11/3/2011 Minnesota To Provide Funding To Poor Disabled & Elderly In Fight Against Bedbugs

A change in guidelines from the Department of Human Services will help disabled, elderly residents in Kandiyohi County and across the state with the high costs of dealing with bed bugs.

In order to help combat a growing bed bug problem, the department decided recently to allow the costs of exterminating bed bugs and properly disposing of household furniture to be included in expenses covered in waiver programs for low-income, high-risk elderly individuals who receive state services.

Waiver programs provide home and community-based services to people who might otherwise have to move to nursing homes or other care facilities.

Tamraa Goldenstein, a supervisor with Kandiyohi County Family Services, told the Kandiyohi County Board of Commissioners this week that the additional state funding will help offset some of the out-of-pocket expenses for a group of high-risk people that would otherwise not be able to pay the costs.

Goldenstein said some cases of bed bugs in the county have been reported in multi-unit dwellings where the annoying, biting critters can travel along heat ducts from one apartment to another.

She said the presence of bed bugs has nothing to do with the cleanliness of an individual.

“Some of the cleanest individuals I know have had it (bed bugs) twice,” she said. “They’ve done everything right.”

The additional funds are being added to the “chore service” program for a small group of qualifying individuals in the county, which includes very low-income, disabled individuals over 65 who are on Medical Assistance and are at the highest risk for nursing home care.

“They have a very difficult time affording the types of things that have to occur in order to purge your apartment of those issues,” Goldenstein said.

An extermination process that uses very high heat will be used to get rid of the hard-to-kill bed bugs, she said.

Furniture, like mattresses and couches, may need to be wrapped and properly disposed of “so no one takes it off the curb or out of a dumpster,” she said. “It’s the appropriate way of doing it to ensure that we reduce this issue for the community as a whole.”

Most clients don’t have the money or wherewithal to take that action by themselves.

The Department of Human Services made the funding change so that communities had options “to take care of this quickly,” said Goldenstein, adding that the program is a positive move for communities around the state.

The commissioners approved contracts with Divine House Inc. and Central Minnesota Senior Care to coordinate the extermination and furniture removal and disposal for eligible clients. Those entities will be reimbursed by the state.

Clients will still have to pay to replace any furniture that is removed.

Goldenstein said there are some clients who have removed practically every piece of furniture in their homes to try to get rid of bed bugs.

It will be financially difficult for most of those individuals to purchase replacement furniture, she said.

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10/5/2011 North Carolina Mother Living With Bedbugs In Public Housing: Problem Has Persisted For 1.5 Months

Think you have a pest problem? One woman and her two small children have been living with bedbugs for a month and a half now.

Hundreds of bedbugs are all over Lawanda Johnson’s two story home. They live inside her two small children’s beds.

Johnson lives in Smith Homes, which is run by Greensboro’s Public Housing Authority.

Bite marks show on two year old Jamarie’s arms and eight month old Shia’s feet.

Johnson took her kids for treatment for the third time since the bedbugs entered her home, and she has to miss another day of work.

“It’s been hell, as far as work and as far as our skin. It’s like I can’t shake anybody’s hand without me wondering if they can see the bites or not,” said Johnson.

If you ever find yourself in this situation, know when to get a lawyer.

If your landlord tries to make you pay the extermination bill, or your landlord does nothing to help get rid of the bedbugs, and you did not bring the bedbugs inside the rented property yourself and can prove it, be sure to seek legal help fast.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: North Carolina Mother Living With Bedbugs In Public Housing

10/2/2011 Bedbugs On The Rise In Syracuse: Tenants & Landlords Struggle With Surge

Warning: If the word bedbug makes your skin crawl, now would be a good time to click to another part of syracuse.com.

Complaints about bedbugs are on the rise in Syracuse and environs, so much so that a tenant advocacy group will hold a seminar Tuesday for landlords about debugging a property.

“It appears that there’s an epidemic of bedbugs particularly on the North Side of Syracuse,” said Sharon Sherman, executive director of the Greater Syracuse Tenants Network, which is presenting the workshop.

But it isn’t just the North Side. Sherman says she is getting calls about bedbugs from people who live elsewhere in the city, in Solvay and Liverpool, too. She gets 15 tenant calls a week and roughly 20 percent of them are about bedbugs.

Corey Driscoll, deputy director of code enforcement for the city, says complaints about bedbug infestations have been going up for the last two years. From September 2010 to April, the city handled roughly 18 bedbug citations and from April until now it handled 30, Driscoll said.

In most cases, building owners will act to get rid of the bugs when the city is called in, Driscoll said. But when they do not respond, declaring the dwelling unfit to live in doesn’t solve the problem because if tenants move before the infestation is cured, they can carry the bugs with them, she said.

“We’ve been advised by the health department and housing agencies that it’s not good to move tenants around,” Driscoll said.

The Onondaga County Health Department does not track or deal with bedbugs because they don’t spread disease, but it offers advice and gets calls, which have been up for the last couple of years, said Kevin Zimmerman, director of the county’s Division of Environmental Health The calls are mostly from the city, but not exclusively, he said.

Landlords blame tenants, and tenants blame landlords for infestations, but both sides will have do some work and spend some money to stomp out the bugs.

The small, blood-eating insects are extremely difficult and costly to get rid of, and landlords don’t always do what it takes to eradicate them, although it is their legal responsibility to do so, Sherman said.

The only way to get rid of bedbugs is to hire a professional exterminator, who will need to do multiple treatments, Sherman said. It can cost $1,000 to rid an apartment of the bugs, she said.
Tenants must wash all their clothing and bedding in very high heat and encapsulate their mattresses in special plastic covering, among other steps, Sherman said.

Tenants don’t always do their part, said Jay Holman, of Mel & Jay Management, which oversees about 200 units. And bedbugs have been a terrible problem here for the last two years, he said.

“Landlords can fix the problem if they get total cooperation from tenants, but without that, the problem can’t be fixed. It won’t go away until a number of steps are taken and sometimes it takes two or three months,” Holman said.

Demetria Gunn, who rents a house on Wiman Avenue managed by Mel & Jay, said until she moved into house, she’d never had bedbugs. She said it took multiple trips to the doctor and treatments for allergies before she realized the itchy spots on her and her two children were bedbug bits.

She said she tried at first to battle them herself with bug bombs but that didn’t work so she turned to Mel & Jay to get rid of the infestation. Gunn and Holman offered differing explanations Thursday as to why an exterminator had not treated the house since she reported the problem Sept. 15.

But both sides say they are willing to do what it takes to get rid of the bugs. Gunn doesn’t think she’ll be able to move into a new place until that happens for fear she’ll bring the bugs with her. Gunn said she isn’t getting a lot of good sleep. She said she keeps getting up to check her kids, ages 7 and 15, for bug bites.

“I check them in the middle of the night and in the morning before they get up. I’m constantly looking at them,” Gunn said.
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9/19/2011 How Infested Are Philadelphia’s Police Stations? According To FOB President John McNesby Pretty Bad

Philadelphia’s police union says some of the department’s facilities are in disrepair and holding cells in one precinct have a bedbug infestation.

Fraternal Order of Police President John McNesby tells the Philadelphia Daily News the lodge has filed a grievance against the city, seeking repairs.

McNesby says the union had to send an exterminator to some officers’ homes because they brought fleas home with them from work. He says he has photos, videos and bills to present to an arbitration panel.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter says the city is aware of the state of the facilities and has earmarked nearly $11 million for repairs and upgrades over the next five years.

The Daily News report (http://bit.ly/pM4e4k ) says the union wants independent inspections for all police facilities.

9/6/2011 Bedbugs Force UK Woman To Sleep In Bathtub: Infestation So Bad She’s Forced To Wear Pants To Sleep

Single mum Kirsty Shaw says she is forced to sleep in her bath to escape bed bugs that have infested her rented flat in Bradford.

The 19-year-old said she has begged managers at social housing group Incommunities to help but her repeated pleas had fallen on deaf ears for weeks.

She has had to move her four-year-old son out to stay with his grandmother and is worried he will not be able to start school because he also has bite marks.

Miss Shaw said the infestation at the property at Underwood House in North Wing, Barkerend, is so bad even friends will not come to visit and she feels a social outcast.

She said: “It’s embarrassing. People have stopped coming round because they get bitten. I feel dirty but it’s not my fault.

“All I want is Incommunities to come and do a proper job of getting rid of them so I can get my life and my son back.”

Incommunities did get a pest controller to spray Miss Shaw’s bed but the bugs have not gone.

Miss Shaw said: “It’s just got worse. They are everywhere. I’ve been catching as many as I can. Some are as big as ladybirds but that’s because they’ve been biting me.

“I’ve had bites all over the top of my back, my arms and elbows. I had been sleeping with trousers on tucked into my socks but now I’m sleeping in the bath. I can’t use the duvet because they might be on that so I’m just using towels to try to get as comfortable as I can but it’s impossible.

“My son’s had them on his face so now he can’t sleep here. It’s horrid.”

Miss Shaw’s mother, Amanda Shaw, said: “We’ve been on and on at Incommunities and they say if she wants the pest controller out again she’ll have to pay for it but she’s 19 a single-mum on tax credits, she can’t afford it. All the furniture is Incommunities’ anyway.”

An Incommunities’ spokesman said: “Although Incommunities is not responsible for the treatment of pest infestation in residents’ homes, as a caring and responsible landlord we have assisted Miss Shaw with the treatment of bed bugs in her home.”

An Incommunities official visited Miss Shaw yesterday after inquiries by the Telegraph & Argus.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: Bedbugs Force UK Woman To Sleep In Bathtub

8/11/2011 Battling Bedbugs In Austin Illinois: Town Hall Style Presentations To Educate Residents

The faces of Austin residents in attendance displayed noticeable disgust as John Phorbes, a professional exterminator, explained how best to fight those pesky and annoying bed bugs.

The North Austin Branch Library, 5724 W. North Ave., hosted an informational session on Saturday July 30, on how to combat the creatures. A packed audience filled the library’s meeting area to listen to Phorbes, owner of Rose Exterminators, who’s been in the business for 14 years. He told attendees that the bugs can come from a number of things, including garments belonging to neighbors, as well as students returning home from college. If bitten, 54 percent of people will have no reaction, Phorbes said, while 46 percent of people will have a delayed reaction-days or weeks-from a bite.

The bugs inject their own saliva prior to their bites, making their feeding painless and unnoticeable. They’re called bed bugs because they tend to feed on sleeping humans during the night, and mattresses are an easy place to breed. The bugs have a 2- to 3-year lifespan, resulting in an infestation of upwards of 500 bugs. They can also be found by light sockets and cracks in the wall, and the best way to control them, according to Phorbes, is through paying close attention and early detection.

Residents in attendance, though, were shocked and disgusted about the information they learned, many left scratching-and itching-in their seats. Phorbes also addressed several myths about the creatures.

Although they’re called “Bed Bugs,” they can be found in places outside the bedroom. Products advertised to control them also don’t have any real affect. Phorbes explained that among the best solutions is vacuuming and using green products-Cryonite, that freezes them to death, and old-fashioned fumigation. All of this, Phorbes noted, will take a lot of time to do thoroughly.

By the end of the presentation, he left residents with tips to stay pest-free.

• Take care of the household, be proactive (anyone can get them)
• Get rid of any mattress that is worn out or torn
• They are known to die in heat over 135 degrees, so if they are on your clothes, just throw them in the dryer in high heat.
• For most households, the bed bug epidemic is becoming more common than ever, according to Phorbes.
• Other know facts surrounding them is that some are known to carry diseases, such as HIV, but there are no cases reported in which they were able to transfer the virus to a human. If a bite mark is noticed, a visit to a dermatologist is a necessary option, as most cases are often misdiagnosed by a physician.

Continue Reading More: Battling Bedbugs In Austin Illinois

6/18/2011 How Businesses Can Prepare For BedBugs: Complimentary Downloadable White Paper Can Help

A quick online search for “bed bugs” reveals nearly 800 news stories in the past month alone, and Google search volume on bed bugs is up 450 percent in the past six years. With bed bugs continuing to sweep the news, Atlanta-based pest control giant Rollins Inc. has released a new white paper to help businesses separate the facts from the hype and understand how they can prepare in advance for a bed bug infestation.

In “Bed Bugs: The Issues, Challenges and Facts,” Rollins pest experts Greg Baumann, Ron Harrison and Phillip Pierce explore bed bug hype vs. reality, treatment options and operational considerations for businesses.

“Rollins companies performed more than 8,000 bed bug treatments in the first quarter alone, so we understand how critical it is for businesses to help prepare themselves,” said Greg Baumann, who also serves as one of the company’s technical services directors. “Employee education, customer communication and a proper risk management plan can all significantly impact how your business handles potential bed bug issues.”

The white paper is available for complimentary download at BedBugBusinessPlan.com, where business owners and operators can find additional resources to help protect their businesses before bed bugs strike.

Click Here To Claim Your Free Downloadable White Paper On: How Businesses Can Prepare For BedBugs

6/17/2011 How Florida Homeless Shelter Is Solving The BedBug Problem: St Matthews’s House In Naples Florida Has Spent Over $100k So Far

A Naples homeless shelter is battling a bed bug infestation. But a donation has the Saint Matthew’s House one step closer to getting rid of the pests for good.

The dorms at Saint Matthew’s House are a temporary home for 2,000 people every year.

“When you don’t have a family to fall back on, we become that family of last resort for our community,” said Van Ellison, Director of the St. Matthew’s House.

But lately, he said, there have been some unwanted guests.

“We’ve continued to have ongoing problems with bed bugs,” he said.

The organization has already spent about $110,000 trying to fix the problem. Now, volunteers are working to replace the wooden bunks.

The problem with wooden bunks is bed bugs can still hide in the seams. The metal ones can actually be heated up to kill the bugs for good.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Office donated some bunks with metal frames.

Thursday, Dan Burke helped apply an oil-based paint to keep them from rusting. He is staying at St. Matthew’s House after losing his job in concrete work.

“I figure since they gave me a chance, the least I could do was pitch in and help,” he said.

Ellison said the 170 beds will also have new mattresses.

“A prison in another part of the country had ordered a bunch of mattresses and they made too many by accident,” he explained.

It’s a mistake that gave Ellison a good deal. But he says just replacing the beds isn’t enough.

“As we move forward, we want to replace every wooden fixture in our dorm space,” he said.

Ellison says he’s looking for metal lockers or shelves and that he’s hoping someone will donate those, or offer them for a good price.

“We’re bargain shoppers with this,” he said.

The new bunks will be installed in the dorm Monday.

Continue Reading More/Watching Video: How Florida Homeless Shelter Is Solving The BedBug Problem

5/27/2011 How NYC Became Americas Most BedBug Infested City: Problem Has Plagued Hotels, Subways, Retail & Even NYPD Police Cars

It probably isn’t much of a surprise, but bedbugs are taking a bigger bite out of the Big Apple so far this year, according to one exterminator company.

For the second consecutive year, Terminix ranked the city first in the nation for bedbug infestations, edging out Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia.  (In better news for New Yorkers, a rival ranking by competitor Orkin ranked the city only the seventh worst for bedbug cases.)

Terminix’s city rankings are based on the number of customer complaints and infestations discovered by employees of the company’s 350 U.S. branches. The company wouldn’t release specific data on just how many bedbug complaints it gets, but it said the problem is multiplying.

Bob Young, an entomologist and Northeast and Midwest division manager for Terminix, estimated that he has logged two to three times more bedbug calls over last year, following high-profile cases in which bedbug invasions forced several Manhattan businesses to close temporarily.

Is any borough of New York more infested than the others?

“Manhattan,” said Young, who is based in New York. He the added: “Clearly, Brooklyn and Queens. The Bronx. Even in the rural areas. They’re all over the place. These things, they hitchhike.”

Business for bedbug exterminators boomed last year. Bedbugs start at $500 a room, and off-site fumigation of personal belongings can add another $1,000, Young told WSJ columnist Anne Kadet last year. High-end residential jobs involving art and antiques can cost as much as $20,000.

This summer projections for bedbug activity probably won’t help New Yorkers feel more at ease. ”It’s a larger and larger problem each day,” Young said. “College students seem to bring them home with them.”

Young, who has been with Terminix for 15 years, said he started seeing the critters hit New York in the early 2000s. Since then, complaints have risen ten- to fifteenfold, he said, as the public becomes more aware of their presence.

Last year, bedbugs shut down the flagship Niketown store on East 57th Street, the Hollister Epic store in SoHo and a Victoria’s Secret on the Upper East Side, among other locations. And the insects made a debut at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

This year? “They’re even in police-department squad cars,” Young said.

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5/16/2011 Cincinnati BedBug Treatment Sets House On Fire: Propane Heaters Linked To Problem

Exterminator Richard Tyree was six hours into a heat treatment meant to kill bed bugs in a two-family home Sunday afternoon when a neighbor spotted black smoke pouring from the house.

Tyree called for help – but the ensuing fire destroyed the home in the 300 block of West Seymour Avenue.

The treatment had just 30 minutes left.

“As far as I know, we had an equipment malfunction,” Tyree said. “It can happen. It’s very unfortunate, (but) we’re not a company that runs from a problem.”

Tyree said that until Sunday, his company, Carthage-based R.S. Tyree Pest Control & Bed Bug Be Gone, never had an issue with the treatment, which he finds more effective than chemical methods. To kill the bed bugs, he uses propane convection heaters to raise a home’s temperature to 135 degrees. He requires residents to leave during the 6½-hour treatment and removes any flammable items from the home.

“We do up to 20, 25 apartments at the same time,” Tyree said. “We’ve never had a problem.”

Cincinnati Fire District Chief Glenn Coleman said one of the six heaters Tyree was using ignited carpet in a living room, a fire that went unnoticed in the empty home until flames could be seen through the windows. Coleman estimated the damage to the house at $90,000, a total loss.

A firefighter suffered a minor arm injury and was treated at University Hospital and released, Coleman said.

No residents were injured in the blaze, but Deborah Owens of Clermont County said the loss is a big one for her family. Owens and her husband own the house, and Owens’ sister lives on one side of the duplex with her boyfriend. Two other tenants, who are friends of the sister, reside on the other side, Owens said.

“We lost basically a family home,” she said. “Most of our family has lived there and the woman we bought it from, all of her family lived there for years.”

The fire was reported at 2:07 p.m. Tenants had been told to be out of house from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A house next door sustained about $1,000 in damage.

Tyree said his small company has insurance.

“I would do anything I could to fix it,” he said.

Continue Reading More: Cincinnati Bedbug Treatment Sets House On Fire