Bed bugs were first noticed by residents in the 150-unit Hacienda high-rise in Richmond, California in March, and now “at least half the apartments” are infested, according to the Contra Costa Times, which reports that

Exterminators visited a handful of units in May, told the tenants to call back if they started seeing more bugs in 20 days or so, said Dolores Johnson, president of the tenants council. [Tenant Denise] Cordoba called after 10, but nobody came out to spray again. A number of residents received letters in mid-August telling them the city would exterminate but needs them to vacate for at least eight days. The Housing Authority and members of the resident council met Thursday to discuss how to tackle the problem.

Bug bites now mark residents and frequent visitors to the Hacienda like an exotic leprosy. Tenants poke speckled arms out their doors for inspection, talk about how their grandchildren no longer visit.

“It’s an ungodly feeling,” Cordoba said, “like the hair standing up on the back of your neck.”

Some collect great jars and bags of the flat, red-brown insects. Itch medicine doesn’t always help. Nor does getting down on hands and knees to scrub walls and floors with bleach, which [tenant Billy] Nichols does daily, despite his paraplegia.

Bed bug infestations being treated with one spray-and-pray treatment?

Tenants being told to call in 20 days for re-treatment if they see bed bugs?  That’s no way to get rid of bed bugs.

A man with paraplegia on his knees scrubbing the floor in a futile attempt to stop bed bugs from biting him?

And then there’s the suggestion by a resident that her living conditions were better when she slept rough on the street:

“I was homeless for four years. I slept in fields, under freeway overpasses,” said Denise Cordoba, who lives on the fourth floor. “But it wasn’t until I moved here that I got bedbugs.”

These stories of long-suffering tenants of city-maintained housing which is infested with bed bugs appear in the news weekly.   They’re a dime a dozen.  Many of them detail bed bug infestations going on for years and affecting entire buildings.

And yet I am constantly amazed at how poorly bed bug infestations are being managed.

The article notes that Housing Authority Director Tim Jones said he was aware of only 11 affected units (though in April 63 tenants signed a petition for relief).  He is considering options for eliminating the problem including evacuating and fumigating the entire complex.

Let’s hope the residents get some relief soon.

Similar Posts:

• 160-unit Richmond, California complex evacuated for tent fumigation of bed bugs
• RainCity Housing’s “bed bug sauna” now active in new Vancouver building
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• Towels under the door: when cities abandon tenants with bed bugs
• Bed bugs at Northern Kentucky University

The Press of Atlantic City reports that there was a four month delay in treating bed bugs in four public housing buildings, even after bed bugs were detected in a third of the 800 units in Altman Terrace, Inlet Tower, Shore Park Hi-Rise and Charles P. Jeffries Tower, back in March.

Treatment did not begin until July.

And to think, we were shocked that Walt Whitman Houses residents in Brooklyn were made to wait a month for treatment by the NYCHA.

Four months seems like forever.

Emily Previti reports:

The bed bugs were quite bad, as far as the infestation levels, and nobody wants to wait a day, but it takes a few days just to get a dog out let alone take care of pest control. There’s just so much activity, [Michael Russell, vice president of marketing for Action Pest Control] said. “We were impressed by speed with which they moved. Amongst all other groups we’ve dealt with, the authority has been among the most pro-active.”

Shore Park resident Conchetta Caputo, 49, said building managers should have told residents upon confirming the presence of the pests and that eradication should have happened faster. In the interim, she suffered constant biting from bed bugs that she initially thought were mosquitoes that sneaked in the window in her living room, which lacks air conditioning.

[Jelani Garrett, acting director of the Atlantic City Housing Authority] attributed the delay to soliciting quotes from companies after Action conducted its initial sweep in late March and then finding the money to pay for the work.

(Emphasis mine.)

Why weren’t residents notified that their buildings were infested?

Garrett also admitted officials kept the information from residents to avoid sparking panic , but said the current round of extermination marks the beginning of regular checks and, if needed, treatments. The authority has not formally adopted a policy establishing that procedure, but doing so would be “a good idea,” Garrett said.

Action will be retreating in ten days, and subsequently if bed bugs are detected; they’ll also be bringing bed bug k9s in again in March for follow-up inspections.

See Bed bug eradication continues in Atlantic City public housing.

Related legislation:

NJ Senate Bill 2520 (introduced 2/2009) would require landlords of multi-unit buildings to eliminate bed bugs and to inspect buildings for bed bugs yearly (both at their expense).  NJ Senate Bill 2774 (introduced 5/2009) would require PCOs to provide a 30-day warranty on bed bug service to residential premises, which would require retreatment free of charge if landlord or tenant finds evidence of continued bed bug infestation.Similar Posts:

• Bed bugs bite in Richmond, California public housing development
• New York City Housing Authority: “bed bugs = emergency” + “wait a month” do not compute
• Lexington, Kentucky public housing infested with bed bugs
• Scholastic Headquarters treated for bed bugs; update on Penguin
• Bed bugs in Grand Forks, North Dakota public housing

Eyewitness News (ABC 7) in New York reports that residents of the Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn are suffering with bed bugs — and yet the New York City Housing Authority is giving them appointments for treatment up to a month after they complain.  And this is so even though the authority knows the building has a bed bug problem (residents are responding to flyers posted in the buildings).

ABC 7 says  “Housing officials told us they treat bed bugs as an emergency situation.”

Meanwhile, the average bed bug population can expand a lot in four weeks without treatment.

That’s a lot of eggs, a lot of bed bugs, a lot of bed bug bites.

You can watch the video here.Similar Posts:

• North Carolina shelter with bed bugs: outlook grim
• Lexington, Kentucky public housing infested with bed bugs
• Bed bugs in a senior apartment building in San Diego
• A reader’s bed bug story
• Harrisburg’s Channel 21 News: afraid to say “bed bugs”?

Claridge Towers, a DC Housing building on M Street has been treated for bed bugs off and on in the last two years, Fox News reports.

Clearly, the problem was not being entirely eliminated by the treatments done.

Part of the problem also seems to be that some tenants were self-treating because PCO treatments did not seem to be working. And not everyone was reporting their bed bug problems.

. . . Carl Payton and Tina Durrington-El said they’ve had their apartment treated before but the bugs keep coming back. So they gave up and began using over the counter products to keep the bugs at bay.

“I get frustrated and I get tired of calling back so I bought my own stuff,” Payton said.

That’s the problem. The Housing Authority says people need to call their maintenance hotline. At Claridge, officials said they had only three complaints that were being addressed until Brown turned to FOX 5. Now the building has five complaints.

Perhaps this outlines a need for the Housing Authority to search all units carefully, regardless of whether people notify them or not. It’s not just the tenants who don’t report known bed bug problems. There will always be additional tenants who are infested and do not have any idea.

Thankfully, finally, Fox News reports all 342 units are now being searched.

The building across the street, Horizon House, also has had recent bed bug problems some residents claim are persisting.

You can watch the story below. Warning, some graphic shots of bed bugs!

Similar Posts:

• Bed bugs bite in Richmond, California public housing development
• 160-unit Richmond, California complex evacuated for tent fumigation of bed bugs
• RainCity Housing’s “bed bug sauna” now active in new Vancouver building
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• Mark Sheperdigian on the limits of bed bug inspections

This story first made me want to cry.

And then it made me want to smash my hand into the wall.

The Ottawa Citizen reported today on the story of a local woman named Jadwiga Dziedziczak, aged 60. For ten years, she’s lived in an Ottawa public housing unit on Wurtemburg Street.

She had bed bugs. After many treatments and many months, she still had them. But those who could help her did not believe it.

“There was so much stress from so little sleep that she often used sleeping pills to help her cope at night.” And two weeks ago, she overdosed on the sleeping pills.

Friends and neighbors tried to help her navigate the public housing and public health offices, to get help despite her limited English.

The story is a testament to how stressful bed bugs can be, especially when the people responsible for keeping your home bed bug-free (the housing agency) think you are imagining a continued infestation.

Oh Lord yes, we have heard this one before.

Ms. Dziedziczak couldn’t fathom the idea of using her bed any more for fear of more bites and welts. She slept in the tub, on the floor and even on a chair with her head on the table, wrapped in sheets and blankets in an attempt to shield herself from the bugs. She even threw her old mattress out and bought a new one a month or so ago, but she stopped using it almost immediately after finding more bugs. Now that mattress and a couch have been thrown out, too.

Ms. Dziedziczak figures city-hired exterminators have been to her unit about five or six times in the last 10 months and says she was ridiculed occasionally by those who came to spray her bed. They told her she was imagining things. Her friends say the exterminators probably never did a thorough job because of their attitude and were usually gone within minutes of arriving. One even suggested that Mickey had a flea problem, but a veterinarian told her the dog was fine.

People in her building embarrassed her by suggesting her apartment was dirty. Those who know say she is impeccably clean. Her sister, who lives in the Alta Vista area, stopped visiting because she was afraid of getting bugs in her clothing and bringing them to her home.

It’s no wonder she felt so much stress, on top of the lack of sleep. My heart goes out to this woman and to all others who are suffering from bed bugs and simply not getting the help they need — even why they know they need help, when they ask for it, and even when there’s someone whose duty it is to provide it.

Thank goodness the overdose was not fatal. Ms. Dziedziczak is hospitalized. Her home is apparently still infested with bed bugs, and she’s still in the hospital, waiting for a bed bug-free home to go to.

The article also reports that 1,300 public housing units have been treated for bed bugs this year in Ottawa. And that

Ottawa Community Housing is asking the city to increase pest-control spending to $420,000 from $240,000. A “healthy” portion of pest control goes toward bedbug extermination, says Jo-Anne Poirier, chief executive of the housing agency.

Ottawa needs help. They need to follow in Toronto’s footsteps, declaring bed bugs a public enemy and a problem. And they need to rally their best resources to fight them.

Above all else, public health agencies need to recognize that bed bugs are a public health problem. If nothing else, they cause anxiety and sleeplessness, allergic reactions, and itching from bites. They cause stress.

And a lack of sleep can cause other health problems. Let’s not forget Theresa Kelly.

Even more troubling, Itchy-scratchy tells us, in the forums, there’s been at least one suicide in Ottawa we can probably attribute to bed bugs. And check out the discussion of this article on the forums too.

If you’re in Ottawa and have bed bugs, the paper wants to hear from you. The article ends with this invitation:

Is anything broken or bugging you where you live? Please let us know.

Contact: thepubliccitizen@thecitizen.canwest.com

And read the entire story in the Ottawa Citizen, now.
Similar Posts:

• More Toronto bed bug stories from Joe Fiorito
• North Carolina shelter with bed bugs: outlook grim
• Bed bugs at college: SUNY Potsdam
• Bed bugs infest multiple areas of New York’s John Jay College (CUNY)
• Worst case of bed bugs Dover health inspector has seen

This article from the Columbia Tribune explores what it takes for a public housing agency to fight bed bugs in a building designated for people with mental and/or physical disabilities.

The problem at Paquin Towers was first detected in March and has escalated since then, with 10% of the buildings 200 units already having been treated. At first, they were being treated one by one, but the CHA has discovered this is not enough where bed bugs are concerned.

Since [March], the housing authority has treated 20 units for the bugs, [Columbia Housing Authority CEO Phil Steinhaus] said. At first, the infestations were discovered and treated one by one, but the CHA now is treating six heavily infested units. Several features of Paquin Tower make the problem tough to tackle.

“What we do know, they are spreading through chases, or service-duct areas between apartments for wiring and plumbing,” Steinhaus said. “Air comes in under doorways, and there is ventilation in the ceilings of bathrooms. That’s how you get air exchange. We can’t go in and seal an apartment up or fog it or bug-bomb it.”

Unfortunately, treating the entire building is not an option. Steinhaus says it costs $2500 to treat one unit (which presumably involves assistance with prep, as well as fumigation of belongings in a truck, and pesticide spraying in the unit — all strategies mentioned in the article). This would amount to 1/2 a million dollars to treat the entire building.

Dealing with bed bug prep and treatment can be disorienting and upsetting for anyone, but for residents of Paquin Tower, these effects can be dangerously disruptive.

“With some of our folks, we have to be very sensitive about their routines,” Steinhaus said. “If they get something that throws their life into turmoil, it can be hard to get back to an even keel again.”

Charles Dudley, a Paquin resident for about 4½ years, said the small units that can resemble dorm rooms lend themselves to clutter. “In this building, there are residents with varying degrees of psychological disorders – hoarders, people with depression, anxiety – and they have accumulated a lot of stuff,” he said. “It’s important to them. How do you determine who should get rid of what? That’s going to be a hard issue to come across.”

Nevertheless residents are being told they must clean and de-clutter by December 17th, when inspections begin. Those who do not comply (with assistance if needed) will have their leases terminated.

Removing bed bugs from a high-rise, where bed bugs may be much more widespread than is already known, will be no easy task, especially given the challenges of the building’s design. The first step is knowledge, and it does sound like the management are aware of the difficulties of treatment, and prepared to support residents who need help.

It is also distressing to think that some residents with mental and/or physical disabilities may be evicted because they resist de-cluttering, prep, and treatment (even with assistance). It’s clear that requiring compliance is essential for the well-being of the rest of the residents, but I do hope support and counseling is being provided to resistant and non-compliant residents, so they can understand the importance of this, and avoid being evicted.

Thanks to Charles Dudley for pointing me to this article in a comment today. More from the Paquin Towers Residents’ blog.
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None Found

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
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The Official 2010 Olympics Newswire blogger David Eby says

News is ripping through the DTES that BC Housing may have found an effective way to control bedbug populations in SRO hotels.

The DTES is Vancouver’s bed bug-beleaguered Downtown Eastside.

And now, Eby continues,

BC Housing determined that ‘food grade diatomaceous earth, fresh water based’ within the wall cavities of SRO hotels will be a very effective method for dealing with the pesky critters.

We’ve heard about the drill-holes-in-the-wall-and-fill-them-with-DE method before, and have heard of PCOs doing this to help counteract the spread of bed bugs within the walls of buildings, from one unit to another.

It seems like a useful enough measure, but luckily, it does not seem to be the whole plan.

This BC Housing Newsletter (click for a PDF, see page 4) indicates the organization is considering and/or trying out some of the newest bed bug technologies including bed bug sniffing dogs, extreme temperatures, steam, thermal treatment (such as the sauna placed in the new RainCity development) and (this is a new one to me) smoke pellets which are said to be currently in use in the US but not yet approved by Health Canada.

As DTES resident stephanie argues in the comments, the plan is not a cure-all, and instead,

BC Housing should be getting a pest control company to treat infested buildings as a cleanout – each infested unit, plus the units above, below, and on either side, or even building-wide. *Minimum* two treatments two weeks apart. There is no substitute for a comprehensive, well-executed pest control strategy.

The other thing they should be doing is routine inspections for bedbugs – every three months to start, cutting back to every six, maybe, once it’s under control. A very large number of people don’t react to the bites, so they don’t become aware they have the bugs until the bugs become visible – and given how well bedbugs hide, if you start seeing them you have a very serious infestation on your hands. Relying on self-reporting, combined with inadequate landlord response, is what’s got a lot of buildings into this mess in the first place.

Yup. We know self-reporting is inadequate in terms of determining which units are infested.

stephanie also gives her bed bug activism credentials:

A note: the reason I can yabber about this is because I’ve been involved in DTES community responses to the bedbug crisis, and because I helped to develop my DTES co-op’s bedbug strategy. It’s worked. Because we’ve been proactive with inspections and treatment (including helping disabled members with unit prep, etc.), we haven’t had a single instance of unit-to-unit transmission in my building.

Right on, stephanie! Sounds like the rallying cry to potential members of (the as yet not existing to my knowledge) Vancouver vs. Bed Bugs.

Shout out to my fellow bed bug activists.

I got to this story via Beyond Robson.

This is the Vancouver page on the Bed Bug Registry.

This is Vancouver Coastal Health’s Guide to Bed Bug Control.Similar Posts:

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According to WKRN in Nashville, bed bugs have infested Madison Towers, a public housing development run by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency, or MDHA, in Nashville, Tennessee.

WKRN claims,

The first step in treating bed bugs is to throw out all furniture where the pest can hide.

Can someone please tell me why some government officials and pest control operators and reporters in the news media are still telling people on limited incomes to “throw away everything” that’s infested with bed bugs, and then complaining or expressing surprise when the neighbors raid the dumpsters and themselves become infested with bed bugs?

I know why: it’s harder to get people to treat items than to tell them to toss everything out. But bed bugs can come back. People need to be educated about how to deal with bed bugs properly — and how to avoid them.

Teaching people to treat items, and encase mattresses, and helping them do so, also means the tenants are not left sleeping on a bare floor, in an empty apartment. And it can help keep bed bugs out of someone else’s home. Seems like a win-win, no?

Click to read the article or watch the more extensive video report from WKRN.com.
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None Found

Public housing tenants in a Grand Forks, North Dakota public housing development are suffering from bed bug bites, according to a story in he Grand Forks Herald Saturday.

The article, “Bedbugs infest GF apartment complex again,” said twelve units were infested in the 76-unit Cherry Heights complex (at 110 Cherry Street), which houses those over 62, the disabled, and people on low incomes.

The word “again” in the headline referred to the fact that one unit in the building was infested back in March. This suggests that either (a) all bed bugs in the original infestation were not killed and later spread to others, (b) bed bug infestations were present at the time in other units that were not known about, (c) one or more tenants or staff have brought bed bugs in since the March infestation, or (d) all of the above.

The article says,

After the report of bedbugs in March, the affected apartment and surrounding units were treated.

“We felt that we did have it under control. We felt we did everything that had to be done,” [executive dirctor Terry] Hanson said.

From April to July, the housing authority received no reports of bedbugs. But it’s not clear whether this is a fresh case or a lingering one, Hanson said.

It is possible that other units besides surrounding ones were infested at the time. It’s also not clear how many treatments occurred back in March. Most bed bug infestations take more than one treatment to clear up. Some take many more. If tenants do not react to bites, they may not know if bed bugs are gone. The housing authority should therefore not rely on subsequent “reports of bed bugs” before following up with further treatment.

The Grand Forks Herald said the building was being treated next week with pesticide spraying by Ecolab, and that tenants in the twelve units being treated would be asked to vacate their homes for two days during treatment.

I can only hope residents have been educated about how to avoid moving bed bugs to the hotels, motels, friends’ or relatives’ homes where they might stay during that time.

Bed bugs spread easily and one must take precautions to avoid moving them in one’s clothing or possessions. (This FAQ gives some pointers on how to avoid spreading bed bugs to others.)

The Bismarck Tribune also did a brief story on this yesterday.

If you based your assessment of the bed bug epidemic on news stories which have come out most recently from Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and now North Dakota, you’d probably be thinking that bed bugs are mostly a problem in public housing.

This is far from the truth. All kinds of people get bed bugs in all kinds of homes. I have a hunch, though, that public housing bed bug stories are more likely to make it into the news. Similar Posts:

• Claridge Towers residents get help with their bed bugs from DC Housing Authority
• Frankfort, Kentucky Public Housing Authority plays the “bed bug blame game”
• Atlantic City public housing: 1/3 of 800 units in four buildings infested with bed bugs
• More stories of bed bugs in Halifax public housing
• 160-unit Richmond, California complex evacuated for tent fumigation of bed bugs