The story focuses on Lisa Courtney’s bed bug battle:

Courtney tossed out her bed, mattress and linens. CityHousing, Hamilton’s social housing agency, had her Cumberland Avenue apartment treated and life returned to normal.

But now, the bedbugs are back. Courtney’s anxiety has shot up with reports of three neighbours with the same problem.

“I’m psychotic now, because people down the hall have them, too,” she said.

Landlords need to learn that you can’t simply treat the unit of the person who complains about bed bug bites. You have to have all adjacent units (above, below, and on all sides) carefully inspected and treated if necessary.

Apartment managers would be advised to read this article from Techletter.com about dealing with bed bugs in the properties under their care.

Since bed bugs can be hard to detect, especially in the early stages of infestation, landlords may also consider that treating all adjacent units where bed bugs have not been found may be a good idea. The City of Boston’s Housing Division actually requires this when the Inspectional Services Department finds bed bugs in an apartment:

Our Standard bed bug notice of violation also requires that owners inspect all units in the dwelling, and they must treat all horizontally and vertically adjacent units to the infested unit(s).

Boston landlords treat adjacent units even if they turn up no visible signs of bed bugs.

You don’t know how often Bedbuggers tell us (often in the forums) both of the following: (a) I have had 4+ bed bug treatments and the problem persists, and (b) none of my neighbors have bed bugs. When pressed, people invariably say neighbors were “asked.” Since as many as 50% of people don’t react to bites, asking doesn’t do much. Many times, inspection also turns up nothing. And then a few months later, lo and behold, bed bugs are back.

You also don’t know how often I hear (often in discreet emails) about professionals eventually discovering the badly-infested unit, with so many bed bugs they’re falling from the walls in broad daylight — invariably a bed bug infestation later discovered in a building where some other poor soul thought they were the only ones infested. Sometimes neighbors don’t know they have bed bugs because they can’t see them.

Other times bed bugs are clearly visible, but residents don’t know what they are, or fear repercussions for bringing the problem to light, or are impaired in some way such that they cannot recognize the problem or act on it, or (in rare cases) they know and just don’t care (shudder).

The good news is Hamilton is taking bed bugs seriously:

Stan Yung, a Hamilton public health manager, says the city is already intervening. It has been tracking cases since 2005 and now has a new public education campaign.

(I look forward to hearing how they are tracking infestations.)

• FAQ: Do I have to tell my landlord / co-op board / condo association / residents of attached house next door?
• Bed bugs in North Jersey
• Bed bugs in Ventura County (Thousand Oaks, California)
• Amanda at Apartmenttherapy.com, part 5

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The same day that we ask, with Rene Laraine, what might be causing his bed bugs to persist despite nine bed bug treatments by licensed PCOs, Nicholas Brown brings to mind similar concerns.

Brown, chronicling his bed bug experience on the Huffington Post, is now well past his seventh week. He has had five treatments (so treatment intervals are not the problem in this case). He is planning treatment six, the last one before he moves.

Again, I would bet money on the neighbors as source.

Like many of us, on this blog that was originally dubbed “Your foxhole, in the war against bed bugs” by its avowedly pacifist creator (yes, people, that’s how much I hate bed bugs), Brown mobilizes the war metaphors for his final assault:

Day 52

There comes a time in most insurgencies when you should cut your losses and leave. Maybe the enemy was more persistent than you imagined; maybe he was better at hiding; or maybe the weapons you used against him were inadequate. In any case, no one has ever accused the United States of pulling out of a conflict too early. And while I am all for America, I dont wish to repeat her mistakes.

I have returned from the farm and the squalor that confronts me confirms that the bedbugs are winning in our apartment. Yes, we have inflicted casualties. Yes, we have damaged their infrastructure. But at the end of the day, there are more of them than there are of us and we cannot win their hearts and minds. Moreover, there is great suspicion within the building that our downstairs neighbors are harboring bedbugs. Despite several requests, they have refused sprayings in their apartment. The bugs, we suspect, hide downstairs until the toxins in our place wear off and then return in greater strength. We can only assume they have training camps. We are keeping diplomatic channels open, but are not optimistic about pacifying either our apartment or the one below us.

We are calling in one more spraying, but the backbone has fallen out of our effort and we do not expect success. Our departure wont involve an embassy swamped with desperate refugees, but it will involve the horrid logistics of moving, made all the more awful by the necessity of inspecting and poisoning or freezing every item before it is packed away. Its a depressing thought, but honestly not all that much more work than washing, drying and sealing away all your clothing and papers and other possessions. Now come the slow logistics of apartment hunting, brokers fees, and long Saturdays devoted to subway rides and open houses. We are optimistic though. In the neon-lit consumerism of the new American Christmas, minor commercial miracles happen all the time. Uncle Bob might get some nose trimmers from the Airmall catalog; Delores might tip a busboy; and cousin Herbie may finally give in to those Debeers commercials and propose to that on-again off-again cocktail waitress he has been seeing for years. And maybe, just maybe, we will find our own minor Christmas miracle: a small apartment thats reasonably priced, relatively clean, and blessedly uninfested.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard from readers who moved almost nothing, took extreme precautions, and nevertheless brought bed bugs with them. In some cases, they chose new, equally infested quarters. Maybe they even rented a truck with bed bugs. But in most cases, they probably simply managed to move their bed bug despite precautions.

It’s worth moving during treatment, and treating at the other end. Yes, anonymous poster who raves when we mention pre-emptive treatment, we know “preventive” treatment isn’t supposed to work. But we know too many nice people who felt they had to pay for treatment in their new digs. This isn’t preventive, it’s reactive.

Good luck to Nicholas Brown. Unlike Amanda’s saga on Apartmenttherapy, I do hope we get to hear the end of the story.

• Nicholas Brown’s “The Bedbug Chronicles: Part 6″ sounds pretty familiar
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• The Huffington Post: Nicholas Brown’s bed bugs, volumes 3 and 4
• The Huffington Post on bed bugs

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Given the cost and trouble involved in getting bed bugs out of a multi-unit dwelling, we hear every week from people who live in buildings where the bed bugs are not being handled well:

My bed bugs are being treated, but a neighbor has them and refuses to report them.

My bed bugs were treated, but the bugs keep coming over from neighbors.

My landlord told me I am the only one who has bed bugs. Now, I hear a neighbor had them before me. Why isn’t he warning us?

My neighbors and I are having bed bugs treated. And yesterday I saw another neighbor pull in a bedbug-labelled mattress from the trash.

These stories are really common here and on the Yahoo Bedbugger email list (see links in sidebar). You may think it’s hopeless when you’re in a building where the bugs can just keep coming. If the landlord does not get his or her act together, you may be right.

In most cities (NYC is one), tenants do have some rights. Look in your lease: it’s likely you can’t be evicted for telling a neighbor you’re being treated for bed bugs. If the landlord ever took you to court, think how the judge would receive that as a grounds for eviction.

Make sure you have read our FAQ on laws regarding tenants, landlords, and bed bugs. If it is your landlord’s responsibility to get rid of bed bugs, and s/he does not do so, you may need to work with neighbors to pressure him or her. You may need to contact city authorities, and doing so as a group, or as a bunch of individuals, might be more effective.

I also know it can be hard to deal with organizing on any level when you’re suffering from bed bugs, but doing some organizing may make it possible for you to get rid of bed bugs in the long run. You may, at the very least, get rid of them long enough to move out without taking them with you. In some heavily-infested cities, moving from an infested multi-unit to a smaller building, bedbug-free, is not a bad plan, but you can’t move with your stuff mid-infestation.

What can you do to help fight bed bugs in your building?

Educate!

Make a brief leaflet to stick discretely under neighbors’ doors. You want people to know what bed bugs are, what the signs are, how bites can look different on different people, how some people do not have itchy reactions but may have infestations all the same, how bugs can be very hard to find and catch (so spell out signs like the little black fecal specks).

Include website addresses for your city’s info on bed bugs, or that from a local university, and what your city says about landlords exterminating. Encourage people to report bed bugs to the landlord so they can get treated. If you want to organize a tenants’ group, you might include your name and apartment and phone if you want people to get in touch and are not worried about anonymity.

But, you say, “Nobugs, how can I do this? I don’t want to put my name or apartment number on this. My landlord may get angry.”

You’re right: s/he might. But you do have some rights. And if you are worried, get an email address from yahoo and enclose that, and sign “A Fellow Tenant”.

Here’s some general info. about tenant organizing from tenant.net, and more from Toronto and Boston, much of which will be of use to people elsewhere.

You might be braver if you’re sure another tenant (or more than one other) also has bed bugs. Your fellow tenants have a right to be warned, as you should have been. I’d be interested in hearing from people who took it upon themselves to notify neighbors, and also whether anyone has put together a tenants’ meeting, either building or community-wide.

Any other ideas for a FAQ on tenant organizing around bed bugs?

“Spread the word, not the bug.”

Update: 4th July, 2007:

If you want to read how one set of tenants organized, with a petition, check out this article. Very inspiring.

Reader Ben Cannon wrote in the forums that his landlord’s two PCO’s did not solve their building’s problems. And other tenants were affected. So here’s what they did:

[The Landlord] found two well known pco but they just didn’t do what we wanted. It was a difficult process to change pco and get all our neighbors to do the treatment together but here is how we did it:

(1) We first organized a private tenant (management was not invited) meeting in the lobby. We had to have two meetings (one on a weekday night and another on the weekend)
(2) We conducted a thorough survey of everyone’s experience
(3) We got EVERYONE to agree that all the apartments infested and adjacent/up & down neighboring infested apt must be treated at the same time.
(4) We then presented everyone with the new pco’s strategy and why we should change.
(4) After we all agreed, we wrote a detailed letter with everyone’s signatures expressing our concerns and desire to change pco.
(5) We presented this to the management company. The letter also included the dates that the pco and tenants agreed to do the services.

Management finally agreed because all of the difficult part were done for them. Yes, it was painful but completely worth it. Nothing in NYC is ever easy. Lesson here, unionize and work as a team and hire the right pco for the job - it makes all the difference in the world.

Bencannon

• FAQ: My landlord hired a PCO who comes twice a month, and we still have bed bugs
• Bed bugs in Ventura County (Thousand Oaks, California)
• New Britain, CT: how can building managers turn a good building bad? Ignore the bed bugs.
• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.

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