ecurring problem. In an effort to save money, they are only treating apartments that have had complaints about bed beds. Management took their time dealing with this problem. I spent two months sleeping on my couch up until this point. I called the Denver Environmental Health Department and they are sending an inspector to come see my apartment within 72 hours, and hired an attorney to get me out of my lease. I would not recommend this place to any person that I care about.

ing of the same problem. The pest control people originally told the leasing office that all units would need to be treated to completely eliminate the infestation, but they did not want to pay for all units to be treated.

Now that other reports have surfaced, they decided to go ahead and treat the entire building. I sincerely hope treating the entire building eliminates the problem in the other units. Bed bugs are miserable to deal with, and I wouldn't wish this problem on anyone. My lease is up at the end of July, so I plan to thoroughly inspect & treat all of my furniture, as well as wash & dry all my clothing prior to moving. Not fun, but necessary.

hat the itching became unbearable. I went to an allergist at the beginning of April, who ran a series of scratch tests. The scratch tests showed that I had no known food allergies, and no prominent other allergies (molds, weeds, dust, pets, etc.). He recommended that I take 2 Zyrtec pills per day, then call him in 2 weeks to see if the hives got any better.

I stayed at my parents' house in Evergreen, CO on April 16th & 17th. I noticed that I did not develop any new hives. I thought this was odd since I normally get 3 to 5 new hives each day. I began to realize that I was waking up with them every day, and thought it was such a relief to wake up with none for once.

I mentioned this to my mom who said, "You're waking up with them? Have you ever checked your bed for bed bugs?" Since I have never dealt with bed bugs or hives before, I never made the connection. I was convinced that I was suffering from some type of food or food additive allergy that the allergist was unable to detect thru skin scratch testing. My mom said she had seen a segment on the Doctor Oz show about bed bugs, and said they live in the cracks & crevices between the matress, and sometimes hide under the warm spots underneath the matress. She said to also look for them on the wall behind the bed.

When I got home, I pulled the matress up, and sure enough there were 5 - 6 crawling around underneath. When I got to work the next day, I looked them up on the Internet & verified that they are definitely bed bugs. I called the leasing manager to see if they have had any other reports of bed bugs in the building.

She indicated that no one has ever called to report the problem. She suggested that I call the pest control company they use to find out what I could do. The pest control lady indicated that the leasing company normally sets up these types of investigations, and that they would need to verify that bed bugs were actually the problem by doing a visual inspection.

She said that bed bugs are very difficult to get rid of, the entire building would have to be sprayed, and everyone would have to live out of sealed plastic bags for a week or so during the process. I called the leasing manager back, who indicated that I must have brought the bugs in with me when I moved because they never had a problem at the building before this.

I explained that I had never had a problem with hives or bites prior to moving into the building. She said she does not handle the maintenance of the building, even though she indicated that I needed to call or e-mail her for maintenance issues in the past. She gave me another woman's number. I left this woman a message, and have not yet heard back from her. It's been 3 hours since I first called.

To be continued...