Bed Bug Blog

The Fort Worth Housing Authority is closing Hunter Plaza because of a chronic problem with bedbugs, forcing residents of the 11-story downtown apartments for the elderly and disabled to find new homes.

Housing authority officials also cited needed utility improvements.

People started moving out March 22, and officials hope to relocate all 219 residents by May, said Alice Sykes, a housing authority spokeswoman. Most are receiving Section 8 housing vouchers to move into apartments.

"First and foremost, our concern is for the health and welfare of the residents," Sykes said. "We're letting them tell us where they want to go. We are helping them locate facilities with vacancies and providing them assistance."

Some residents said they're unhappy with the decision to close. "I feel like all along they had led us to believe this was a temporary relocation. Then we find out it looks permanent," said Mary Siering, a Hunter Plaza resident for four years. "It's not that easy for some of us to go find another place to live."

Sykes said officials have communicated openly with residents throughout the process.

Hunter Plaza sits at 605 W. First St. in a building that once housed the Fortune Arms Hotel.

Constructed in 1951, it was bought by the housing authority in 1972 and residents moved in two years later.

Today, it has 234 units and mental-health services on-site, according to the housing authority Web site.

Councilman Joel Burns, whose district includes Hunter Plaza, said he was aware that the closure would separate many longtime neighbors and friends.

However, "the housing authority has been careful and deliberate in taking every action possible to eliminate the problems at this facility," Burns said in a statement. "The housing authority has assured me that every resident will be placed in a new apartment in a respectful manner."

Uncertain future

Housing authority officials say they have tried to eradicate the bedbugs since they became aware of the problem last spring. Residents were furnished with mattress encasements and free laundry service, according to a housing authority report.

In May, exterminators were paid $27,000 to use a steam treatment on the entire building, the report said. In December, $90,000 was spent to replace carpet with tile. But the bugs remained.

In some cases, management observed bugs on residents' bodies, the report said.

Bedbugs are small, flat, brown and difficult to kill because they hide in the cracks and crevices of beds, box springs and bed frames. They are commonly found in hotels and shelters.

This year, housing authority officials contracted with a pest control company for fumigation services that had proved effective elsewhere, according to a statement. The process requires that the building be cleared and sealed.

"Due to the age of the building and the need to install all-new electrical, water and utility systems; FWHA has determined that this is the only feasible way to eliminate the problem," the statement said.



Author: Alex Branch

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Bedbugs are forcing hundreds of people out of a downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Bedbugs are forcing hundreds of people out of a downtown Fort Worth, Texas apartment complex.

The critters have infested Hunter Plaza, a complex owned by the Fort Worth Housing Authority that caters primarlily to elderly and disabled people. The housing authority is relocating all 219 residents to new homes and getting all of their belongings fumigated.

Doris Haywood, a social worker with the agency, said it did all it could to eliminate the bugs.

"They're annoying. They bite. They live off human blood (and) animal blood, and they have a long life expectancy, and they multiply pretty quickly," she said.

Haywood said the bedbug problem began last spring. The housing authority hired exterminators, got bed covers for every resident and even removed carpet throughout the building, but the bugs returned.

Resident Sherri Bass said she didn't realize there was a problem until she was contacted by the housing authority.

"'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite' -- I thought that was just a saying," she said. "I didn't know there was really bugs."

Bass did not have bedbugs, but she saw what they did to a friend.

"He had them on his leg, and they looked like third-degree burns," she said.

While Bass was happy about the relocation and her new apartment, Mary Sierin, was not.

"I'm very disappointed at the decision to permanently relocate us," she said.

Sierin, a resident for four years, said she didn't want to leave, but she said the housing authority staff had been very helpful.

Haywood said she met several times with residents to this decision to keep them informed about everything that was going on inside their homes.

"A lot of them are excited. They are very apprehensive to leave here because they have been here many years," she said.

A spokesperson for the housing authority said it's too soon to tell what will happen to Hunter Plaza. Bedbugs can appear in any home.

They live in cracks and crevices such as mattress seams, furniture, baseboards and picture frames.

If you start to notice rows of bites when you wake up in the morning, contact an exterminator and make sure that person or company has experience with bedbugs.

After staying at a hotel, don't keep your luggage close to your bed at home and dry clean or wash and dry all of your clothes on hot.

Author:Taren Reed

CENTER CITY; March 25, 2010 (WPVI) -- Compared to New York City, Seattle, and some other cities, Philadelphia hotels don't have a big bed bug problem.
However, there are isolated infestations.

And today, members of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association met in center city to learn the latest about detecting and elimination the biting bugs.

The seminar was led by BedBug Central, an arm of Cooper Pest Solutions of Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

They service clients, including hotels, nationwide.

Robert DiJoseph, of BedBug Central, says the problem is actually bigger OUTSIDE hotels.

"Definitely apartments, apartment buildings, universities, and definitely in New York and New Jersey, office buildings, healthcare."

Despite the "bed" bug name, the quarter-inch insects also live in carpeting, and upholstery.

They can come in with travelers on luggage or clothing, so hotels are vulnerable.

Today, managers learned about the latest ways to detect and destroy the unwanted guests.

John Cochie, innkeeper of the Alexander Inn in center city says he's taken preventive steps, such as regular inspections with a bug-detecting dog, encasing beds in protective coverings, training housekeepers on detection, and replacing fabric upholstery with leather.

Cochie and his partner also put the luggage rack out and open in the room, so guests won't be tempted to put a potentially-infested suitcase on a chair or bed.

"Let's not give these bugs a place to hide," Cochie says.

He feels ALL business operators need to be more open about the problems.

"Whether it's the hotel industry, the cruise line industry, the multi-family apartment industry, even the people that live in the mansions on the Main Line, need to understand this is something that won't just go away, " Cochie told Action News.

He went on, "This is something that the more we talk about, the easier it's going to be for all of us to do our part to minimize the problem."

Experts say bed bugs have been around for thousands of years, and are likely to be around for thousands more.

by: WPVI-TV/DT

East Rutherford - Although school officials are not calling it an infestation, three bed bugs found in McKenzie School has prompted remediation and a report to the East Rutherford Board of Health.

"The first one was found on Friday," said Superintendent Kenneth Rota. "One was found on Monday and another yesterday (Tuesday)." "An inspection was conducted on Monday and pest management consultants are working to remediate the situation. They are coming back in today for a very thorough and extensive steam cleaning. Faust School will also be inspected."

Rota would not say where the bed bugs were found.

"As far as I know, the schools were kept open. Packets were sent home to the parents," said East Rutherford Board of Education member Mike Homaychak.

Debbie Dineen, spokesperson for Parsippany-based Western Test Services, the company that the school district uses for pest control, did not return a call for comment.

The East Rutherford Board of Health did not return a call at press time.

Bed bugs are transported from infested areas to non-infested areas when they cling to someone’s clothing or crawl into luggage, furniture or bedding brought into homes. Although they are not known to spread disease, they can cause allergic reactions, according to the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.

BY KELLY NICHOLAIDES

NORTH ADAMS -- North Adams Housing Authority officials say they have a so-called infestation of bed bugs at the high-rise and low-rise apartments under control, having taken multiple steps to educate the residents about the problem and eliminate the bugs.

"We’re taking a very proactive approach to this," Jennifer Hohn, the housing authority’s interim executive director, said Tuesday. "We have contained the problem to a very small area at both apartment buildings and have had extermination services in place for some time."

Problems at the senior housing complexes, located at 150 Ashland St. and 45 Spring St., are believed to have started several months ago when a tenant brought a used mattress into their home.

"We’ve stressed to our tenants that they need to make us aware of things like this," Hohn said. "We weren’t informed of the problem at first because the tenant thought it was because of unsanitary conditions. It has nothing to do with someone not being clean or unsanitary. Five-star hotels have problems with bed bugs. We’ve also advised our residents not to take anything out of the dumpsters -- no matter what condition it is in."

Beg bugs are small insects that feed on human blood and are known for living in mattresses and furniture. The insects usually feed in the early morning hours.

She said the issue, which has been identified and contained in each building, has been "blown out of proportion" by former tenants.
"If you talk with any public housing agency, I believe you would be hard-pressed to find one that hasn’t dealt with bed bugs in recent years," Hohn said. "It has nothing to do with cleanliness."

On Friday, the housing authority sponsored an educational meeting for tenants with Cat’s Eye Exterminators.

"We had about 30 tenants attend the meeting," she said. "The exterminators, who we contract with, provided preventative information about bed bugs and gave advice and procedures on what to do in an instance of infestation. It really put our residents at ease -- some were very frightened."


Author: Jennifer Huberdeau

The Collier County Health Department is inspecting St. Matthew’s House today after receiving a complaint about bed bugs, but the health department’s jurisdiction does not include the living facilities of the homeless shelter in East Naples.

The shelter’s kitchen is due for a six-month inspection and that will be the health department’s focus, said Deb Millsap, spokeswoman for the department.

Vann Ellison, executive director of St. Matthew’s, said the shelter has had the bed bug problem for 1(1/2) years and has been aggressively combating the problem. Ellison said no state agency has jurisdiction over homeless shelter dormitories.

“That’s one of the reasons why I had to get educated, there is no clearinghouse for information,” he said. “We have spent in the last year $48,000 trying to eradicate the bed bugs in our facility. It’s an ongoing thing and frustrating.”

The shelter organization houses 170 people in its East Naples and Immokalee locations and there is a turnover of 100 people a month, he said.

Bed bugs can be brought in by clothing or pillows and live in cracks of bed frames and in bedding. The shelter has had the East Naples building tented for bed bugs and termites in November, 2008, and since then bed linens are treated regularly with a high-heat dryer, mattresses have been covered in vinyl and a company comes in and sprays weekly.

“It’s a very sporadic problem,” he said. “It is frustrating because we have spent so much money trying to fix it.”


Author: Liz Freeman

It's a drab building that you've probably passed many times on First Avenue without even thinking about who lives there or why. Wedged between Egbert's furniture store and the Frontier Room, it's an easy spot to forget: a forbidding fence, a concrete courtyard and, on occasion, a person of little means lingering over a smoke.

The building is Bell Tower, a publicly owned high-rise that's home to about 120 people who are either retired or disabled. Their rent is subsidized by their landlord, the Seattle Housing Authority.

That tends to make most SHA tenants wary of saying or doing anything that would cause them to lose their housing -- even when there's a problem, people clam up. That makes it all the more amazing that tenants on the Bell Tower Resident Council are not only threatening to sue the agency, they've got a lawyer: Starbucks attorney Julie Wade, who was once the housing authority's general counsel, is representing the group for free and, on Jan. 22, sent a letter to SHA seeking four months free rent for every resident of Bell Tower.

If they don't get the free rent, says the council's chair, Ken Jennings -- who, it's no coincidence, has two separate lawsuits of his own going against the agency -- the group will file suit.

The issue is a $3.5 million rehab of the building that the housing authority started last August. Since then, Wade says in her letter to SHA Executive Director Tom Tierney, running water in the building has been shut off two dozen times for up to eight hours at a stretch, workers have come and gone from tenants' apartments with no warning, and the construction and its noise and fumes have not only made people sick, it's driven roaches and a much harder-to-kill pest in the building -- bedbugs -- from apartment to apartment to feed on residents.

At a meeting Wade had with Bell Tower tenants last fall, "At least ten of the residents present reported being bitten by bedbugs as well as the lack of an effective and timely response from SHA," she says in the letter. "Reportedly, it often took 2, and sometimes 4 weeks, for the pest control unit to show up after a request had been properly filed."

The conditions, Wade says, violate federal housing regulations, which call for living conditions to be sanitary and units to have a functioning sink, toilet and tub or shower.

In a reply on Jan. 29, Tierney disagrees. It's impossible, he writes, for a construction project not to inconvenience residents in some way and, sorry, but now that Seattle has a bedbug problem, "occasionally the demands on the bedbug pest control unit exceeds its capacity."

That's a little ominous: Being out of "capacity" means it's OK for bedbugs to bite and suck on tenants at night? Jennings says no and that the Bell Tower council has already filed a formal claim with the housing authority demanding the free rent -- the first step, he says, on the way to a lawsuit that the council's executive board has already OK'd.

BY:Cydney Gillis