It’s sometimes difficult to make sense of presentations found on the internet. Meaning is often lost in all those bullets in the absence of the speaker.
Not so with this presentation from the last Central Ohio Bed Bug Summit by Kim Carpenter, titled Medical and Social-Emotional Effects of Bed Bug Infestations (PowerPoint), available at the website of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force. Still, I wish I had heard it.
I hope you’ll check out the work of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force often. They know what they’re talking about.
That’s all I got. Stay out of trouble with you-know-who.
These pages may be of related interest:
- Franklin County October Bed Bug Summit, notes from OPCA
- Ohio’s Section 18 exemption request, draft labels and public comment period
- Columbus Apartment Association rolls its own landlord/tenant bed bug rules and regulations
- Namechecked (plus the eminently quotable Dr. Susan Jones in PCT)
- Resource: Department of Veterans Affairs Information Letter on bed bugs
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As a cautionary tale…I would like to respectfully disagree with advice being disseminated on this wonderful website. I would counsel anyone who spots bed bugs in their apartment to simultaneously report an infestation to your landlord AND 311!!!!!
For example….let’s say that 10 out of 16 units report bed bugs to their landlord….but no one ever reports it to the city. Then…let’s say some residents DO go out and spend hundred’s of dollars doing mass laundry and dry-cleaning, AND purchasing bed bug mattress covers, And caulking and filling gaps and such, AND living morally responsible by not going to stay overnight with friends or having people over to your apartment for fear of spreading this pox…but most of the residents don’t do anything more than allowing the pest control guy to spray their apartment, much like having cockroaches or mice. What then? Oh, then some people move and new people come into an apartment building totally unaware of what awaits them because THERE IS NO RECORD OF ANY BED BUG INFESTATION.
See the problem here? Never mind that the building might be rent-controlled and that the old-timers are willing to live with a little itching and scratching…while YOU…the new renter who is paying through the nose is highly allergic and is now scarred from head to toe because of the bites.
OH…and might I mention that when you do get an inspector to come out from NYC housing…they might be like the man I had…totally uneducated as to what the heck he is looking for, and then he wants to take your TV because you told him you would be leaving it when you use “constructive eviction” as to why you are leaving crap in your apartment because of fear of bed bug infestation? NYC Housing….what a joke with regards to bed bug inspection. I had to show the guy my “smoking gun”…the bed bug doo-doo on an electrical outlet. I had help out hope that they would send an expert and I would have justice, but all I got was some (God help me) totally bed bug spotting doofus in a city uniform showing up to just show up and collect overtime on a Sunday.
To say that NYC Housing will help an individual is crap. What all citizens need to realize is that if you want social justice, then you can’t just sit back and say, “well crap…I only pay $400 and I am rent-stabilized and I don’t want to make waves. So I think I will just let these things bite me so I don’t rock the boat. I am willing to live with the odd bed bug and cockroach and rat…it’s not so bad.” And then you leave the rest of us…oh yeah, those of us who pay $1600 a month to fight losing battles and be called hysterical females – since there are no records of these infestations on the books. Thank you very little, NYC.
Thank you for your comment, Lori.
Lori. Your story is hilarious and I feel your pain. I am one of those so called hysterics and I may never not be one. I started a blog too for San Francisco Bay area because of it, kind like this one only, I lean a little anti-pesticides. For goodness sake, of course, if it will kill the blight use the damn pesticides! But like Lori says, it’s all the other stuff, the vigilance and the responsible behavior that need more help out there. And Renee, I am so so sorry to see this blog go. I love how with the last two posts you even made bed bug entomology romantic. It’s like how Gabriel Garcia Marquez made Cholera sexy.
Hi B! Heh, that made me smile, thank you so much!! I’m so glad you started a site and I wish you very well indeed. I’m sorry that I didn’t notice it before; I’ve just visited it now. I’m especially glad that your aim is to explore and recommend DIY solutions. Even though I’m sure we disagree on a few things, I really am. I think the need is absolutely dire for DIY bed bug control methods that are safe and effective and, of course, inexpensive. (Quite a trick that, because they have to work and they need to be teachable so that many people can follow them.) Having an honest discussion about this is urgent. I wish you success. I hope you will be able to engage the larger community in SF about these issues. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. For now I’m adding a link on the resources page. Good luck…
Thank you B for getting a laugh out of my post…I really did need to vent with a bit of humor about my situation. What I am most happy to report though…is that a previous tenant of my building who did leave all their belongings JUST yesterday received a favorable judgment in NYC housing court to the tune of $28,000 (and that includes her attorney’s costs)
SO…I am pretty psyched to think that my trip to a cosmetic surgeon today (I filed a personal injury lawsuit for damages, and I found my attorney through researching the afore mentioned lawsuit in NYC housing court) was well worth the humiliation I endured…I was butt-ass naked and photographed from head to toe. My attorney sent me to this guy up in the Bronx, and I live in Brooklyn….anyway, the funniest part of my whole journey was the fact that on the way home, I was sitting on the subway…happened to glance up and see this woman holding a tote bag from “David and Goliath” and it featured a cartoonish “bed bug” with the caption….”I live under your bed.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Wow! Good luck with your suit. Too bad the building couldn’t get a handle on the problem before it went this far. Did you see this post by Molly McAleer: http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/bed-bugs-is-no-one-safe?
This is what I was picturing the whole time I was reading about your visit to the cosmetic surgeon. I think from what Molly wrote, she’s not done with this for a while either.
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