We are so pleased to share with you the conversation we had last Wednesday with Rima Zavys, Director, Homelessness & Housing Help Services and Mental Health & Developmental Services of WoodGreen Community Services and Co-Chair of the Toronto Bed Bug Project.
(See our earlier review of the Toronto Bed Bug Project interim report and our look at the genesis of the Toronto Bed Bug Project in the early efforts of the shelter and health services community.)
New York vs Bed Bugs: What was your reaction to the report?
Rima Zavys: Well, we had a Community Bed Bug Committee meeting yesterday. We’ve had the Community Bed Bug Committee meetings in place for over a year. The Community Bed Bug Committee organized the community Town Hall on bed bugs that was held about a year ago and we’ve continued to meet. We hadn’t met for six months because a lot of us have been involved in the Toronto Bed Bug Project. So we really wanted to see where that process would lead to and we don’t have many resources so we really wanted to support the Toronto Public Health bed bug process and have been doing so. But yesterday it was good to just sit back and reflect as a community group to look at what has been done. Essentially, we’re quite pleased because over the last six months or so, there’s been quite a bit of movement, although not as much as we’d like to, and there’s work still to be done. But Public Health has created a number of different fact sheets that are now on their website and one of them is available in a variety of languages and there are plans in place to translate the rest as well in a variety of languages. And that was a big issue for us. Also, there are plans in place to take the information that’s on the Toronto Public Health website and get it out there through outreach efforts into local communities. Because we know a lot of folks don’t have access to computers or aren’t computer savvy. So, that’s the next stage.
So, things are moving forward. And we also have now a very clear phone number to call [416-338-7600], at Public Health, to report bed bugs, and also Public Health has a much better process in place to work with individuals who need advice or support or information, and even hands-on support in helping them to eradicate bed bugs. That wasn’t in place before.
New York vs Bed Bugs: I noticed in the press coverage, and where the newspaper articles allow for comments, that the public is very much in favor of action and in fact they’re disappointed that it’s taken so long. So it seems that at least there is an emerging consensus that this is necessary. Which will help!
Rima Zavys: Definitely. There is. The media has been very interested in this topic. Every time that we have sent out press releases there has been a lot of interest and it’s been reported, I think, in a way that has been very encouraging for the city of Toronto and has put some pressure on the city to do more, which is a good thing.
We’ve also had discussions at the Community Bed Bug Committee and also the Toronto Bed Bug Project about how to take it up a step, how to get our province involved, how to get the national government involved, because we know this is an issue that’s not just within the city of Toronto, but it’s also an issue across the world and North America. So we want to begin to make linkages, provincially, nationally, internationally. We know that it’s only through those linkages that we’ll better find out what’s going on and we’ll better be able to put pressure on various funding bodies on various levels of government to become involved and put resources towards this issue.
New York vs Bed Bugs: I think that’s wonderful. I think you are all doing wonderful work. We have no one here doing that. We have no Joe Fiorito. We’re really in a sad state… I want to ask you, I think I came across a job notice for a researcher, so it seems that you are directly involved, that WoodGreen is directly involved in one of the pilot projects?
Rima Zavys: Yes, it’s a different part of the project. It’s not a pilot project under the Toronto Bed Bug Committee. It’s a pilot project that got funding—there was left-over funding that Habitat Services had over a year ago and they negotiated with the city of Toronto to take that money and to specifically target it towards trying to eradicate bed bugs and do tenant education within 45 rooming houses that are funded by Habitat Services in Toronto. And so Habitat Services wanted us to get a better idea of the extent of the bed bug problem, because they really didn’t know what kind of situation tenants were encountering around bed bugs. Not everybody was reporting bed bugs; some had, some hadn’t. Some spraying had taken place but this project is a very systematic way of going in, doing tenant education, doing inspections in all 45 Habitat Services rooming houses, then helping the tenants do preparation, do spray, and then do follow-up inspections. And we have a research component built into it, because it’s very important I think to build in these research components. There’s been so little documented…
New York vs Bed Bugs: Yes!
Rima Zavys: …in research and also in any kind of format, in a community report, in a city of Toronto report on bed bugs. So I feel as though the more that can get documented the better. And then it’s a resource that can be used by anybody, nationally or internationally, it just becomes another document that helps support the fact that we need to do something about bed bugs.
New York vs Bed Bugs: Indeed… I wonder if you and your community partners have already learned some things about what works and—I know you’ve learned a lot about the challenges, I’ve been reading, and I’m so impressed—but I wonder if you have any sense, or an opinion, about what direction things must go in and what actually works in certain settings?
Rima Zavys: Well, we’ve talked yesterday at the Community Bed Bug Committee about a multi-pronged approach. We know tracking and monitoring is so important and we don’t have any tracking and monitoring mechanism in place that would give us a comprehensive picture of the bed bug situation in Toronto and we want to get there as soon as possible, because without solid statistics it becomes challenging to say that we need resources and we need funding and we need support, so that’s important. As well as developing better intervention strategies and more funding for tenants and landlords so that they can actually access a service, to help support the prep and spray that’s needed by a service that knows what they’re doing.
New York vs Bed Bugs: I’ve been reading about Bug and Scrub, awesome, an awesome thing… we need more of those social enterprise…
Rima Zavys: Right. In the interim report that was approved by the Board of Health on Monday, the report asks for more funding and for an expansion of Bug and Scrub, which is great, great to see. And also $75,000, a pool of money for individuals who don’t have any financial resources, can’t access financial resources from anywhere, to help them pay for any prep and spray that they need. It’s a very little amount of money, and I think it’d be gone probably in about three months time… but what I like about it is that it it’ll give us an indication of the extent of the problem; it’ll give us an indication of the fact that people don’t have the financial resources often to do what is necessary and I think it will open up the floodgates and people will call and try to access that money and help us to document the extent of the problem in Toronto.
It’s just the beginning. Definitely, we need to have tracking and monitoring, we need to have services in place that people can access of qualified individuals who know what they’re doing, who will do laundry and will seal cracks and crevices and caulk around baseboards and do all the necessary prep that is required and bring in somebody who will do a very good spray that’s needed, a thorough spray. And the Toronto Bed Bug Committee came up with some standards around what preparation actually needs to look like if it’s done properly, that we want to hold pest control companies to that standard, because we find that there’s just such a variation. More education is needed. Information needs to go out there. A lot of people still don’t know the differences between a bed bug and a cockroach and a flea. And so often they may see these bugs and may disregard them for some time because they don’t know what they are, they don’t know what situation they’re going to be in in a few months if they don’t do anything. We have found that early intervention, if you intervene—anecdotally, we’ve found that if you intervene right away when you see blood spots and you see a bed bug, that in fact you can probably get away with one spray and one prep and then you’re probably bed bug free, but if you wait until you have a more severe infestation, it will be much longer for you to get rid of it.
New York vs Bed Bugs: Is the city… I didn’t see much about that public education effort. I think that obviously will require money, so maybe that’s something for down the road, but that would be so helpful, because so many people are not allergic and that in itself is an obstacle.
Rima Zavys: There’s been some discussion. We’ve had other public education campaigns around other health issues that have been displayed on buses, on street cars, on various public transit vehicles in Toronto before, and those were funded from various levels of government and did need more funding. That’s something that the committee continues to look into and wants to do but needs more resources to be able to do that. But it would be great. But I think there’s always this push back from those who don’t necessarily want to speak about the bed bug problem so publicly. Hotels and other tourist-related services that don’t want to talk about it because there’s always the fear that it will impact upon tourism and people won’t visit. But in fact it’s an international phenomenon and anywhere you really go, you’re at risk.
New York vs Bed Bugs: And I think it’s counter-productive because people have much more confidence in people who have outright policies rather than people who are trying to hide the problem.
Rima Zavys: Right.
New York vs Bed Bugs: I think people are making decisions on their tourism based on this; we had someone comment on the site that they were thinking of cancelling their trip to New York City. And I said, no, don’t cancel your trip, just educate yourself about bed bugs, because it’s not just New York City, they’re everywhere.
I want to say thank you for talking to us! You’re doing wonderful, wonderful work. I just hope, I think that this public conversation across cities, across countries, is so necessary and it’s such a step in the right direction.
Rima Zavys: I would definitely agree. We need to do more of this. We need to make linkages nationally and internationally more and more, because there are some really good resources being developed internationally that it doesn’t make sense for us to re-develop things.
New York vs Bed Bugs: We need to share, I agree completely, we want to do our part with that, and we’re so encouraged by, for example, the people of Cincinnati; Cincinnati and Toronto are the two cities we look to for leadership and it is very, very encouraging.
Rima Zavys: And I’m surprised because I don’t feel like we’ve done enough!
New York vs Bed Bugs: [laughter]
Rima Zavys: We need to do so much more. But that’s encouraging for us. That it seems that we’re going in the right direction. And we’ve got the support of our City Council and Toronto Public Health which has been incredible to have…
New York vs Bed Bugs: It’s significant, yeah. Without it, you can’t move forward, which is what is happening in New York City—there’s no official support. At the meeting Monday, did they consider that Howard Moscoe request? Do you know if they’re doing anything or planning to do anything about rights of access?
Rima Zavys: Into units? There’s been discussion about what the right mechanism is to do that. So, there have been suggestions from the community initially to try to designate bed bugs as a health hazard, but in fact it doesn’t meet the definition of a health hazard, and Public Health already has a mechanism in place that they can enter units that are really infested badly by declaring it a hazard on an individual basis. There’s also another suggestion that in severe situations there would be an order issued that would allow Public Health to enter and begin to develop a plan to treat a unit. So that may be the direction that it moves into. Those at Public Health—there’s a working group looking at legislative issues, and so they’re just trying to figure out the best designation. It looks like there will be some kind of designation. There has been some suggestion that a by-law be introduced, so the working group has been looking at those various options and probably by the time that the final report comes out, which will be in March-April, there will be a decision on that.
New York vs Bed Bugs: It’s so expensive for small landlords. It’s really hard for them, too.
Rima Zavys: And landlords and tenants need to have access to the information about what to ask for when they’re trying to schedule a company to do prep and spray. So often because they’re not fully informed and don’t have the information about what to ask for, it causes them to not get the best service possible. So we’re trying to get information out there that says, if you’re trying to book a company to come and do prep and/or spray, this is the standard. This is what you should be asking the companies to do. And if they can’t do it, you need to get someone else. Except we’re also experiencing the phenomenon right now that pest control companies are getting so many calls that it’s been difficult to book a company to come in right away and people end up having to wait, and people don’t want to wait. And so they’re choosing to go with a company that’s not necessarily providing the service but they can come into their home right away within 2-3 days.
New York vs Bed Bugs: I imagine Bug and Scrub is also overbooked…
Rima Zavys: They’re overbooked.
New York vs Bed Bugs: I guess finally I just want to ask you if it was difficult to get the support from the politicians, the elected and civil leadership. It’s been so hard for us here to get their attention. And it seems, well, from a distance it seems rather easy, in cities like Toronto and Cincinnati, I wonder if it’s just a different mentality that we’re dealing with.
Rima Zavys: The City Councillor who has been very supportive and has taken the lead on this issue has been Paula Fletcher. She happens to be our representative in the geographical area where WoodGreen Community Services is located. And we initially called her, when we had the Town Hall we wanted her to chair it. She wasn’t able to chair it but she said, you know what, I’m going to take this issue up, I’m going to make it up to you, I can’t make the Town Hall, but I will continue to work on it, and she made that commitment and she’s certainly continued to do that, and it’s been great. She’s very involved in the community. She has a great track record of taking up community issues and bringing them forward. And it just happened that everything lined up so well.
New York vs Bed Bugs: Thank you so much for your time and your kindness. I’m overwhelmed by your kindness.
Rima Zavys: I, you know, what did I know about bed bugs a few years ago? Nothing. But it’s just been… I’ve seen so many people affected and I can’t just stand by and do nothing. A lot of us just can’t. Because we’ve seen the detrimental impact that it’s had on people and we feel we have to do something.
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