New York City Council Member Gale Brewer tells The New York Sun that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
is ignoring the anxiety and mental health issues experienced by individuals whose homes are infested. “They will not take responsibility on the health front, period, end of discussion,” she said. “I’m told by the Commissioner of Health, ‘Gale, bed bugs don’t create any illness,’” she said. “They refuse to believe there is any physical harm from bed bugs.”
This is the second bed bug story reported by the New York Sun’s E.B. Solomont, following a report last week on emerging landlord-tenant bed bug litigation in the city. We appreciate the headline of this story, New York Lags in Regulating Bed Bugs.
We have discussed the public health significance of bed bugs and the rationale for a substantive role for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) before.
In a year when the World Health Organization has recommended that cities develop plans to address bed bug infestations and when there are several other public health departments in the United States already taking action, a reflexive and defensive “bed bugs don’t spread disease” policy is untenable.
The New York Sun’s story confirms what we’ve known all along, but comes at the right time as, in preparing to highlight the Strategic Plan drafted by the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Joint Bed Bug Task Force, we were considering the references to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene contained therein.
The following is an excerpt of the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Joint Bed Bug Task Force Strategic Plan, taken from a section containing information provided by Daniel Kass, DOHMH Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Surveillance and Policy, on bed bug policies in New York City:
The Health department has produced fact sheets about bed bugs. The Health Department will issue a commissioner’s order if more than 20% of units in a building are infested. They can take the case to the Board of Health tribunal, and they usually deal with about 10-15 buildings per year. There is a lot of pressure on the BOH from city council to do more inspections. However, the Health Department says that HPD already does inspections already. The Health Department is resisting pressure to do actual exterminations, and to develop protocols for pest management industry for prevention, inspection, response for homeless shelters, and single room occupancy hotels. The Health Department does run courses for exterminators on bed bug control.
[Emphasis added.]
Mr. Kass did not respond to a request for comment. Updated Monday: Mr. Kass states that the above mischaracterizes the Department’s activities.
We do note that the homeless shelter and group living facilities bed bug guidelines, produced by the New York State IPM Program, have been released.
New York vs Bed Bugs advocates the creation of a New York City bed bug task force to develop a comprehensive bed bug control plan for New York City.
These pages may be of related interest:
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s worth noting that The New York Sun will cease publication tomorrow. Solomont’s two bed bug articles were a truly great contribution to the public conversation.
Oops, spoke to soon. There’s a third article in Solomont’s bed bug series:
Bed Bug Boom Is a Boost To One Sector, all about the green in the city’s bed bug economy.
Tell us about it.
My family and I are currently living in Provider Housing (Community Access) in NYC. We have been fighting with them for over a year and put a great amount of our own money to help us eradicate a bed bug infestation. They are currently just starting to do anything and they are doing is so bad that we gave up and are going to take care of it on our own and then have to take them to court to be reimbursed. They keep sending different exterminators in with too much time in between that the problem is not being solved. I believe this borders on abuse and they need to be held accountable for their amoral behavior. We met them with them yesterday and told them that we wanted to let our attorney look at what they put in writing and they told us point blank, “if you take this to your attorney then we will get our attorney’s to tie this up in court for years”. How are these people allowed to bully and threaten their own tenants like this? Someone needs to seriously look into these Providers for misappropriation of funding as they are wasting the tax payers dollars by doing what they do.
Hi Joann,
I’m so sorry that you are going through this.
Perhaps you can take a copy of the Cornell guidelines and other authoritative sources (you may wish to consult some of the resources listed on our Links page) and write a letter and/or schedule a meeting with the property management to come up with an eradication plan that actually has a chance of succeeding. For example, the Australian Code of Practice has this to say:
And this article, Control of Bed Bugs in Residences – Information for Pest Control Companies, from Dr. Stephen Kells at the University of Minnesota Extension, says about follow-up inspections:
You should coordinate and cooperate with other tenants who are also affected. It may be easier to deal with them if you are a larger group. I know it is very hard but other people have organized their neighbors and been successful in getting their management to understand what it really takes to eradicate bedbugs from the whole building.
My thoughts about treating yourself — hiring someone and then getting reimbursed — are that there is a high likelihood of long-term failure when the infestation has already spread to other apartments so that it will not be any more cost-effective (because even if successful in the short-term, reinfestation from untreated apartments that are also infested is a strong possibility). Simultaneous inspection and treatment is what is required.
Perhaps you already know this but the Bedbugger Forums are a great source of support and advice (you will feel less alone). I also highly recommend that you consult the Bedbugger FAQs.
I wish you success in this fight, Joann. It will not last forever. Please let us know if we can help.
Renee,
Thank you for responding to my post. We had someone come to our home today to inspect the premises from The Stern Environmental Group. We have printed a copy of the Guidelines For Prevention and Management of Bed Bugs in Shelters and Group Living Facilities from the Cornell Website. Community Access also told us that they are going by this manual, but after reading it, they are not doing anything close to what is in that manual. At this point, after living with this for a year, we are tempted to just pay for this treatment ourselves. We are going to give these providers one more chance to fix this. When we get the report from The Stern Environmental Group, I am going to send it to Community Access and tell them that this is what NEEDS to be done. If they are unwilling at this point, then we will pay it and take them to court for it.
If you have any more helpful information, I would appreciate it. Thank you for the information you did give to me, I will pass it on to them and see what they do now.
Thank you
Glad to help, Joann. The only thing I would add at this point is that you should be careful of following recommended procedures. Although I’m not familiar with the rules governing your own living situation, perhaps you should still review Met Council’s two facts sheets:
How to Get Repairs Part 1 and Part 2.
Going to court is not an easy thing by any means, but I’m sure you know that already. I hope you can avoid it. And get appropriate legal advice either way.