The Chronicle Herald’s Jeffrey Simpson told the story Friday of Clyde Burton, a Halifax man living with bed bugs for three months in his Halifax apartment:

He has reported the problem repeatedly to the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority, which has three times sent pest control companies to try ridding his apartment of the blood-sucking insects, he said.

Mr. Burton, who’s disabled after having brain surgery three decades ago, couldn’t handle the chemicals. After treatment is applied he’s supposed to avoid cleaning anything for about a week so he doesn’t wash away the pesticide. Tenants are usually advised to vacate their homes for four hours during the spraying process, but he stayed overnight at his pastor’s home one time and the Salvation Army’s Booth Centre another because he couldn’t stand the smell.

His disability means that he needs adequate sleep but the bugs have awakened him several times a week in the middle of the night.

“It is infested from the top floor down,” he said of his building, Gordon B. Isnor Manor. “I don’t care who tells you what. I live here and I’m seeing the proof in the pudding.”

There are alternative treatments available (steam, dusts) and in my opinion, these should be offered to tenants with medical concerns that make pesticides a bad idea. If thermal methods are available in Halifax, they can be very effective.

In a multi-unit building, all neighboring units (above, below, all sides) must be inspected when a tenant complains of bed bug bites or sees bed bugs. (Boston’s city policy is that all adjacent units must be treated, even if no signs are found, and we think this is a good protocol.)

If a tenant has had three treatments and bed bugs persist, I would suspect the neighbors have bed bugs. It’s possible that treatment protocols, insufficient prep, or reinfestation are to blame, but neighbors would be my first guess.

Kristen Tynes of the Community Services Department told the Chronicle Herald that

… there have been 40-50 public housing apartments with bedbugs out of 715 units at five of its buildings: Alderney, Nantucket, Sunrise Manor, Gordon B. Isnor [Manor] and Ahern Manor.

That’s an average of 8-10 infested apartments in each of five buildings. It would be interesting to know what their policy is on searching and treating infested units. In other words, did these 40-50 affected tenants all report their own problems, or is there a system of inspections in place, and were some infestations discovered in this way?

As Tynes notes in the article, residents bringing infested items in can spread the problem. But bed bugs spread in buildings even when tenants do not bring infested goods in. Coordinated inspections and treatment can help minimize this.

Halifax has serious bed bug issues. Two years ago (11/2006), we were told that Orkin had treated 1000-1500 residences in Halifax in that year. Imagine what the combined total of residences treated by all pest control companies was that year in Halifax.

Imagine what it was in 2008, since bed bugs are continuing to get worse.

You can read Simpson’s full article here.

And more on bed bugs in Halifax.Similar Posts:

• Bed bugs in a senior apartment building in San Diego
• Bed bugs bite in Richmond, California public housing development
• Entire Kansas City high-rise gets thermal treatment for bed bugs
• Bed bugs in Grand Forks, North Dakota public housing
• Status of New Jersey bed bug extermination bill A3203: so far so good

The Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has ceased home health visits for a client while his home is treated for bed bugs. According to the Chronicle Herald:

The Victorian Order of Nurses has put home care on hold for a client living in a Halifax public housing complex because of bedbugs in his apartment, the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority said Wednesday.

“We did confirm with VON that they have put (service to) one client in Ahern Manor on hold because of bedbugs,” said Pat Lawrence, director of the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority, which oversees the Gottingen Street highrise.

“What I can tell you is when we got the report about the bedbugs, we did send our pest control company in right away. They fumigated there last Friday and they’re going in again today. They may have already been there just to re-inspect and to continue treatment if need be.”

When asked whether the bedbugs were confined to one or two apartments, Ms. Lawrence said the pests are a problem all over North America.

“What I guess I could say is . . . if we get a report, we immediately begin treatment,” she said. “We’ve tried to do education sessions, certainly, with our tenants and our staff about prevention and in treating bedbugs. It appears to me there are two apartments (with bedbugs) on the same floor, and we’re treating both of them.”

I am disturbed by this news item. Despite Victorian Order of Nurses official Dawn MacIsaac’s protests later in the article that VON is not “refusing to provide services or refusing to go into a home or that type of thing,” that appears to be what they are doing.

Service providers who visit people in their homes are unfortunately at risk of catching bed bugs.

What VON may not recognize is that they are also at risk of contracting bed bugs in homes where they cannot see obvious signs of bed bugs. Therefore, the organization needs to train its employees on how to take steps to reduce the chances of catching bed bugs — and to avoid taking them from one client to another.

And for cases like this one, humane treatment suggests finding a way to provide services to a person with an active bed bug infestation, whether that means getting him taken to another location for his normal treatment, or sending in nurses with Tyvek suits and training on avoiding bed bugs. The client with bed bugs is likely suffering physical and emotional repercussions of living with bed bugs, and in my opinion, now needs good health care from a friendly and supportive visitor more than ever.

I hope the VON gets assistance in creating a bed bug prevention plan from an entomologist who specializes in bed bugs.

I am glad that the client in question is getting pest control treatment, but I would hope the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority was not just treating those two units, but carefully inspecting the entire building, keeping in mind that bed bug infestations can be difficult to detect.

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