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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A Toronto man has filed a civil suit against the Howard Johnson Hotel on Ellice Avenue alleging he caught a case of the bed bugs while rooming at the establishment.

Steven Lipson claims after a one-night stay at the hotel in January 2007 he developed welts and itchiness. Lipson alleges a dermatologist confirmed he was bitten by bed bugs. He is suing the Howard Johnson for damages claiming he suffered pain, embarrassment, and permanent scarring.

There isn’t much to chew on there, but we don’t often hear about Canadian bed bug lawsuits, so it does feel quite newsworthy.

• FAQ: Where can I read about bed bug lawsuits? Can you help me find a lawyer?
• new Ohio Hilton bed bug lawsuit
• Virginia Beach hotel sued over alleged bed bug attack
• bed bug lawsuit against the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Kensington, London

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Courtesy of the CBC’s links from its fine story on bed bugs (which remains the best television clip on bed bugs to date, hands down, in my humble opinion), a rundown on who pays for tenants’ bed bug treatment according to Province. It is really complicated. I am not even going to try and paraphrase it.

However, the easy thing to say is that the law is pretty much on the tenant’s side in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia. Nevertheless, folks in those areas should read the information on your location; it is definitely not always cut and dried, and you have responsibilities as well as rights. Seek legal advice or advice from a tenant’s organization in your area if you need help understanding the laws the CBC page links to.

In most other areas, the responsibility for paying for bed bug treatment varies a great deal Province by Province and according to the situation.

Yes, you guessed it: they want to play the blame game.

In some places it depends on whether the tenant can prove they did not bring bed bugs into the apartment, in others it depends on whether the landlord can prove tenants did bring them in. In still others, arbitration is provided where tenants and landlords cannot come to an agreement.

• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.
• Halifax: where the bed bug “blame game” is the law
• added to the “Tenants and Landlords FAQ”: Washington, D.C. and Florida
• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay

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For those of you who don’t know, webpages can tell where you’re coming from (though not very specifically). They know the location of your ISP. For most people, this comes up as somewhere near where they live, though it’s not always precise and sometimes it’s just the country. It also tells the webmaster what internet browser you use (Go Firefox!) and whether you like Macs or Windows machines. No, I do not know your name, or where you live, don’t worry!

This may all seem very “meta,” so far, but we know that our readership consists of four kinds of people:

a) People who have, or think they have, or recently had, bed bugs.
b) People whose work makes them concerned about bed bugs (pest control professionals, entomologists, politicians, landlords, hotel managers, social service agencies, government officials, are just some sectors that I have heard from).
c) People who have heard about bed bugs and are concerned, and want to know more.

I think that group (a) is in the majority, and although most people don’t comment, most commenters fit in group a. In any case, the Bedbugger.com readership is a map of bed bug concern, and you’d be pretty safe betting its a map of where bed bugs are popping up–with the caveat, of course, that our site pops up more in US search engines than those abroad, and also that our readers are overwhelmingly English-speakers, though we have dreams of breaking down those linguistic barriers!

This is where the last 89 readers were reading the blog (circa 6:30 this evening):

1. San Diego, California, United States
2. Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
3. Walden, New York, United States
4. Long Island City, New York, United States
5. New York, New York, United States
6. Plattekill, New York, United States
7. Hull, Quebec, Canada
8. Durant, Iowa, United States
9. Miamiville, Ohio, United States
10. Gibraltar
11. Calgary, Alberta, Canada
12. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
13. Humble, Texas, United States
14. Germantown, Maryland, United States
15. Rowland Heights, California, United States
16. New York, New York, United States
17. New York, New York, United States
18. Hadley, Kentucky, United States
19. Buffalo, New York, United States
20. Hveragerði, Arnessysla, Iceland
21. Pine Falls, Manitoba, Canada
22. Livonia, Michigan, United States
23. Bayside, New York, United States
24. Woodhaven, New York, United States
25. Denver, Colorado, United States
26. New York, New York, United States
27. United States
28. Waterloo, Quebec, Canada
29. Los Angeles, California, United States
30. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
31. Santa Maria, California, United States
32. Beamsville, Ontario, Canada
33. Kansas City, Missouri, United States
34. Corona, New York, United States
35. Barker, Texas, United States
36. Readville, Massachusetts, United States
37. Palo Alto, California, United States
38. Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
39. Mill Valley, California, United States
40. Ridgewood, New York, United States
41. Mehama, Oregon, United States
42. San Francisco, California, United States
43. Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, United States
44. Swedesburg, Iowa, United States
45. Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
46. West New York, New Jersey, United States
47. Lancaster, Blackpool, United Kingdom
48. New York, New York, United States
49. Miami, Florida, United States
50. Anaheim, California, United States
51. Harrow, Harrow, United Kingdom
52. Wilsonville, Oregon, United States
53. Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
54. Forest Hill, Ontario, Canada
55. Wayne, New Jersey, United States
56. Kecskemét, Bacs-Kiskun, Hungary
57. Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
58. Short Hills, New Jersey, United States
59. Seattle, Washington, United States
60. Jackson, Mississippi, United States
61. Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
62. Secaucus, New Jersey, United States
63. Long Island City, New York, United States
64. United States
65. Tranbjerg, Arhus, Denmark
66. Naples, Florida, United States
67. San Francisco, California, United States
68. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
69. Gainesville, Florida, United States
70. Edmond, Oklahoma, United States
71. Hempstead, New York, United States
72. Everett, Massachusetts, United States
73. United States
74. United States
75. São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
76. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
77. Bismarck, North Dakota, United States
78. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
79. Downers Grove, Illinois, United States
80. United States
81. Bend, Oregon, United States
82. Henderson, Nevada, United States
83. Montréal, Quebec, Canada
84. Sunnyvale, California, United States
85. Arlington, Texas, United States
86. United States
87. New York, New York, United States
88. Fairfax, Virginia, United States
89. Rochester, New York, United States

You might expect that most of these people came from the bed bug hot spots. We get lots of readers from Chicago, Boston, NYC, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto. So it’s surprising that 89 people came from such a wide variety of places:

68 from at least 33 states (only 12 of these from NYC, San Francisco or Boston);
11 from 5 provinces in Canada;
4 from 4 cities in the UK (none of them London);
1 person each from: Hungary, Ireland, Denmark, Brazil, Iceland, and Gilbraltar.

In New York state, 10 of the 17 visitors were from NYC. And of the 10 in NYC, 60% were in Queens, where, unlike Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, each neighborhood has its own name used for the purposes of the postal service: Ridgewood, Corona, Long Island City, Woodhaven, Bayside, New York, are all in Queens, and part of NYC. Remember the Queens Gazette speculating that Queens was the “ground zero for NYC’s bed bugs? Well, I am still not sure it’s true, but it seems plausible: we certainly have a lot of Bedbuggers in Queens.

I peeked at the traffic report for the site because I have a geeky side and I find it interesting to know where you’re coming from. However, looking at it can tell us something about the bed bug problem. This is not a scientific study, but just a snapshot of our site’s traffic does tell you who’s worried about bed bugs (and, we can assume, many are worried because they have bed bugs).

Most of those cities were not capitals or the biggest cities in their regions or countries. A small percentage are from those places you think are hot spots. It should serve as a warning sign that bed bugs, like Bedbuggers, are everywhere, and way more spread out than you thought.

• California fights bed bugs: good news from the golden state
• Portsmouth NH’s Health Officer proactive about bed bugs
• Comedian moves into NJ Ikea store
• Tracing the path of the epidemic

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Winnipeg Free Press headline claims “Bedbugs Winning War in Downtown Complex.”

Part of me says, “Whoa! Don’t let the bed bugs hear you say that!”

The other part of me says things I can’t repeat in mixed company.

Here’s the deal: in 2004, 73 units of the building at 185 Smith Street were infested with bed bugs. After a lengthy war, 40 still are.

Since 2004, Manitoba Housing has spent nearly $260,000 fumigating suites in the building, which residents say has done little to stop the spread of the mattress-loving mites. Manitoba Housing has never evacuated the entire building for fumigation, saying it’s too difficult a process.

Well, they’re not mites, and I bet you were not fumigating, but carry on.

“I don’t think they’re ever going to solve this,” resident Gary Durack said. “This is not going to stop. They’re throwing away money coming here and spraying.”

John Snezyk, manager of maintenance operations for Manitoba Housing, defended Manitoba Housing’s extermination tactics and said they are still working to correct the outbreak.

;

The housing authority devised a plan in 2004 to fumigate infected suites and their immediate neighbours, along with doing two followup sprayings within the following two weeks. Snezyk said they are now working on a pilot project to seal the cracks in the walls of four suites, to see whether it might prevent the bugs from migrating through the building.

“It’s not that it didn’t work, it’s just an ongoing problem,” he said. “We’re working diligently and we take the problem very seriously.”

Yes– the problem with multi-unit dwellings is that the bugs can travel. They clearly did, to get into so many units (though we don’t know the size of the building, 73 and even 40 is a lot of units to be affected). The other problem with large buildings is that many people do not have the inclination or ability to deal with the kinds of preparations the tenants must do for treatment to work. If any are uncompliant, it can really affect the others. We have seen how hard it can be when just one neighbor does not report or participate in treatment; imagine 40 of them.

In a private rental suite, the Residential Tenancies Branch holds a landlord accountable for rodents and other pests. If the landlord does not eradicate the pest problem, the tenant can complain to public health authorities or terminate their rental contract.

Durack said Smith Street residents are entitled to the same kind of health protection, and shouldn’t have to live with constant fumigation and worry about bedbugs.

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority medical officer Dr. Margaret Fast said the tiny bugs don’t spread disease, but scratching the itchy bites can lead to infection. Although there is no way to minimize the risk of being bitten once bedbugs are in the home, Fast said people can avoid getting them in the first place by vacuuming crevices in second-hand furniture.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that people just plain should not take in second-hand furniture. Look, I am not a rich person. I come from New York, where even people with professional jobs take in furniture from the curb (New York is expensive!) For students and people on low incomes, it is really rough, I have been there. But when all is said and done, I don’t know anyone who, having suffered from bed bugs, would not trade sitting on a metal folding chair, never having had bed bugs, to sitting on a lovely upholstered chair, and dealing with bed bugs for months or (in this case) three years.

Snezyk said part of the problem is tenants need to take more responsibility to help stop the outbreak. Often, he said, residents are too embarrassed to report a bedbug sighting in their suite. In other instances, he said tenants have picked up infected furniture thrown out by other residents and taken it to their suite.

Manitoba Housing is posting reminders and holding meetings with tenants to encourage them to report a bedbug sighting immediately and not to pick up any furniture thrown away by other residents.

Clearly, the information provided is not doing enough. People do not get bed bugs. We need old-style “Loose Lips Sink Ships”-type propaganda campaigns to spread the word about bed bugs. We need governments sending out flyers and putting up posters and airing commercials. I know that isn’t going to happen any time soon, but eventually, it probably will.

Longtime resident John, who didn’t wanted his last name used, said he’s become so paranoid about bugs crawling on him he sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and checks his mattress, which is already double-wrapped in plastic, until he’s satisfied it’s bug-free.

When Canadian MPs, US Senators, Hotel CEOs, and TV news anchors are kept up at night, then maybe we’ll see some action.

• Bedbug evictions: Edmonton tenants evicted because they did not prepare for spraying
• More from Edmonton bed bug evictions case
• Dumpster-diving tenant evicted after Winnipeg apartment seriously infested with bed bugs
• Manitoba working on public housing issues

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