Thank goodness the building is under the care of a community organization and landlord that is not willing to put up with this building being only 85% bed bug-free.

Remember this campaign to free a 20-unit Manchester, New Hampshire building (Langdon Mill Apartments) of bed bugs?

A group called NH Bed Bugs, spearheaded by members of the American Friends Service Committee and the Granite State Organizing Project, went to great lengths to try and solve the bed bug problem at Langdon Mill.

As the Concord Monitor reported Sunday,

They moved the families out of the building. They washed and dried all of their clothes and bedding on high heat. They threw out almost all of the furniture they owned – not just mattresses and couches, but tables and desks, too – and solicited donated replacements. After exterminators had sprayed everything, the families came back.

Unfortunately, when new mattresses were being brought back in on Wednesday, three units still showed signs of a bed bug infestation.

Though vastly improved, the building will continue to be treated.

Make no mistake, it is a vast improvement: the building has had bed bugs since 2005, and when NH Bed Bugs stepped in, every unit was infested.

NH Bed Bugs threw itself into the project, and learned on a large scale what individual bedbuggers learn: how difficult and expensive it is to get rid of bed bugs.

Maggie Fogarty, of the American Friends Service Committee told the Concord Monitor,

“. . . we couldn’t ask these refugee tenants to run every piece of clothing they had through a high heat cycle in the dryer. It cost us thousands of dollars to do it for them,” Fogarty said. “They certainly couldn’t afford to go out and buy all new stuff, even secondhand stuff.

“One of the problems we have not figured out is, how do you do this if you’re of limited means? How do you do this effectively?” she said. “It’s a very expensive problem.”

And Fogarty is mindful too of the difficulty of helping people get rid of this problem:

“We cannot convene hundreds of volunteers, and tens of thousands of dollars, for every building in New Hampshire,” Fogarty said. “We have to step back and look, systemically, how we can prevent this problem from spreading.”

[Emphasis mine.]

There are two important points here:

1. Bed bug preparations and treatment are time consuming and costly.  If people cannot afford the costs of bed bug preparations and treatment, or cannot manage the physical labor, then bed bugs will continue to thrive and spread.
2. Bed bugs are a fact of life and cannot be completely avoided.

Some steps may help curtail their spread and/or help stop them in their tracks when they are brought in:

• Everyone needs to be educated about how to avoid bringing bed bugs home;
• Residential buildings, schools, office buildings, public transportation, and other locations need regular professional inspections to detect bed bugs;
• Cracks and wall voids may need to be dusted and sealed, and other preventive measures taken to foil the odd bed bugs which may be brought in.

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A new group, NH Bed Bugs, has formed in New Hampshire. And their website indicates that they mean business:

Mission : To help New Hampshire communities stay bedbug free.

We are a group of community organizers, college and university staff and students, not for profit leaders, local business owners, teachers, health workers, local officials, church members, volunteers, and more.

We come from many different backgrounds, but we all have one thing in common: the desire to help keep NH bedbug free!

And they’re not just talking about it, either.

NH Bed Bugs is currently working to get an affordable housing building with 20 units, Manchester, New Hampshire’s Langdon Mill Apartments, bed bug free.

The NH Bed Bugs website states,

There’s a bedbug infestation at Manchester’s Langdon Mill Apartments, located on West Brook Street. The 20-unit building houses a veritable United Nations, including people from Somalia, Sudan, Bosnia and native Granite Staters. The tenants, the landlord, and the building and health departments have all tried to correct this problem. However, they cannot solve it alone. Our community needs your help.

And wow again: tenants, the building and health departments, and local organizers are working together to fight bed bugs. Simple, but genius.

WMUR reports that

After years and thousands of dollars spent fighting bedbugs in vain, every tenant in the Langdon Mills apartment building will be move out for a few weeks to rid the building of bedbugs and educate residents about how to keep them out.

The tiny creatures thrive on human blood and have made a global resurgence, WMUR News 9’s Jean Mackin reported.

“The tenants have a tendency, if they see a mattress on the side of the road or sofas that are still in good shape, they bring them into the units. The infestation comes in with the furniture most of the time,” said Dick Anagnost, a landlord and developer.

In late July or early August, tenants will be relocated for two or three weeks. Infested furniture in the 20 units will be destroyed, clothing and linens cleaned and tenants will be educated on how to keep the bed bugs out for good.

The city and volunteer organizations came up with the plan after a young mother said she was afraid to expose her baby to the bedbugs.

“Because one individual was fearful of bringing a newborn into that situation, mobilized people to do something,” said Paul Crawford, of the Granite State Organizing Project.

Wow.

So what about throwing out all that infested furniture? We know that furniture can often be treated and kept. However, the NH Bed Bugs website suggests that “severely infested” furniture is being disposed of:

In order to successfully rid Langdon Mill Apartments of bed bugs, we need to coordinate the chemical treatment with the disposal of severely infested furniture and household items, the laundering of all clothing, and the re-supply of new furniture and household items that are free of bed bugs and their eggs. Without a coordinated set of community actions, each individual action will be in vain. Please help.

Who is behind all this? The NH Bed Bugs press page lists contacts at The Granite State Organizing Project and the American Friends Service Committee. These are substantial organizations.

The The Granite State Organizing Project New Hampshire website tells us,

The Granite State Organizing Project includes religious, labor, and community organizations rooted in faith and democratic values. We unite to strenghten our voice in decisons that shape our communities by taking issue-oriented actions. By doing so we broaden and deepen our own organizations and leadership, build community, and promote a just society.

We agree wholeheartedly with the spirit behind this effort; as the NH Bed Bugs website says of the Langdon Mill Apartments project,

Without a coordinated set of community actions, each individual action will be in vain.

That is never more true than when you’re fighting bed bugs.

I look forward to hearing more about NH Bed Bugs and their fight at Langdon Mill Apartments.

And I wish them every success!

You can read more about NH Bed Bugs and the Langdon MIll Apartments project and donate time or goods here. You can see an article and the video from WMUR about the plans for Langdon Mill here.Similar Posts:

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• Never assume the tenant who complains about bed bugs is the only tenant with bed bugs