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Monday, March 1, 2010
No sleeping tight when blood-suckers bite
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.
more images RIHANNA and JAY-Z’s record label was forced to shut its New York City offices last month (Jan10) following an outbreak of bedbugs.
Executives at Universal Music Group and Island Def Jam had to close their Manhattan headquarters and call in pest control officers after the parasitic insects were found in the building.
Three floors were fumigated in a bid to banish the bedbugs, but the problem returned this week (beg01Feb10) when a celebrity talent agency downstairs was also forced to close to deal with the problem. Staff at ICM, which represents stars including Megan Fox, Halle Berry and Mickey Rourke, were sent home on Wednesday (03Feb10).
A representative for Universal Music tells New York Post gossip column Page Six, “We were aware of the issue and it has been resolved on our floors.”
Public health nearly doubled its number of investigations to 108 between July 1 and September 30, 2009 from 65 during the same time period in 2008.
“We definitely are seeing them move into the area,” said said Bob Hart, environmental health manager at public health. “There’s definitely more bed bug infestations.”
There is no part of the city or type of housing immune from getting the bugs. Public health gets more calls from tenants but that’s because they need help getting their landlords to exterminate the bugs and not because they’re more likely to get them.
“There is a significant increase in all urban centres in North America over the last few years,” said Hart. “It seems to be something everyone seems to be grappling with right now.”
So far, public health has no explanation for the increase.
“Nobody really knows why,” said Hart. “Bed bugs were definitely a problem 10 to 15 years ago and then there seemed to be a hiatus where we didn’t get as many complaints about them and then suddenly they seemed to be back on the scene.”
Public health nearly doubled its number of investigations to 108 between July 1 and September 30, 2009 from 65 during the same time period in 2008.
“We definitely are seeing them move into the area,” said said Bob Hart, environmental health manager at public health. “There’s definitely more bed bug infestations.”
There is no part of the city or type of housing immune from getting the bugs. Public health gets more calls from tenants but that’s because they need help getting their landlords to exterminate the bugs and not because they’re more likely to get them.
“There is a significant increase in all urban centres in North America over the last few years,” said Hart. “It seems to be something everyone seems to be grappling with right now.”
So far, public health has no explanation for the increase.
“Nobody really knows why,” said Hart. “Bed bugs were definitely a problem 10 to 15 years ago and then there seemed to be a hiatus where we didn’t get as many complaints about them and then suddenly they seemed to be back on the scene.”
Public health nearly doubled its number of investigations to 108 between July 1 and September 30, 2009 from 65 during the same time period in 2008.
“We definitely are seeing them move into the area,” said said Bob Hart, environmental health manager at public health.“There’s definitely more bed bug infestations.”
There is no part of the city or type of housing immune from getting the bugs. Public health gets more calls from tenants but that’s because they need help getting their landlords to exterminate the bugs and not because they’re more likely to get them.
“There is a significant increase in all urban centres in North America over the last few years,” said Hart. “It seems to be something everyone seems to be grappling with right now.”
So far, public health has no explanation for the increase.
“Nobody really knows why,” said Hart. “Bed bugs were definitely a problem 10 to 15 years ago and then there seemed to be a hiatus where we didn’t get as many complaints about them and then suddenly they seemed to be back on the scene.”
Public health nearly doubled its number of investigations to 108 between July 1 and September 30, 2009 from 65 during the same time period in 2008.
“We definitely are seeing them move into the area,” said said Bob Hart, environmental health manager at public health. “There’s definitely more bed bug infestations.”
There is no part of the city or type of housing immune from getting the bugs. Public health gets more calls from tenants but that’s because they need help getting their landlords to exterminate the bugs and not because they’re more likely to get them.
“There is a significant increase in all urban centres in North America over the last few years,” said Hart. “It seems to be something everyone seems to be grappling with right now.”
So far, public health has no explanation for the increase.
“Nobody really knows why,” said Hart. “Bed bugs were definitely a problem 10 to 15 years ago and then there seemed to be a hiatus where we didn’t get as many complaints about them and then suddenly they seemed to be back on the scene.”
BLACKFOOT, Idaho (AP) -- Officials with the Blackfoot Senior Citizens Center say bed bugs are infesting some apartments at the center-run Sunset Manor. The apartments cater to low-income seniors and those with disabilities. The Idaho State Journal reports that officials are now considering temporarily moving all the tenants to a hotel so the entire apartment complex can be treated. That could cost as much as $60,000. Bed bugs are small, flat bugs that feed on blood and make bites similar to those caused by mosquitoes.
