While we weren’t looking, bed bugs finally got their own category at the city’s 311 website:
The City accepts reports of bed bugs in private residences, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) property, hotels, single room occupancy buildings, day care centers, and subways. To report bed bugs in a private house or apartment, you must be a tenant in the building.
Under Complaints & Problems, Health & Medicine, Environmental Health, if you were wondering: Bed Bug Information or Complaint.
I called 311 to see if anything was new in how the actual calls were handled and a nice guy named Joseph walked me through what they’re doing. Basically, it’s the same but there was a certain efficiency to this call and no more “bed bugs? did you say bed bugs?” It’s still a complaint process that’s routed to HPD or NYCHA, and a call transfer to the Health Department if the caller wants the bed bug fact sheet. Interestingly, they’re now also taking complaints for subways (it’s a script for rats, mice and bed bugs or conditions conducive to the same), and that call gets routed to the MTA.
Good. And definitely not a small thing. A search for bed bugs in a visit to the city’s website in the past netted precious little. This is going to change.
We’d really like to see bed bug calls included in the monthly reports in every district. Or tracked like rodent complaints (PDF), one of the reports available in My Neighborhood Statistics.
At the New York City Council hearing on bed bug legislation in February, I remember that the Speaker thanked Council Member Brewer and specifically her chief of staff, Shula Warren, for 311′s tracking of bed bug calls. At the press conference, Council Member Brewer said that 311 had received 22,218 calls about bed bugs in fiscal year 2008. These calls would have included the private residential complaints tracked by HPD and also information inquiries, and calls about bed bugs in jails, schools, NYCHA properties, etc. It’s nice to see 311 formalizing this bed bug category on their website and specifically stating what bed bug reports they process. Right direction!
These pages may be of related interest:
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Good to hear! I’m glad you looked into that.
Now, can they meet the demand of bed bug inspections?
It will be interesting to see when people start to call 311 to make reports about bed bugs in NYC hotels. To my knowledge, no one knows that they can do that. I’ve never told anyone to call 311. When it catches on, well, it will be interesting.
I know. I have never told anyone to do that either. It will be VERY interesting…