complicated. But still.

Shame on the owners, and the city, for not making this right. Shame on the US government, too, for not seeing this as a problem for which they need to fund solutions. Because we are going to see this more and more: whatever the situation was in this case, there will be homeowners and landlords who can’t pay for treatment, or can’t pay for effective treatment. We can’t let people live with bed bugs indefinitely. And here’s the thing, the more people living with bed bugs, because of nonexistent or poor treatment, the more people will get bed bugs. They spread. Lawmakers and people who can take care of their own pest control costs may shake their heads and say, “too bad.” But it is not someone else’s problem, it is everyone’s problem. They will spread to anyone. We all have much more contact with one another on a daily basis than some of us would like to admit.

A warning to those who shake their heads and sigh, “Not my problem”: if you let poor people live with bed bugs, then bed bugs will, eventually, appear in your bed, to quite literally bite you in the ass.

• More bad news about Denver’s bed bug-infested Halcyon House
• More bed bugs in Nashua, NH: rooming-house tenant goes to court
• 25 Grant Street in Denver, Colorado: bed bugs for two years
• More on Denver’s Halcyon House and bed bugs

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