Both the San Jose Mercury News and the Stamford Advocate have a feature where they identify people in the community needing donors to “grant a wish” this holiday season.

The San Jose Mercury article I mentioned yesterday (about the San Jose Family Shelter) also describes a “Wish Book” request from the shelter:

Some of the mattresses and box springs had to go. But it’s been too expensive to trash all the wooden bunk beds and bed frames, which the bugs love to burrow in. Instead, the shelter crew has been taking apart the frames, spraying them down and letting the sun bake the creatures out of hiding, then spraying again.

For now, the bedbugs seem to have gone on hiatus, but [shelter executive director Trish] Crowder isn’t taking chances. She’s asking Wish Book readers to help her nonprofit buy heavy-duty metal beds — 70 bunks ($300 each) and 35 double beds ($300 each) and with mattresses for each ($100) — along with zip-up vinyl mattress covers ($15 each) and cotton mattress covers ($15 each).

This wish list roundup from the Stamford Advocate describes a woman needing assistance due to bed bugs,

No. 57: A recent bout with bedbugs has left Betty, 82, without a couch or comfortable chair in her apartment. A gift of $500 would allow her to replace the furniture she has lost.

If you’re in a position to help, then you can find the information on doing so by clicking the links to the paper in question. The main reason for my post, however, is to note that these requests give the public a small sense of the economic hit bed bugs can cause — beyond the cost of actual treatment — to those affected.

In these tough economic times, bed bugs can easily cause a person or an organization that is struggling financially to go over the deep end. Or at least to go without. Most people suffering from the financial effects of bed bug treatment, or related expenses (furniture replacement, commodity fumigation, moving), have nowhere to go to ask for help.

If we’re going to fight for change, people who have not had bed bugs need to be aware of the hardships — financial, emotional, and health-related stresses bed bugs cause to sufferers.Similar Posts:

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Here’s The Stamford Advocate with another story that makes me mad. Residents of a building for senior citizens like Adelaida Ramos have been dealing with bed bugs for three years:

Ramos is one of more than 50 people at Stamford Manor, a public housing residence for seniors, who have reported bedbugs to the housing authority over the past three years. The authority has fumigated apartments, especially since the problem became rampant last year, but residents said the bloodsuckers persist, moving from one apartment to the next.

Some residents, including Ramos, think the only way to annihilate the pests is to fumigate all of Stamford Manor.

“If they continue doing it like this, it’s never going to end,” said Ramos, who speaks Spanish.

On Wednesday, Richard Fox, executive director of the housing authority recently renamed Charter Oak Communities, said he plans to do that. Monday the authority will begin fumigating two floors a day for five days, said Bob Violet, the building inspector. Another 20 apartments will be fumigated each week for three weeks, Fox said.

That doesn’t sound like fumigation.

True fumigation, commonly done with gases such as sulfuryl fluoride, Vikane (TM), requires evacuation, and is helpful in clearing an entire building of bed bugs at once. Thermal treatment can also lead to a quick resolution (as I hope it will for these seniors in Philadelphia).

What Stamford Manor is getting sounds like traditional bed bug treatments (spraying, dusting). The bed bugs have been traveling aroud the building for three years already, and this treatment plan may not be the end of it, unfortunately.

Update (11/25): at least for now, the Stamford Advocate reports there are no complaints of bed bugs in Stamford Manor, according to management. The whole building was treated — I am not sure how many times, though at least some units (perhaps all?) got three spray treatments in two weeks. Six residents were still claiming to have bed bugs as of mid-November, so I think it’s too soon to call it a success. Similar Posts:

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Channel 3 in Waterbury, Connecticut reported today,

There’s a lot wrong in that statement alone, let alone the report that follows.

First, check your children?!?

Bed bugs do not live on children. They are not like lice.

They may be carried briefly in clothing or harbor in bags.

But they primarily live in places: in beds, chairs or other furniture, in floors and walls. The child picked bed bugs up somewhere: could it be home? School? In a friend’s home, relative’s home, afterschool care? Restaurant? Public transportation? On the school bus right before he came to school? It could be anywhere.

Home is a likely source but not the only one by any means.

So what you need to check, or carefully inspect, or better yet have a professional (who is experienced with bed bugs) carefully inspect, is the physical environment the child lives in, goes to school in, and otherwise spends time in.

Second, the news report says bed bugs are the “size of a poppy seed and range in color from white to dark red.” Not quite accurate.

Bed bugs have five nymphal (pre-adult) life stages and one adult life stage. The smallest nymphs are 1/32 inch (1 mm) — as long as the thickness of a credit card. But adults are closer to 1/6 inch (6 mm) or a bit larger than an apple seed. And they will be more on the rusty-brown side of the color spectrum. Only the youngest nymphs will be “white” or translucent, or blood-red if just fed.

Third,

Health officials said that bed bugs can be removed from clothing by putting them in the dryer for two cycles.

“Two cycles” is pretty vague and misses the important point about the temperature needed to kill bed bugs.

A very hot dryer (180 F) will kill bed bugs and eggs hidden inside a sock in 5 minutes, entomologist Dr. Michael Potter tells us. Other fabrics may take more time based on thickness or size, possibly much longer. But the dryer really must be hot. A cooler dryer (120 F) would take at least 1/2 hour or more once it reaches that temperature. I really don’t know what a standard US dryer heat is, nor how long a typical dryer cycle is. It is probably best to be as specific as possible under the circumstances.

Finally, when I hear stories like this, I want to know more about how school officials determined the bed bugs were coming from the child’s clothing or things.

Because if you simply found bed bugs on a child, they could also have crawled onto him from the immediate surroundings.

I really hope all the parents will learn about bed bugs and inspect their homes carefully. I also hope the family of this child will get help if their home is indeed infested, and that others will not treat them badly. Because even if he did bring bed bugs into school, it is not his fault.

Bed bugs can happen to anyone and should not be the source of shame. They are not caused by a lack of hygiene, but spread easily from one person to another. People who have them always, always caught them from someone else. It’s usually not really anyone’s fault.

Waterbury has apparently had lots of bed bug infestations.

And other schools have been dealing with this problem to varying degrees of success.Similar Posts:

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According to the Stamford Advocate, that city’s health department expects last year’s 85 reported cases of bed bugs will be surpassed this year. (Remember, those are just the cases that get reported to the health department):

“It’s going up and it’s going to continue to go up,” said Mike Kraynak, director of health inspections.

As a New Yorker, I am intrigued to hear a public official express concern that the bed bug problem is growing, though it so obviously is.

And here’s the law in Stamford:

If a bed bug case is reported in rented housing, the city requires landlords to exterminate until the problem is resolved, Kraynak said. First, a resident must find a bed bug and take it to the city as evidence. If a lab worker confirms it is a bed bug, the city sends an extermination order. Usually, if the apartment is six units or less, the city requires the entire building be treated. In larger complexes, the city requires treating only the affected unit and those surrounding it.

I haven’t heard of other cities which invite residents to bring a sample in.

In New York, in stark contrast, we hear inspectors (if they turn up to inspect following a bed bug complaint) like to see them harboring in the “natural habitat” of your home (in daylight, of course, and in plain view). Oh, and we’re told they often expect the resident to be able to find them. As you can imagine, the wily bed bugs don’t always cooperate.

Stamford has some other things going for it, too:

Kraynak said residents must report a bed-bug problem, but a few preventive measures are in place. [City Health Inspector Amy] Lehaney works to educate neighborhood associations. And the health department provides information, including examples of the insects, at its front desk in the government center.

For those who don’t have a problem, Kraynak recommends caution.

“Don’t pick up a mattress from the sidewalk,” he said. “It’s against the law to sell used mattresses. And when you go into a hotel room, check the bedding and make sure you don’t see signs of an infestation.”

So Stamford is educating residents, helping walk-ins learn to identify bed bugs, and it’s also illegal to sell used mattresses in Stamford?

Good news!

In New York, officials turn a blind eye as the used mattress trade works overtime. There sure are a lot of mattresses on the curbside right now. I’m sure it saves New York City a lot of money in terms of garbage collection when those scavengers come and pick them up for re-sale.

I could not find anything about bed bugs by searching on the Stamford Health Inspections website at this time, but it sounds like they have some good policies in place so far. Let’s hope they do even more to fight the spread of bed bugs in Stamford.Similar Posts:

• Baltimore’s 311 Online now has a bed bug complaint option
• Gale Brewer invites bedbuggers to her annual open house
• I asked New York’s Mayor Bloomberg what he is going to do about bedbugs

News Channel 8 in New Haven claims that after they aired a story on bed bugs in the Bella Vista apartments in Elm City, lots of people came forward to tell management they had the problem too:

News Channel 8 showed you the critters up close, then management was flooded with complaints. Bella Vista is an apartment complex with many elderly residents, many of which are subsidized. And, News Channel 8 has been told, some are afraid they’ll be evicted if they complain.

The management company says absolutely no one will be evicted for complaining. But, the company only spoke to residents after our first story aired even though they knew there was a problem here. And, that has some residents very upset.

Marilyn Watstein learned about the bed bug problem at the Bella Vista apartment complex in the Elm City from a News Channel 8 report. “I happened to catch the end of it last week,” she said.

In my last post on the Bella Vista’s bed bug problem, I suggested the building would do well to inspect every unit in the building and treat all vertically and horizontally adjacent units to the ones known to be infested, regardless of whether bed bugs were found in the adjoining units.

After all, the knowledgeable officials in Boston made that a city policy for buildings where bed bug violations were found. It’s considered a good practice.

It’s worth remembering that the City of Boston is not a business which stands to benefit from making landlords pay for such inspections and preventive treatments. They’re trying to help landlords and tenants resolve bed bug problems quickly and completely.

If landlords are not forced to undertake such an action, and do not choose it on their own, it is nevertheless the standard practice in the industry to at least inspect all units that are adjacent — horizontally or vertically — to an infested unit.

Most knowledgeable and reputable Pest Control Operators — the ones who know how bed bugs get around, and who want their customers to have a successful outcome — won’t treat for bed bugs in a building unless the landlord agrees to the inspection of adjoining units (above, below, all sides).

That’s right: business people will walk away from the job rather than treating a single unit for bed bugs without inspecting those connected to it. They consider it that important to bed bug treatment.

Is the management of the Bella Vista going to have those adjacent units inspected, let alone treated?

Nope.

[Carabetta Vice President Bill Stetson] says they will now be sending out an informational flyer to everyone. But, they refuse to inspect every apartment and will only exterminate when a resident complains.

“It’s not a question of cost for us, it’s a question of doing the right thing and getting rid of the problem as quickly as possible,” Stetson said.

Good luck with that.

Of course it’s a good thing the management is now going to inform all residents that the building has bed bugs (you know, in case some of them don’t watch Channel 8 news or don’t interact with their neighbors often).

But this act alone is hardly going to bring about a resolution to the Bella Vista’s bed bug problem “as quickly as possible,” which is what Stetson claims to be aiming for.

Click here to view the video.Similar Posts:

• Bed bugs in Hamilton, Ontario: lessons for landlords and local governments
• Mark Sheperdigian on the limits of bed bug inspections
• Bed bugs in apartment complexes: bed bug “lotharios” and “Nintento Trojan horses”
• Never assume the tenant who complains about bed bugs is the only tenant with bed bugs
• Claridge Towers residents get help with their bed bugs from DC Housing Authority

Annie Rourke reported for News Channel 8 in New Haven on Thursday that residents of the Bella Vista complex in Elm City feel their management is not treating bed bugs aggressively enough.

New Haven (WTNH) — People living in one Elm City apartment complex say they have unwanted guests: bed bugs. And, they’re saying there’s not enough being done to get rid of them.

Residents say exterminators only do one apartment at a time and only when someone complains.

This piecemeal approach is entirely the wrong one where bed bugs are concerned. Pest Control Operators who know bed bugs tell us you need to inspect carefully, find bed bug harborages, and treat them aggressively.

All adjoining units (vertically and horizontally) — if not the entire building — must be inspected professionally by a PCO that knows bed bugs. And it’s an even better idea to treat those adjoining units even if bed bugs cannot be found.

News 8 spoke with a resident on the 7th floor of the Bella Vista:

“I had bites all over my arms, I was sitting on the sofa and one crawled on my leg and one crawled on my back,” Joanne Buccetti, of New Haven, said.

She got an inspection and treatment after she complained. Meanwhile,

Down on the 5th floor, the tenant’s place is so bad News Channel 8 was not allowed inside, even though the exterminator’s come repeatedly.

“Three times and three times they’re right back again,” Sal DeFelice, of New Haven, said.

Treating single apartments, only after residents complain about bed bugs, simply does not work. Units must be treated simultaneously, and repeat treatments must come in 10-14 days, until the problem is entirely cleared up.

You cannot wait for tenants to see bed bugs, since they can be hard to spot, and you can’t rely on reports of bed bug bites, since many people do not react to them. By the time the tenants realize they still have bed bugs, the number of bed bugs can have increased greatly. If treatment occurs every 10-14 days, you have a chance to nip hatching nymphs and other survivors in the bud.

Apartment building managers simply need to become educated about bed bugs. And pest control operators need to insist that proper protocols be used (including — at the bare minimum — inspections of all adjoining units before treatment begins).

Many PCOs who value their reputations already do insist on this, because the piecemeal treatment plan simply does not work to rid a building of bed bugs.

And many reputable PCOs will recommend even more is done. In a building like this, where tenants have been discarding infested furniture, searching horizontally and vertically adjacent units isn’t enough: you really need to have a pro search the entire building.

Why? Because some of that bedbug-infested refuse has no doubt been judged to look “just fine” and has been carried back from the curb or dumpster into other units as yet not known to be infested. It’s a pattern so common in multi-unit buildings that if I were a betting woman, I’d put money on the fact it was happening in the Bella Vista.

But don’t take my word for it: so would the Boston Inspectional Services Division. When they hand out a bed bug violation, they require landlords to inspect the entire building, and to treat all vertically and horizontally adjacent units; as their website states:

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).

That’s how you start to stop the spread of bed bugs in a multi-unit dwelling. That’s the start. Follow-up inspections and treatments will also be needed.

This is what a building like the Bella Vista needs: an aggressive bed bug treatment protocol. (That and education for tenants about how to avoid spreading the problem further.)

The Bella Vista is primarily a senior citizens’ building; how many of us want to think of our elderly relatives, or ourselves, with regular bed bug bites and no relief in sight?

You can read the full article from News 8 here.Similar Posts:

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According to The News-Times, Danbury Housing Authority is fighting bed bugs in Ives Manor, a 98-unit elderly housing complex on Main Street in Danbury, CT.

Carolyn Sistrunk, executive director of the Danbury Housing Authority, said Monday the complex had a problem with the bugs in 2007 and spent about $17,000 to get rid of them.

“They were here in the fall,” Alex Sixbey, one of the tenants at Ives Manor said Monday. “It took a lot of work — by the exterminators and by me — to get rid of them.”

But Sistrunk said the bedbugs returned. While last year’s outbreak was confined to Ives Manor’s fourth floor, they may have popped up elsewhere in the building.

“We’re going to treat the entire building,” she said.

It does not sound like the bed bugs were necessarily completely gone. While it’s possible they were and the building was reinfested, it is also possible that some units had bed bugs and the tenants were unaware and/or not reporting them.

Many times, visual inspections will turn up nothing, especially if there is a small infestation. In time, however, it would explain bed bugs springing back.

Carolyn Cutler, who has lived in city housing for about 20 years, moved to Ives Manor more than four years ago and lives on the fourth floor. Last fall, she said, the pests showed up in her apartment.

In recent weeks “I found one on my sheets,” she said. “I’m changing my sheets twice a day. I’ve never seen them before. I don’t want to put up with this.”

Sistrunk said Ives Manor hired Amtech, a local exterminating company that is getting increasing experience in fighting bedbugs, to do the work. The company has even purchased a beagle trained to sniff out bedbugs to help its staff find the vermin.

The initial contract for the work is about $9,000, Sistrunk said.

And with a sense of great foreboding, but no great sense of surprise, I present this PCO soundbite:

Richard Monastero, Amtech’s president, said Monday for the foreseeable future people should consider bedbugs an ongoing problem, not a one-time thing.

Ugh.Similar Posts:

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Tenants of 575 Ellsworth Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut say they have had bed bugs since May, 2007 (more than a year), according to this Connecticut Post article.

Teresa Bayliss, who has lived in her third-floor apartment for nine years, said the residents have been battling with the insects for more than a year. “Basically, this apartment building, since last May, has had problems with bedbugs,” she said. “I would say since like Easter, things are getting worse.”

That’s far too long to suffer with bed bugs.

One resident took a dangerous and extreme measure:

The problem at the apartment building was so bad that a resident recently decided to take matters into his own hands. Following the advice of a friend, he burned charcoal in his third-floor apartment. But because of the fumes, the building had to be evacuated.

“We were upset, but if you saw the bites on that man, who could blame him?” said Bayliss.

The man got bad advice and did something very unsafe. Looking back, what would have been a safe and rational reaction, instead, is if someone from the building had notified city officials.

According to the article, Warren Blunt, director of environmental health for the city’s Health Department, said,

The department was not aware of the bedbug problem at Ellsworth before last week’s incident, he said.

When the agency does receive complaints, Blunt said, an inspector goes out to confirm that there are bedbugs in the building. “The owner is basically responsible for the establishment. The owner is responsible for hiring an exterminator,” Blunt said. “We allow them up to two weeks. But in this case, we would make a recommendation that they begin immediately,” he said. Criminal penalties may be pursued if a landlord does not act to remedy the problem, Blunt said.

So one lesson here is that residents of Bridgeport with bed bugs should call the Health Department to notify them of the problem, so they can inspect and order treatment. It’s unlikely that residents were aware of this recourse, or someone probably would have called. I hope the Health Department will attempt to advertise this more widely.

Some treatments have already occurred. So far,

Bayliss said the treatments do not appear to be helping. “They had Orkin [pest control company] coming in spurts. I’ve had Orkin come to my apartment once. Other people aren’t getting treated at all,” she said.

But the article says the management is currently ripping out everyone’s carpet and the building supervisor seems to be saying the whole building will have to be treated at least twice. (I would not be surprised if it took more than two treatments spaced no more than two weeks apart.) I hope this treatment is aggressive and thorough and comes swiftly for the tenants, who have suffered for such a long time.

Officials quoted in the article remind us that tenants have to cooperate with preparation and treatment:

The problem is more challenging when tenants are not able, or refuse, to keep their apartments clean and orderly. Bedbugs can travel on people’s clothing or find their way into the apartment next door.

“There are agencies that will offer to come out, that will do the cleaning,” said Blunt. But if people don’t cooperate with the pest eradication efforts, “that’s what makes this compounded, makes this complex.”

As odd as it may sound, we often hear of badly infested buildings where one or more tenants simply don’t want to be inspected. In cases such as this, where the whole building is being inspected, it would not be surprising if the same tenants were not cooperative with preparations or treatment.

This hurts everyone else — both fellow tenants and management.

Those with physical or financial limitations absolutely need help and support in preparing for and undergoing bed bug treatment. But refusing or being non-cooperative is a serious problem: keeping your bed bugs is not an option.Similar Posts:

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A gospel music group, Doc Mackenzie and the Hi-Lites, claim they were bitten by bed bugs in a Comfort Inn in Milford, Connecticut, according to News Channel 8 (WTNH).  (Click the tiny video camera symbol to see the report.)

The group was in town for a concert and had a music video to shoot that day. Several members had allergic reactions including swollen eyes. Some of the men caught several bed bug samples in a jar. Maybe they’ll call the health department?

The group says the hotel offered to refund them the cost of one room and give them a $100.

Comping a bed bug-infested room and paying out $100 when people happen to react to bed bug bites seems like it’s a lot cheaper than dealing with the problem.  Until someone sues.

I’m not the kind of gal that goes crazy for lawsuits, but you can see why some folks want to sue under such circumstances.  I really hope the band know about bed bugs and have taken steps to avoid taking them to their next destination.Similar Posts:

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We know bed bugs are all over Waterbury, CT.

And all over Craigslist.

Craigslist reader BOB warned fellow Craigslisters (namely residents of Oakville and the Waterbury area) to beware:

re oakville

Reply to: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-12-20, 11:07PM EST

Watch out for bed bugs. THey are spreading fast. They are all over waterbury and the reactions are too slow. Check out http://www.bedbugger.com Don’t pick up stray furniture or people. It spreads fast takes up to a year before people realize they have a problem then if they are a tenant it takes another 2 months to start treatments then people throw thier furniture on the street. ITs a spreading nightmare and of course nobody is talking but the exterminators are making a fortune. WHy because they are impossible to get rid of. THey crawl in holes. survive or even if they get them all you probably infected someone familiar to you who reinfects you. Oh and how many family things have you gone too when they take you jacket and throw it on a bed…with everone elses Merry christmas from waterbury….and happy itching f—ing new year….BOB

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 515776675

I cleaned up a word. You can see the glorious original by clicking on the screenshot above (then choose “All Sizes” and then “Large”). The original was here and may still be.

We don’t know BOB, but we know why he’s angry.Similar Posts:

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