The dark residue on this infested mattress is bedbug excrement. The bedbug extermination business is booming in Montreal.
Photo Credit: Dario Ayala, The Gazette
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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."
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