Bed Bug Checklist for Property Managers and Homeowners

Be Proactive.  Take steps to deal with bed bugs before they become a problem.

1. Maintain the building to prevent pest problems.

• Caulk baseboards, loose tiles, and chair-rail moldings
• Remove carpeting when possible
• Fix storage and clutter issues in common areas

2. Develop a “Bed Bug Action Plan” for your property or properties, even if bed bugs are not currently an issue.

• Responding to reports or complaints
• Containing and eliminating infestations
• Disposing of infested funiture
• Educating and advising tenants
• Managing requests for relocation

3. Educate tenants and staff about bed bugs.

• The reappearance of bed bugs as a problem around the world and in Chicago specifically
• What bed bugs are and what they look like
• What a bed bug problem looks like and how to recognize it
• How to prevent bed bugs from becoming a problem (ex. discourage picking up furniture from the street; reduce clutter in living areas)
• What to do when a bed bug problem is suspected, and what NOT to do (a list of dos and don’ts for tenants is located on our website here, and more information for you and your tenants is available from the Safer Pest Control Project here)

4. If bed bugs are a recurring problem, consider having the building inspected periodically, investing in a steam cleaner that heats to at least 170 degrees and training staff to operate it, or altering the building to discourage pest problems (such as replacing carpets with hard-surface flooring).

Respond to complaints

1. Respond sympathetically and avoid blame

2. Arrange for a professional inspection

• Inspect all adjacent apartments (above, below, and on both sides) of the likely infested unit
• Schedule an intervention for all apartments where bed bugs are found

3. Educate tenants on what they should do immediately

• Give them a tenant checklist, bed bug fact sheet, or direct them to online resources here or at the SPCP’s website
• Explain how to prepare for the pest control company’s inspection
• Discourage them from throwing away belongings and/or furniture, OR explain to them how to do so properly

Once an infestation is confirmed…

1. Educate tenants on how to prepare for treatment

2. Educate staff on their role

3. Prevent the spread of an infestation by doing the following:

• Inspect all adjacent apartments above, below, and on both sides on a regular basis
• Consider buying or encouraging tenants in adjacent units to buy bed bug resistant mattress covers
• Encourage tenants in adjacent units to be aware and report signs or symptoms of bed bugs immediately

4. Seal and make repairs to infested and adjacent apartments:

• Caulk or seal cracks and crevices near beds (baseboards, pipe chases, heating/AC units, etc.)
• Repair holes and other wall damage
• Repair molding, peeling wall paper; chipping paint; and any other damage that may hide bed bugs
• Develop a system for furniture disposal
• Paint or seal hardwood floors and encourage tenants to do the same to bed frames

When hiring a pest control company…

1. Make sure they are licensed and insured.

2. Ask for and check references for bed bug work.

3. Insist on an Integrated Pest Management approach (no “spray and pray” pesticide applications).

4. Ask for a detailed action plan that recommends pre-treatment preparation activities.

5. Beware of the lowest bidder.

6. Beware of any “guarantees.”

More information on all of these topics can be found at the SPCP’s website.


If you are looking for more comprehensive coverage of the bed bug infestations  in the USA, please go here:

Get Rid Of Bed Bugs

Bed Bugs in New Haven Connecticut Apartment Complexes

A New Haven apartment building is dealing with some unwelcome guests: bed bugs.

Residents at 114 Bristol St. have been complaining about the pests for some time. While not every apartment has bed bugs, it seems everyone in the building knows about them.

“They’re itchy and some were biting,” said resident Kezzie Staton, who so far has only heard about the bugs.

Residents said exterminators have been inside the building over the past week, although they are not sure if the exterminators have been able to kill the bed bugs.

Neighbors hope the problem is taken care of soon, before the problem spreads to everyone.

“Management sent them over to do something about it, but the point is, are they doing a good job? We don’t know,” said one resident who goes by the name Robinson.

The management company would not comment on the situation.

Bed Bugs Infest Senior Citizen Housing

Darlene Taylor is diabetic and 80 percent blind. So she couldn’t see them. But for weeks she felt their biting and the itching.When her regular nurse’s aide visited her 12th floor apartment last Thursday and lifted up papers on the dining room table, the aide saw them: Bed bugs. Swarms of them.
Now the mattress and box spring are gone. All Taylor’s clothes are wrapped in plastic. Taylor (pictured above) is sleeping on the couch and worried what’s going to happen next.
Many of Taylor’s neighbors in apartments at Edith Johnson Towers on Bristol Street between Dixwell and Ashmun are worried, too.
More than 20 of the apartments have been or are slated to be treated for bed bug infestation.

LCI

“The unit was infested in a way we’d never seen before: 100 bed bugs per square foot,” said Rafael Ramos of City Hall’s Livable City Initiative (LCI).Last week Ramos called BCJ Management, the private company that owns and manages the senior tower.
BCJ treated Taylor’s apartment, removed her bed (except the fame), and readied her clothes.
By end of day Friday LCI issued an order to BCJ, delivered by marshal: Bring in a licensed contractor to treat Taylor’s apartment and another found infested on the second floor. The order also called for inspection of the entire building and treatment where necessary.

BCJ property manager Dana Proctor did not return several calls to the Independent to discuss the extent of the bed bug problem at 114 Bristol. She did speak to Ramos (pictured) by phone Friday afternoon.According to what Proctor conveyed to Ramos, since December ten to 15 apartments have been treated. Currently six more are slated to. That’s close to one quarter of the tower’s 96 apartments.
Since treatment of one apartment usually involves spraying and treatment of the four apartments surrounding it, in effect the entire building is being treated.
“That’s an infestation,” said Ramos.

BCJ, a private company headquartered in Boston, also manages the nearby Monterey Place development for the housing authority.And that may explain how the situation has gotten so out of hand.
A perusal of the file of complaints to LCI reveals that before Taylor and her daughter called LCI, only one other bedbug complaint from 114 Bristol was on file in the past six months. That proved to be a false alarm.
All the complaints appropriately had gone to BCJ instead of to LCI—and the problem continued.
Asked for comment about the problem, HANH Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton referred questions to BCJ.

Last week reddish stains were still visible around the legs of the metal frame in Darlene Taylor’s now abandoned bedroom.“They said put them [all her clothing] in the dryer. It’ll kill ‘em [the bugs],” Taylor said.

On Friday the clothes remained in several large plastic bags by the apartment door pending a visit by the aide or Taylor’s daughters, all of whom work.“It was only one year old,” Taylor said of the mattress. She said she troubled that no one offered to replace it. She didn’t cause the bed bug problem, she said as she led a tour of her apartment for a reporter and for Ward 22 Democratic Ward Committee Co-Chair Cordelia Thorpe, whom she had earlier contacted for help with the problem.
“It’s been going on since December” at the tower, she said.

LCI

While individual apartments have been treated, Thorpe said, “It’s escalating. They don’t have a clear plan in place to solve it” building- wide, she added.“If they made a plan ... I have to depend on other people to see,” added Taylor.
Last year HANH investigated purchase of a mobile “thermal radiation” unit, the technology du jour to deal with the bug du jour. Click here to read that story.

Five people sitting for sun-relief beneath the awnings in front of the building one afternoon last week offered varying opinions—and rumors—- on the problem and on how the management has handled it.“I know it’s been happening since December,” Sonia Torres said. “As soon as I heard about it, I bought a plastic cover for the bed.”
She doesn’t think she’s been affected yet, but she was concerned enough to move from the seventh floor, where “I was feeling itchy,” to the 11th, she said .
“But do you know what to do [about the bed bugs], Sonia?” asked Thorpe.
“No,” came the answer.
Thorpe said she had been trying repeatedly to reach BCJ to discuss a building-wide approach to the infestation, with no success.

(l) Cordelia Thorpe & Susan Limoine.

Susan Lemoine has lived at the towers for five years. A former Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s who has lived in tough conditions, she praised the way the exterminating company had been treating affected apartments.“The person below me had them, and it was treated. They sprayed and then came back several times, after two weeks, and sprayed again,” she said
She described herself a mad sprayer. To several of the other tenants under the awnings who seemed confused about what to do, she said, “They’re attracted to carbon dioxide [emitted by our breathing] near beds.”
“The residents wonder if [ultimately] they’ll have to move out. They’re doing it [the treatment] on a case-by-case basis. [As a result] the bugs are migrating. The instruction needs to come from management, not Ms. Limoine,” said Thorpe.
Before the weekend began Ramos contacted BCJ again and told Proctor that the order requires a licensed contractor to inspect all units of the building.
Procor told him that one had already been ordered, a canine unit arriving to do the work on Aug.1 and 2. Depending on what the sniffers find, treatment will be provided where needed, she said.
Ramos said that when the work concludes, he wants a copy of the report.
Citywide, he said, LCI receives about eight bed bug complaints per month. Sometimes the bugs turn out to be something else.
Ramos said he wishes he had learned earlier about Taylor’s problem. Noting her blindness, he asked aloud, “Where were the CNAs [the certified nurse’s aides]?”