Submitted by "gone but not forgetting" on 09/14/2008

I lived in this building for many years and moved out due to bedbugs after having a foruth recurrence over the period of 2 or 3 years. This building will never be clean in my opinion because of its location and because the board and management do not act quickly enough to enforce inspections and sanction people who live in unsafe bedbug manner - bringing in used articules from the neighbourhood, swapping articles from one suite to another, dumpster diving, etc. There is not enough education either so that people can understand the toll - financially and emotionally on the members who are affected and to understand how to prevent infestations. I don't think people realize that these critters are becoming resistent to pesticides and that the only way to keep them out is to live carefully, have a plan for monitoring and treating, and starve them out. If they can't get their blood meals from humans they will eventually have to look elsewhere.

Submitted by "bbgone" on 05/28/2008

Thanks for your comment! Just to clarify, we're not a co-op in the NYC sense: we're a non-profit, mixed-income housing cooperative, whose members pay a monthly housing charge scaled to income and don't acquire equity. What we do have in common with NYC co-ops is that we're run by a resident board - and that, I think, is the reason we ended up on top of this in the first place. Buildings that are run by housing agencies or private landlords were much slower to react - in the former case, due to bureaucratic inertia and in both cases due to an aversion to spending money - and as a result have infestations that are building-wide.

Meanwhile, on a personal note, the bug guy came for round two yesterday, and found no evidence of additional bedbug activity; so with any luck in two more weeks I can reassemble the apartment. Yay.

Submitted by "TotallyImpressed!" on 05/15/2008

Bravo! You said it best. One can only move so many times and still get infested because bbs are everywhere. I know you didn't mention moving, but I wanted to bring in a fact that bbs are everywhere and no matter where you go, you can still get them again and again, as you mentioned on buses, in libraries, etc. Here in NYC, owners of coops are responsible for their own pest control services and expenses. It seems like your building is doing a great job on handling a growing problem. Not the monthly roach guy, but a pest control firm that deals with bbs.

Your building is a great example of how to deal with this problem.

Submitted by "bbgone" on 05/13/2008

I live in this co-op, and my unit is being treated for bedbugs - as in, the pest control company was in my unit this morning. However, I think the previous report isn't helpful. Yes, the co-op has regular bedbug treatments, but we do not have a pervasive, building-wide infestation. If we did, there's no way I'd live here.

Disclaimer: I used to be on the board of the co-op, I work in the community, and I helped develop the co-op's pest control practices several years ago.

The co-op is inspected, building-wide, by a pest-control company at regular intervals. At first this was done every three months. It is now done every six months on the advice of the pest control company. This is done because it's clear that self-reporting is not an adequate way of determining whether units are infested.

After the initial building-wide inspection, the co-op was treated as a clean-out - infested units and the units above, below, and on either side were treated. The co-op provided assistance to residents who needed it for prepping (staff helped to move furniture, paid for disposal services, etc.).

At this point, a unit is treated on its own if an infestation is found. Again, this is done on the advice of the company, because infestations are low enough and localized - i.e., there is no indication that infestations are progressing to the point that bugs move to an adjacent unit. I had a neighbour with a particularly bad infestation when we did our first building-wide check several years ago, and the bugs did not spread to me. It helps that we're in a new, concrete building.

The co-op covers the cost of pest control (as it should).

We live in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, a neighbourhood with a significant bedbug problem. Not only are most of the SRO units in this neighbourhood infested, but the community drop-in centres and other services many residents work in or are clients/members of are infested as well. Bedbugs often hitch home from those locations. There is no way to stop that from happening - it's the co-op's job to ensure that it's on top of that problem and is aggressive enough that bugs don't spread to other units.

It's my opinion we have a progressive and diligent approach to pest control - I mean, how many apartment buildings do you know of that actually do routine building-wide inspections? The company we use (Canadian Pest Control) is professional and thorough. All treatments are automatically followed up with another at two weeks; additional sprayings are provided if required. The company uses contact and residual pesticides.

So, what I'm getting at is - yes, we've had, and will continue to have, bedbugs coming into our building. They're everywhere - on buses, in libraries, in expensive law firms and TV stations and five-star hotels. I expect that most apartment buildings will have units that get bedbugs, at least until better pest control approaches are used. The question is: how does the building deal with the problem? I think our co-op does a pretty good job.

Submitted by "X" on 01/14/2008

They are constantly spraying for bedbugs in this coop.