The week before Christmas and raining, to boot, some 14 families were tipped out of a Ventura inn because of electrical hazards and an infestation of bedbugs.

— Richard Neal, his fiancée and her mother with late-stage lung cancer.

— William and Tina Kirkpatrick and their two children, 7 and 5.

— Franchine Ivans, Steve Jordan and their four children.

They are among the approximately 40 people — including about 15 children — staying in the 37-room Travelers Beach Inn told 4 p.m. Tuesday by the county Building and Safety and Health divisions that they would have to leave until the motel’s problems are fixed. It is not known when the motel might reopen, as reported by Star reporter Kevin Clerici in his Wednesday article, “Bedbugs, electrical issues force tenants from motel.”

Tenants at Travelers Beach Inn, 929 E. Thompson Blvd., pay $275 weekly rent. Although it is more costly than renting a small apartment, many can’t afford to pay first- and last month’s rent.

Whoever you are, whatever the state of your bank account, bed bugs are a burden. But they seriously worsen the already bad conditions many are living under. In this case, people who can barely make their current rent are temporarily displaced, with no means of moving to a new home.

We hear time and again of people with serious illnesses, disabilities, infirmities related to age, Alzheimer’s disease, single parents, parents of small children–all facing bed bugs. Their battle with bed bugs is not easy, or quick. If you think it’s hard for young, healthy professionals like Nicholas Brown, consider how bad it can be when the deck is stacked against you.

When people say “it’s just a bug”–well, yeah. I get that. But it can seriously wipe many people out financially, energy-wise, timewise.

We need bed bugs to be taken seriously, and for motels and other establishments to be proactive in identifying and treating problems–and educating residents about how to spot and prevent bed bugs.

And we need the government, as well as private industry, to take responsibility. Not just for shutting things down when codes are violated. But for helping avoid such drastic measures in the first place.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. The Christmas story is about a couple with no where to sleep and a baby on the way. I’ll be thinking about those homeless Travelers Beach Inn residents on Christmas.

Update (1/12/2008):

This article  says the Traveler’s Beach Inn has reopened, “pest-free” and with the other repairs done:

The motel also was thoroughly fumigated, and a health inspector says it is now free of bedbugs.

It is unclear whether the motel was actually fumigated with vikane gas, which has a high success rate as a one-off treatment (we’re told), or whether “fumigation”
is being used as a shorthand for pest control spray treatments, which often require many follow-ups.  I am not sure how well this works when people are not present.  (We do know that in serious infestations, when inspectors or others come in after the room has been vacant, bed bugs often appear, in daylight, looking for food.)

Perhaps soon housing inspectors will take advantage of bed bug dogs as an aid to doing visual bed bug inspections?

• entomologists podcasting; bed bugs and disease; another bedbugged motel closed; Singapore, Hawai’i
• Bed Bugs and Christmas
• Spring break bed bug warnings!
• Bed Bugs in Hampton Roads, Virginia hotels

ShareThis

• Pest Management Professional - Continued technological and educational advancement in pest detection, identification, treatment and control methods. | Web Exclusive | 10 Questions with Jerome GoddardTen Questions with Jerome Goddard (Pest Management Professional Podcast)–includes interesting discussion of whether bed bugs are potential transmitters of disease, or not. From 9/06, but new to me and maybe you too.

  (tags: interview audio bedbugs Dr.JeromeGoddard entomologist sept2006)

• PCTOnline.com :: Article :: [Focus On Public Health] Do Bed Bugs Carry Disease?Article from PCTOnline by Jerome Goddard (11/2003) on whether bed bugs spread disease.

  (tags: bedbugs disease health diseasevector Dr.JeromeGoddard PCTOnline)

• Pest Management Professional podcast | 10 Questions with Alvaro RomeroInterview with Univ. of Kentucky bed bug researcher / graduate student Alvaro Romero. From April 2007.

  (tags: podcast alvaroromero researcher)

• Pest Management Professional Podcast | 10 Questions with Rick CooperInterview with Rick Cooper of Cooper Pest, NJ–focusing on pesticide resistance. September 2007.

  (tags: rickcooper interview podcast sept2007)

• San Jose Mercury News - Bedbugs, electrical problems force evacuation of Ventura motel“A bedbug-infested low-rent Ventura motel was shut down by authorities, forcing poor families and disabled tenants to spend the Christmas season hunting for cheap lodging.” The 37-room Travelers Beach Inn hopes to reopen in a week.

  (tags: bedbugs hotelclosure ventura california travelersbeachinn motel code dec2007 2007 budgetmotel)

• Review of Judith McNeil’s The Girl with the Cardboard Port :: Sarah Chew, thestar.com.my“She recalled with humour the shock of discovering squat toilets, bed bugs, and corpse-eating rats…” From a review of an Australian woman’s memoir of life in 1950s/early 1960s Singapore.

  (tags: singapore bedbugs 1950s 1960s judithmcneil memoir dec2007 2007 bookreview)

• Rats: Hawaii’s first invasive species - The Molokai Times“In cities, rats are one of Hawaii’s biggest pest problems after ants and bed bugs, said Tim Lyons, director of the Hawaii Pest Control Association.” Bed bugs are #2? Not for long, I suspect.

  (tags: bedbugs hawai’i hawaii pests dec2007 2007 spread)

• bed bugs in Virginia Beach (again), Brown County, Ohio, and potential health risks
• New PCT podcast with Dr. Michael Potter
• Ventura County motel closure makes many families homeless at Christmas
• a bed bug story from Hawai’i; Fagerlund on aerosol bombs and pesticides

ShareThis