. . . 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.

• Tenants claim Manitoba Housing knowingly let someone move bed bug-infested items into building
• 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

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Vancouver | Homes Not Games

Originally uploaded by ardenstreet

Graffiti from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Remember VANDU? They’re the grassroots community group in Vancouver that got a grant and implemented a plan to help fight bed bugs in Vancouver’s beleaguered Downtown Eastside.

Well, they’re back at it, this time as one of the sponsors of this weekend’s Poverty Olympics (along with Raise the Rates, DTES Neighbourhood House, CCAP, BC PWA, and Streams of Justice).

And this is no joke. According to a press release, the organizers couldn’t be more serious about highlighting poverty and homelessness in the city that will roll out the red carpets for the Winter Olympics in 2010:

“When people visit Vancouver in 2010, they will be treated to eye-popping scenery, efficient services, and relaxed and friendly residents,” says Wendy Pedersen of Carnegie Community Action Project. “But they’ll also be treated to a city that could have more homeless people than athletes competing in the 2010 Games.”

“We want the world to know that Vancouver and BC have world class levels of poverty and homelessness,” says Jean Swanson of the Raise the Rates Coalition. “More than 2,000 people in our city are homeless today. Many are so poor they have to search through the garbage for food and things to sell.”

The Province online reports that volunteers are drawing attention to the problems faced by residents in the city. Organizers have come up with some appropriate mascots:

Itchy the Bedbug, Creepy the Cockroach and Chewy the Rat will be front and centre as the mascots at the Downtown Eastside’s Poverty Olympics at the Carnegie Centre on Sunday.

My money’s on itchy, if the rat doesn’t eat the other contestants. What’s in store on Sunday?

Ten torch carriers will run a two-block relay down East Hastings, said organizer Wendy Pedersen, before a five-metre-high “End Poverty Torch” is lit to mark the opening ceremonies.

Other events in the Poverty Olympics will include “the long jump over the bug-infested mattress,” “the poverty-line high jump” and the “welfare hurdles.”

“We have world-class poverty and homelessness in Vancouver” said Pedersen. “It’s a fun way to send a serious message.”

And perhaps fun is the best way to get their message across to more people.

I wish I had a photo of Itchy the Bed Bug.

View the Poverty Olympics poster (and find out how to attend!)

Read more about the Poverty Olympics here.

• Vancouver Downtown Eastside Residents ask politicians to swap homes with them
• Vancouver official blames hanky-panky for bed bugs in nice areas
• And another ray of hope from Vancouver’s VANDU
• Behold, friends, an animated bed bug comic

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She wants the health department to investigate whether they’re a health hazard:

Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) has received so many calls from constituents she’s asked the health department to declare them a health hazard. Last month, Fletcher met with Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health. It was decided the Board of Health would issue a report in February on what should be done about bedbugs in the city and whether they should be declared a health hazard.

Here’s a hint, Toronto: stress, anxiety, loss of sleep, are all health issues. You need look no further. Something more sinister is clearly a possibility, but these other concerns are not to be taken lightly.

Next, Fletcher wants people to talk about how to get rid of bed bugs, and prevent their spread:

In the meantime, says Fletcher, “We will have a bedbug summit with all the people who are interested in and involved in this issue.” Fletcher is advocating the city address the problem with education, not enforcement.

“Some people said they were living beside a house and the bugs were travelling from the house or apartment next door,” she said. “I’d like to see a focus on what needs to change in terms of behaviours; what do you need to do to stop bringing them in and what do you need to do to get rid of the bedbugs.”

This is all familiar ground for us.

Fletcher seems a bit distracted by the idea that bed bugs primarily affect a certain region of Toronto:

The bedbug problem seems to be concentrated in areas south of Bloor Street, says Fletcher.

“They might be north of Bloor, but the infestations and pockets are definitely south of Bloor. Right now tracking them is not a requirement but that’s one thing we’re looking at is how are we going to track and where are we finding them?”

While they may be more common in certain neighborhoods (and certainly spread more easily to those next door than to those across town), they will spread anywhere, and are certainly moving in all directions. And not just from neighbor to neighbor, but to workplaces, co-workers, people who frequent the same gyms, doctors, schools, and shops. Public transportation is likely to be affected. (David Cain tells stories of encountering this situation in London.)
Fletcher mentions the concern of people bringing in used furniture, and getting them to not do so is a public education issue. But her ideas about eradication methods are quite progressive:

“Sometimes people are bringing bedbugs into a whole building inadvertently and they are travelling unit-to-unit. I’d like to see a model where there are teams of people who go into a building to assist and not simply spraying, but cleaning, washing, getting rid of them and then when the spraying happens, you have a better chance to eradicate them.”

The article also quotes PCO and bed bug dog handler Michael Goldman of Purity Pest Control, who claims that “most hotels” have bed bugs, at least in one room. This is a far cry from the claims made by other companies.

The article also concerns itself with the need for notification of other tenants when bed bugs are found in a building.

Unlike schools that send home letters when lice are found in a school, superintendents rarely post a notice saying bedbugs were a problem in a unit, says Fletcher.

Finally, there’s a nod to Vancouver, which has some of the more progressive bed bug-fighting protocols in place (though we rarely get details of them).

Vancouver has launched one of the best pilot projects in its downtown east side as the city prepares for the 2010 Winter Olympics. “They’re vigorously trying to figure out what to do with bedbugs and they have a program set up but it’s very labour-intensive.”

The Vancouver pilot included tenant and landlord education, public education workshops, pest control and development of a health and safety protocol.

I hope politicians in New York City and other US cities with bed bugs (from Boston to Cincinnati) will take note, and that they’ll trade notes with their counterparts in other cities, from San Francisco to Toronto and Vancouver.

The number one complaint I’ve heard now from professionals (entomologists and PCOs) in several cities is that their local politicians will not listen to those with bed bug experience. This is a grave mistake.

Though it is not explicitly mentioned here, it’s clear Paula Fletcher is listening.

However, there was one small problem. This:

“The chemical approach isn’t necessarily the only way or best way to go. It’s one piece of a bigger puzzle,” says Fletcher, who would like the city to help people control bedbugs. “What people have to learn is that to control bedbugs they must become good at cleaning their bedding. People have to be taught how to do that.”

People do not get bed bugs, nor do bed bugs persist, because people do not know how to clean their bedding.

Reminds me of  when the chief medical health officer in Vancouver, John Blatherwick, implied bed bugs were spreading in Vancouver due to hanky panky in downtown eastside hotels.  Doing or not doing “naughty things” had no bearing on the spread of bed bugs.  What is it with politicians and their weird ideas?

Read the rest of the article here.

• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Reg Ayre of Toronto Public Health: bed bugs a “health concern,” not a “health hazard”
• Toronto Board of Health gearing up to fight bed bugs
• Vancouver official blames hanky-panky for bed bugs in nice areas

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Advocacy group fights bed bug outbreak

VANCOUVER - Community advocacy group the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users VANDU is trying to fight a massive outbreak of bedbugs in that city’s Downtown Eastside by gutting infested rooms.

The group’s Anne Livingston says residents have had six weeks notice to decide what to do with their possesions.

After the rooms are gutted, crews move in to spray with powerful chemicals to kill the bed bugs.
Livingston says residents get to bring 60 pounds of clothing out of their apartments that will be laundered and returned to them.

Anne Livingston and VANDU were mentioned here in a post in March. Last summer, they got a $51,000 government grant to provide a round of 2 PCO treatments for bed bugs in two badly infested Downtown Eastside hotels. The residents also got replacement furniture and beds.

The city commissioned a study which said 1/2 of those rooms were bed bug free two months later.

Although the funding was probably was not enough treatment to achieve a higher success rate (which would likely require more PCO visits in many cases), the VANDU activisits definitely know what they’re doing. Back in March, we quoted an article in which Livingston said,

“You really need to create a system whereby you can knock on the door, get a room prepped, get the spray guys in and come back in 10 days and do it again,” said Livingston.

“And then, the real project is to not have people pulling bedbug-infested garbage out of the alley into another place. This creates constant reinfection. So that’s why it needs to be a neighbourhood campaign.”

Livingstone said bedbugs are a growing problem everywhere in Vancouver, and trying to get rid of them in the city’s poorest neighbourhood is money well spent.

Education, as we keep saying, is key–for residents of every treated building, I might add, whether it’s an SRO hotel, an expensive NYC co-op apartment building, a tenement, or a homeless shelter. (Remember, I live in NYC, where well-to-do professionals shop at bohemian flea markets, and yuppies take used furniture off the curb.)

I applaud the work of Livingston and the other folks at VANDU. I know with more funding and support, they will be able to continue to make a huge difference in peoples’ lives.

I hate that community activists like VANDU and the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston have to step in, since I think we need more infrastructure and government assistance helping people get good bed bug treatment and supplies they need (from XL ziplocs to furniture). Both of these groups have had government funding, which is great. I just think they probably need a lot more.

And is anyone in NYC or San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto, or anywhere else doing similar work? We’d love to hear about it.

• Vancouver community activists urge city to pay for bed bug eradication
• Government money needed to help people pay for bed bug treatment
• 80% of Single Room Occupancy units in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are infested with bed bugs; also Rensselaer Polytechnic’s dorms
• Itchy the Bed Bug: an Olympic Mascot for Vancouver

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From Vancouver 24 Hours:

The majority of low- income single-occupant rooms in the Downtown Eastside are infested with bed bugs, according to a report from the City of Vancouver. Environmental health officers inspected 3,100 DTES hotel rooms and found 80 per cent had bed bugs. The city hopes to expand a small pilot project educating residents and hotel owners about the critters.

This refers to the story we featured yesterday, though I don’t think we had that statistic on how many rooms were inspected and what percentage of them infested.

Also a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute dorm is infested, as the Polytechnic Online reports:

Overall, fourteen students were affected by the bed bugs and had to be relocated temporarily while their rooms were sprayed down. The three rooms directly affected were fumigated on March 15 and 16, while the other rooms were sprayed on March 19, because there were students with exams and it was more convenient to wait for the precautionary measures, according to Jerry Faiola, Director of Environmental and Site Services. Six rooms were fumigated on the third level of the building as were all of the second floor rooms. All the rooms were also marked with signs explaining what was happening.

The students had to bag all their clothes and have them cleaned in hot water, as well as move all their belongings into storage, so that the fumigator could get into the baseboards and other crevices easily. Two of the beds in the nine rooms fumigated were discarded because the drawers on the bottom served as a harbor for the bed bugs.

Students were relocated to other areas on campus, or moved in with friends for the few days they weren’t allowed in the rooms. “It was just better that we dealt with the other rooms now rather than have something happen during finals, or a time when it would be really inconvenient,” said Diodato.

The article says the PCO inspected units above and below (though does not mention whether there were any units on the side, which also should be carefully inspected). In any case, I hope they will follow up with inspections and further treatment, since one professional treatment is almost never enough.

• Bed bugs at Berkeley will be treated with… say what?
• Ryerson University: a study in unenthusiastic bed bug control practices
• Bed bugs in Grand Forks, North Dakota public housing
• Boston University’s bed bugs: if we don’t talk about them, they’ll go away

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