The Columbus Apartment Association has been working on bed bug materials for a while. We previously looked, rather warily, at their compliance package.
This new document is being developed in collaboration with the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force.
It is a draft training manual for apartment staff (PDF). This version is not yet final but we can take a peek.
It contains a bed bug tutorial from Dr. Susan Jones and checklists for inspecting occupied and unoccupied apartments.
This is more promising, I think.
For example:
Since eradicating bed bugs is costly, prevention and early detection is essential. It is highly recommended that maintenance and apartment staff be properly trained to identify bed bugs and their common hiding places. An inspection of a unit should be conducted prior to occupancy and can be conducted periodically throughout a lease term.
and
Do not consider an infested unit in a building in isolation. Bed bugs move quickly and can easily spread beyond the site of the initial infestation, especially in hotels, dorms, and apartment buildings. Be sure to inspect, and treat if necessary, all units that share a common wall with the infested unit.
and
This problem cannot be overlooked. Ignoring signs of bed bugs will increase the cost of extermination, increase the invasiveness of extermination, and increase potential liability. If bed bugs are discovered, notify your manager immediately.
and
Landlords may want to provide a copy of this manual to select vendors such as carpet installers or painting vendors. Landlord could impose notification requirements on these vendors if bed bugs are discovered.
I’m not so sure about the tenant notices, however. I believe that leaving the schedule of follow-up treatments to the tenant to request, who is after all untrained and unskilled in bed bug inspection and may be non-responsive to bed bug bites, is a common mistake.
What do you think?
These pages may be of related interest:
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