The Charlotte-area United Family Services domestic violence shelter has evacuated its residents to “a safe place” in order to battle a recent infestation of bedbugs, said Libby McLaughlin, vice president of development and communication. The staff anticipates reopening the shelter in two to three weeks.

But the move has added to the difficulties the women face, which include other time constraints. Shelter rules dictate that, upon arrival, residents have 30 days to find a job and another place to stay.

The bites and rashes from the bedbugs have made it hard for some women to find a job. And the medicine given to fight the itching, such as steroids or Benadryl, has triggered the addictions of some women with substance abuse problems.

“People are saying to go back home,” said one anonymous shelter resident. “I don’t have that option, because I’m not going back home.”

One would hope that the normal rules of the shelter would be adapted during such a crisis.

While removed from much more dangerous situations in their homes, these women have still been suffering from a lesser kind of “domestic crisis.” It’s a lot to expect for women who may be losing a lot of sleep and suffering from stress, visible bed bug bites, and itching (which can be quite uncomfortable) to find new jobs and a new home within thirty days.

We’ve previously reported on another Charlotte shelter, the Salvation Army women’s shelter, which houses homeless women, and which has been battling bed bugs off and on for nearly a year. The Salvation Army has apparently spent $50,000 in the last few weeks on renovations aimed at eliminating their bed bug problems.

Meanwhile, the United Family Services shelter has invested in new flooring, mattresses and bedding. It has also purchased a new dryer and new metal frame beds. (It is not mentioned in the article, but I hope they are getting good, aggressive pest control treatment as well.)

Local public health officials stress bed bugs are not a health problem,

“This is not a public health pest,” said Lynn Lathan, environmental health supervisor for the Mecklenburg County Health Department. “They’re annoying, but not transmitting disease.”

However, I personally think that a condition which can cause serious skin irritation, visible welts all over your face and body, other allergic reactions, anxiety and loss of sleep is a health concern.

Nevertheless, the women at United Family Services have worse threats to worry about:

For women in the United Family Services shelter, there’s a choice: Face the bugs in the shelter, or face abuse at home.

“I have a choice of going back to my husband and getting punched in the eye or getting eaten by bugs,” said one anonymous shelter resident.

We can only hope things are better for these women soon.

• Bed bug news round-up: South Jersey apartment complex; Charlotte, North Carolina Salvation Army shelter
• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again
• bed bug news for 2007-11-13
• Bed bugs usually plague a city for a few weeks before being eradicated. Really, Waterbury Health Department?

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Ironically, when these men have made the choice to leave homelessness behind, they’re made to live in housing that makes the street look attractive.  (This is a problem elsewhere too.)

There have been rat droppings on the old, musty carpet and frequent mouse sightings near holes in the pocked, plaster walls. For months, exterminators have fought an infestation of bedbugs, which left at least one client with bite marks so bad he was treated at a hospital. Watermarks stain the aging ceiling, and some window frames are so old and ill-fitting that duct tape was used to stop drafts. In bathrooms, many of the urinals, toilets, and sinks are out of order.

Officials at the Cardinal Medeiros Transitional Program say they have complained about the conditions for years, but they contend that the YMCA Greater Boston, their landlord in the century-old building on Huntington Avenue, has ignored them while investing in top-of-the-line equipment for its gym. They accuse the Y of neglecting the 63 formerly homeless men who live there after an effort to terminate the program’s lease failed four years ago.

Now, program officials are threatening to withhold state lease payments to cover the cost of renovations, which they estimate could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Click here to read the rest of this Boston Globe story.

• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• A tale of another city: Monticello, NY low-income tenants 1, slumlord 0
• Homeless people wandering streets, refusing to stay in infested homeless shelter
• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay

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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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The week before Christmas and raining, to boot, some 14 families were tipped out of a Ventura inn because of electrical hazards and an infestation of bedbugs.

— Richard Neal, his fiancée and her mother with late-stage lung cancer.

— William and Tina Kirkpatrick and their two children, 7 and 5.

— Franchine Ivans, Steve Jordan and their four children.

They are among the approximately 40 people — including about 15 children — staying in the 37-room Travelers Beach Inn told 4 p.m. Tuesday by the county Building and Safety and Health divisions that they would have to leave until the motel’s problems are fixed. It is not known when the motel might reopen, as reported by Star reporter Kevin Clerici in his Wednesday article, “Bedbugs, electrical issues force tenants from motel.”

Tenants at Travelers Beach Inn, 929 E. Thompson Blvd., pay $275 weekly rent. Although it is more costly than renting a small apartment, many can’t afford to pay first- and last month’s rent.

Whoever you are, whatever the state of your bank account, bed bugs are a burden. But they seriously worsen the already bad conditions many are living under. In this case, people who can barely make their current rent are temporarily displaced, with no means of moving to a new home.

We hear time and again of people with serious illnesses, disabilities, infirmities related to age, Alzheimer’s disease, single parents, parents of small children–all facing bed bugs. Their battle with bed bugs is not easy, or quick. If you think it’s hard for young, healthy professionals like Nicholas Brown, consider how bad it can be when the deck is stacked against you.

When people say “it’s just a bug”–well, yeah. I get that. But it can seriously wipe many people out financially, energy-wise, timewise.

We need bed bugs to be taken seriously, and for motels and other establishments to be proactive in identifying and treating problems–and educating residents about how to spot and prevent bed bugs.

And we need the government, as well as private industry, to take responsibility. Not just for shutting things down when codes are violated. But for helping avoid such drastic measures in the first place.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. The Christmas story is about a couple with no where to sleep and a baby on the way. I’ll be thinking about those homeless Travelers Beach Inn residents on Christmas.

Update (1/12/2008):

This article  says the Traveler’s Beach Inn has reopened, “pest-free” and with the other repairs done:

The motel also was thoroughly fumigated, and a health inspector says it is now free of bedbugs.

It is unclear whether the motel was actually fumigated with vikane gas, which has a high success rate as a one-off treatment (we’re told), or whether “fumigation”
is being used as a shorthand for pest control spray treatments, which often require many follow-ups.  I am not sure how well this works when people are not present.  (We do know that in serious infestations, when inspectors or others come in after the room has been vacant, bed bugs often appear, in daylight, looking for food.)

Perhaps soon housing inspectors will take advantage of bed bug dogs as an aid to doing visual bed bug inspections?

• entomologists podcasting; bed bugs and disease; another bedbugged motel closed; Singapore, Hawai’i
• Bed Bugs and Christmas
• Spring break bed bug warnings!
• Bed Bugs in Hampton Roads, Virginia hotels

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• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16

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First, this item from NJ.com about an infested building South Jersey (Jamestown Square in Blackwood, NJ) makes me wonder: what if there was a newspaper item for every single infested building in New York?!? The New York Times would have to use a 4-point font. That’s the second bed bug infestation reported on NJ.com today.

Then there’s the Salvation Army Women’s Shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina, as reported by News 14. (Click the link at top right to watch the video.) The shelter houses 300 women and they’re busy “cleaning” and coating wooden bunk beds in polyurethene to seal cracks. They are instituting new rules about washing clothes frequently and not bringing in lots of stuff. But let’s hope they get a good PCO treating every two weeks until they are completely gone, because no amount of cleaning or sealing alone will do the trick.

• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• FAQ: dry cleaners and bed bugs

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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.

• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay
• Tampa Bay mental health facility closed for bed bug treatment
• Nova Scotia home help nurses stop visiting client with bed bugs
• Bed bugs & tenant organizing: don’t take this lying down

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“What are we going to do? Strip everyone down and make them take a shower before we let them in the shelter?” asks Diane Keay of the Salt Lake County Health Department. “I don’t think we’re going to go there. So I don’t know how to prevent re-infestation.”

What might help? Well, look at the video: they’re using wooden bunk beds, and the video shows uncovered mattresses. Metal beds encased in strong bedbug-proof casings would be a start. But let’s be honest, there’s no way to keep bed bugs out of shelters without sealing up the posessions of overnight guests, requiring showers, and washing and drying their clothes on hot. Those requirements are likely to drive lots of homeless people away.

Note to people who don’t get the “media hype”:

• the firefighters closed down their station for months
• they had what was described as “dozens” of bed bugs in the station, and
• one firefighter woke up with “over forty bites” and was “freaking out about it”; his captain sent him for medical treatment.

Hmm, if men and women who are among our bravest (and often strongest) civilians can be terrorized by these little insects, perhaps they are distressing.

Note to people who ignore the poor who live in substandard housing or homeless shelters: you can’t allow some members of our society to live with bed bugs, unless you want to live with bed bugs. We really are living in a matrix; we are all connected. This is our problem, whether it’s entered our baseboards and mattresses, or not.

This article, from the Salt Lake City Tribune, ups the ante, blaming not only the homeless shelter but also immigrants (in general) for the rise of bed bugs. Yes, we’ve heard that before. But immigrants were flocking to our shores from countries with bed bugs during the three decades when bed bugs were all but completely eradicated in North America. Why did immigrants suddenly begin bringing in bed bugs around 1999? There’s more to the story than that– changes in pesticide use are also a factor, I am sure. But it is still mysterious, and I am still perplexed.

• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Salt Lake City Tribune on bed bugs: they don’t quite get it yet
• More on bed bugs at the Montana Rescue Mission in Billings
• Bed bugs from Saskatoon to Salt Lake City

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Now, the Edmonton Journal is reporting that some tenants who claim to have complied with the preparations for bed bug treatment in their building were nevertheless evicted.

Capital Health says it was unable to successfully fumigate a number of suites at Virginia Arms, 10615 107th St., three times because some residents refused to clear everything out — including clothing and furniture — as required.

The company that owns the building is saying enough is enough, but some of the residents who claim they were complying say they, too, are being forced out.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” said a resident who asked not to be named. “We let them in and they sprayed, but now they say get out. It doesn’t make sense.”

If this is true, it sounds like some of the residents were compliant and the landlord just wanted an excuse to evict them.

And at least one resident did not fully comply because his health condition meant he could not move his own furniture:

Evicted resident James Whieldon said he tried his best to prepare his suite for the exterminators, but because of a heart condition he cannot lift heavy objects.

“Since I live alone, I couldn’t move the furniture. But they didn’t come and help me or suggest where I should store my stuff while they were spraying,” he said. “They just said, ‘You didn’t do it … get out.’ “

I still think its good the building is taking the pest control operation seriously, since some places would not treat all units nor ask tenants to prepare.  But there has to be a system in place for helping people complete such preparations in cases where they can’t move their stuff. The article said:

Preparing for the fumigation process, which usually takes between four and eight hours, meant pulling every piece of furniture away from the walls and washing and double-bagging household items, like clothes and towels, so the bugs have nowhere to hide.

Some of the tenants (like Wheildon quoted above) implied they were being asked to move furniture out of the apartments, not just away from the walls.

It’s interesting that they’re talking about “fumigation”; I’d like to know what exact process they’re using in this building.

Also, on a more humorous note, pay attention to the slightly odd suggestion the Edmonton Journal gives its readers as far as how to remove bed bugs from one’s property:

What to do if your home is infested:

- Call a professional exterminator immediately. The longer you wait, the worse it gets.

That’s good, but read on:

- Household items need to be wrapped in plastic and placed in a hot, sunny location for at least a few days at 120 degrees F. Colder temperatures — below freezing — also can work, but the chilling period must be maintained for at least two weeks. However, attempts to rid an entire home or apartment of bedbugs by raising or lowering the thermostat will be unsuccessful.

It was -11 degrees C (12 degrees F) in Edmonton today. Perhaps the Edmonton Journal should offer some more practical advice to Edmonton residents than that they should leave their items outside in 120 degree F heat– I mean, given there is no outdoor 120 degree F heat in the vicinity, nor will there be for some time to come.

• Bedbug evictions: Edmonton tenants evicted because they did not prepare for spraying
• Disabled NJ man who reported bed bugs is evicted for not doing prep & (allegedly) not reporting bed bugs promptly
• Edmonton couple moves from an infested building, to another infested building
• Dumpster-diving tenant evicted after Winnipeg apartment seriously infested with bed bugs

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Today, an article in the Rhode Island News provides just one example. A Cranston, RI shelter was so infested that 70 residents and housing advocates marched to the State House, seeking the Governor’s help. (You need a login, which takes a minute, but I will quote the most relevant bits below.)

For the third time in six months, a team of exterminators on Monday visited the state’s Welcome Arnold shelter in Cranston in an attempt to eradicate a persistent bedbug problem that has been plaguing the shelter’s homeless residents.

The bedbug infestation had emerged as one of the chief complaints of a group of 70 shelter residents and other housing advocates who marched to the State House last week in an attempt to get the attention of Governor Carcieri and get him to do something about the conditions at Welcome Arnold.

At that session, Noreen Shawcross, the state’s chief of housing and community development, and Clark Greene, the governor’s chief policy aide, promised the People to End Homelessness that a team of exterminators would be at the site as early as Monday. Also promised were new mattress covers to make the mattresses “bedbug proof.”

Dennis M. Langley, the executive director of the Urban League of Rhode Island, the agency contracted by the state to oversee the operation of the shelter on a day-to-day basis, said he believes that the exterminators did what was asked, but “I would not be telling the truth if I said it has been completely solved. This is a difficult group of insects to get rid of.”

So on the one hand, they believed mattress covers would make the mattresses bedbug proof (well, the mattresses, at least would not be a source of bites). They also realized they needed new mattresses, though only in those cases of obvious damage and disrepair. And they realized the difficulty of fighting bedbugs. And nonetheless…

Langley said that in keeping with another promise to the homeless residents, the shelter has purchased 100 used mattresses to replace those that are cracked or that have stuffing falling out. Twenty-six mattresses, acquired from the Donation Exchange, were installed yesterday, and 75 others, purchased from a nursing home, should arrive soon, he said. Some 250 mattress covers have been purchased but have not arrived.

Everything in that last paragraph is so wrong, so very wrong.

Let me get this straight: you realize the mattresses may be the cause of bedbug problems (and I am sure they are infested, though other parts of the room are doubtlessly also infested). So you buy 100 used mattresses? Used mattresses are a notorious source of bedbugs, and you cannot necessarily see the infestation.

And then, adding another layer of stupidity, you install 26 of those before the mattress covers are available? Thereby potentially spreading more bedbugs around?

Arrgghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you people not listening? Used mattresses are a huge source of bedbug infestations. I would never take on a used mattress, having seen the damage that bedbugs can do. And I certainly would not bring one in without a sealed cover.

And if these are standard vinyl covers, they’re easy to puncture (another reason not to take on used mattresses and try and cover them.)

I realize the shelter has little in the way of funds. But that is wrong! The State of Rhode Island is not doing itself any favors by skimping on attempts to eradicate a bedbug problem. Homeless people with bedbugs in their clothing and in their posessions are riding around on your public transportation system, sitting on your park benches, reading in your libraries, and if they’re lucky enough to come across some money that day, drinking coffee in your resaurants and seeking shelter in your movie theaters.

If compassion for your fellow human beings who have fallen on hard times does not motivate you to agressively treat their bedbug problems, and fund this to the necessary degree, their bedbug problems will spread to you. It’s not an if, it’s a when.*

*I hesitate to warn people of this, because it sounds like I think bedbugs are spread by homeless people.

Let me be clear: bedbugs are spread by everyone: homeless people, truck drivers, hipsters, and Ralph Lauren designers.

Bedbugs are spread by people, period.

In this case, however, they will be spread by people who do not have the resources to properly treat them and to try and prevent spreading them. And so in this case, it is everyone’s fault.

Shame on the State of Rhode Island! Shame on all of us for not seeing the problems of homeless people as our problems.

In this case, sadly, they soon will be.

• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Washington YWCA infested with bed bugs: more elderly, low-income residents being left to itch

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