Inside Housing reports that a charity for victims of torture reports that torture victims are being forced to live in substandard conditions, in government-funded homes which are “infested with vermin and bed bugs.”

(They had me at “bed bugs.”)

The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture has reported that problems include broken heating, homes infested with bugs and yards strewn with rubbish.

The charity based its claims on feedback from staff and clients at its four national centres. It said housing conditions often did not meet the UK Border Agency’s guidelines, issued to the private companies detailed with providing accommodation to asylum seekers.

A foundation spokesperson said that substandard housing conditions were a problem ‘for a significant number of our clients, who present at counselling sessions with housing issues as their main preoccupation’.

Read the rest from Inside Housing.Similar Posts:

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Oh, ignorance most surely is bliss!

To think that someone, somewhere, had to be convinced that bed bugs are indeed vermin.

Reader, I envy those people.

I am treading the dangerous space of quoting too much from an article, to make sure this information is preserved for posterity.  The Enquirer, cinncinnati.com reports:

By adding them to Cincinnati Municipal Code Section 1601-17, bedbugs are among the critters the city ordinance requires owners and occupants of buildings to control.

Council also voted Wednesday to ask the Cincinnati Board of Health to change all its regulations regarding vermin infestations.

Until council added bedbugs, it was illegal in Cincinnati to permit an infestation of “rodents, fleas, lice, roaches, weevils” and unspecified “other vermin.”

Harboring a vermin infestation is a fourth-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $250 fine.

But in saying that “owners and occupants” must eliminate bed bugs or face a fine or jail time, can someone tell us if tenants = “occupants”?

In other words, are landlords liable for eliminating tenants’ bed bugs in Cincinnati?

In still other words, what happens when people can’t afford proper treatment to eliminate bed bugs? Will there be any assistance for them?

Bottom line: is this ruling going to mean fewer people suffer from bed bugs, or that more people face fines and jail time?Similar Posts:

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