Regional bedbug battle plan 'toothless' - MAX HARROLD, The Gazette: Friday, March 25, 2011

The dark residue on this infested mattress is bedbug excrement. The bedbug extermination business is booming in Montreal.

Photo Credit: Dario Ayala, The Gazette

RELATED

• 
  Michael Applebaum, city of Montreal executive committee vice-president responsible for housing, explains...
• 
  Bedbugs next to a pen tip.
• What's your responsibility if you're bitten?
• When the bedbugs bite

MONTREAL - The city of Montreal and regional public heath officials have a new plan to combat bedbugs, but tenants' rights groups and landlords say it lacks some serious bite because there is no extra money allocated to enforce it.

An estimated 2.7 per cent of dwellings in Montreal - that's 22,000 homes, or 44,000 people - had bedbugs in 2009, according to a study done for the city last year. Although the situation has not reached the epidemic levels seen in some cities on the East Coast of the United States, the problem in the Montreal area is growing, city executive committee vice-president Michael Applebaum, the mayor's point man for housing, said Thursday.

"For us this is a priority," Applebaum said. "People cannot live in this situation (with bedbugs). We want to catch it before it gets out of hand."

Although exterminators and landlords say the bedbug problem has grown exponentially in the past five years, Applebaum said the current number of inspections and money allocated for pest control is sufficient.

An information campaign to educate the public and a new bylaw compelling exterminators to report bedbug jobs they do in multiunit buildings are the main thrusts of the new action plan. The city of Montreal, health officials and Montreal Island suburbs will also have access to a new, confidential databank compiling infestation cases, best extermination methods, complaints by individuals to the city's 311 phone service and the addresses of problem buildings.

A motion to adopt the plan will be presented in May and the council is expected to approve the bylaw in June, right in time for the July 1 moving day when many people switch apartments and transport or inherit bedbugs.

Richard Lessard, director of Public Health at the Health and Social Services Agency of Montreal, said people should not be afraid to report bedbugs.

"The more people hide it, the more it spreads," he said. Having bedbugs is not an indication of personal hygiene. "Everyone is susceptible."

Frank Pulcini, who runs Central Extermination, a Montreal company, said he saw no problem reporting his jobs to the city. But he doubted the system would truly beat bedbugs if there is not more public money injected.

"It's just like with roaches 15 years ago; They have the same number of inspectors doing all these jobs." Bedbug infestations are now much bigger than other pests, he added. Five years ago he got two to four calls a day about bedbugs. Now he gets up to 50 calls a day.

Nathalie Blais, spokesperson for the Association des propriétaires du Québec, representing 11,000 landlords, said the city is kidding itself if it thinks a databank won't require additional funding. People should realize the bedbug issue is, as touchy as it is, often brought in by tenants, she said.

"Do people realize bedbugs can live in an uninhabited apartment for one year?" Blais asked. "And about 30 per cent of people do not react to bedbug bites, so some people may have them in their place without knowing it."

France Émond, of the Regroupement des comités logements et association de locataires du Québec, a coalition of 45 tenants' groups, said the new plan is toothless. "It has zero budget," she said. "We asked for the new information pamphlets to give out to our members, and we were given 1,000. When we asked for more they said they had no budget to print more."

Cops Hunt Bedbug Burglar - Instead of killing bugs, he cleans out the jewelry box. NBC NEW YORK By: MINDY LAVERGNE

Police are hunting for a phony exterminator wanted in at least five burglaries in Brooklyn. 

The smooth-talking con artist allegedly knocks on doors in Brighton Beachpretending to have been sent there to get rid of bedbugs. But instead of killing the bugs, he cleans out the jewelry box.

Leora Handlersky was one of his victims.

"I said, 'I don’t have bugs,' and he said, 'It’s not about bugs, it’s about bedbugs,' and that the co-op sent him," Handlersky said.

Famous Mug Shots: Lindsay Lohan Edition

Handlersky said the suspect told her she didn't personally have bedbugs, but he wanted to spray for prevention and she should wait leave the apartment for two hours while the work was done, to avoid ill effects from exposure to fumes.

She followed the man's instructions, but when Handlersky returned, "I saw my jewelry box was moved and everything in it was gone,” she said.

Police say the same man has scammed at least five people in the neighborhood in the last two months. He always uses the same simple excuse to get the person out of the house.

The co-op board at 2525 West Second St. had a meeting about security. They've also posted signs warning residents to be alert.

"It’s about making sure our doors are closed and that keys aren’t given out just like that to people. Security can only be as secure as they allow it to be," the board president said.

Police are passing out a sketch of the fake exterminator. He's described as a black or Hispanic man between the ages of 28 and 35 with a stocky build and a thin moustache. He wears a dark-colored uniform and carries a canister.

Region women sue Vegas resort for bed bug bites By: nwi.com

HAMMOND | Lake and Porter County women are suing a Las Vegas resort, claiming they were subjected to a bed bug infestation and asking for $750,000 in damages.

Indiana residents Doris Leaf, Betty Stash, JoAnn Lapko and Barbara Miller met with Beth Tse, of North Carolina, and Sherry Lasser, of Florida, for a girls-only Las Vegas vacation in 2009, according to court records filed Wednesday.

They stayed at the Monte Carlo Las Vegas Resort, and after the first night noticed tiny, itchy red bumps popping up over their bodies.

"They didn't really see the bed bugs at first," said the women's Griffith attorney, Robert Taylor. "They started breaking out with these bite marks all over, and started comparing notes."

Bed bugs are tiny, parasitic insects that hide in beds during the day and feed off human blood at night. They are becoming more common with international travel, and unsuspecting people often transport them to hotels, hospitals, homeless shelters and other lodgings with a high turnover rate.

The federal civil suit asks the Monte Carlo and its operator, MGM Resorts International, for $750,000 in damages. It claims the hotel breached its contract and implied warranty after allegedly denying the women "vermin-free" rooms. According to the complaint, the women suffered infections from the hotel's negligent cleaning and inspection practices.

"Our company has not been served with the complaint," said Yvette Monet, of MGM Resorts International Corporate Public Affairs. Monet declined to comment further.

Standard hotel procedures in Las Vegas call for personnel to document complaints and immediately close a room suspected of having bed bugs -- as well as surrounding rooms. Professional inspectors then are to investigate and treat problems they find.

Taylor said his clients notified the hotel, but inspectors said there was nothing in their rooms. The hotel was supposed to fumigate and return the women's clothes, Taylor said, including gowns and other expensive attire, together worth thousands of dollars.

But the women never received their clothes back, he said.

"We're trying to work out something with the hotel, and they're just not responding," Taylor said of the Monte Carlo. "We got the switchboard shuffle."

Bed bugs can carry blood-borne diseases, according to the Mayo Clinic, but there is no evidence the insects transmit them to humans.

"Vacationers, especially people flying to Vegas, should not be put through this," Taylor said. "If something like this does happen, the management has an obligation to compensate the people, to give them alternatives and take care of them. And they just didn't do it in this case."