Emergency bedbug treatment costs plunge in Halifax public housing
Analysis shows emergency spraying costs cut by 95% in buildings with renovations, extra staff
A trial bedbug prevention program seems to be paying off for Halifax's public housing authority, whose residents say the pests have caused major problems in recent years.
Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority, which runs several dozen residences for low-income people, is renovating all its buildings and adding extra staff to try to control bedbugs for good.
In the three seniors buildings with extra staff, costs of emergency fumigation dropped by more than 95 per cent in roughly 18 months, a CBC Nova Scotia investigation shows.
Surjip Soin has lived in one of the public housing buildings with her husband for eight years — with no issues until six months ago.
That's when the bugs started biting at night.
"Very bad things I have experienced with the bugs, so I don't want them again," Soin said, as cleaners replaced baseboards and moved furniture in her apartment.
"Because I had too much rashes on my body, I went to — many times — emergency. They gave me injections like antibotics."
Preventative measures cut fumigation costs
CBC Nova Scotia analyzed three years of purchase orders for emergency bedbug inspections and fumigation treatments, obtained through Nova Scotia's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The housing authority spent almost $143,000 on the treatments — above and beyond its standard pest control contracts — in 2012/2013.
That cost has dropped by almost half since then, the analysis shows, which the housing authority's executive director attributes to preventative renovations.
Janet Burt-Gerrans said the housing authority also launched a pilot project in the fall of 2014 to add five-person bedbug teams to three buildings.
"That takes the form of helping people who might have a physical disability, can't lift items out of the way, can't move furniture out of the way," she said.
"There are certainly some supports around some mental illnesses, cluttering, and having too many items in the unit in order to be able to properly treat the unit."
'We really want to deal with this issue'
Two of the buildings in the trial, H.P. Mckeen Manor in Halifax and Alderney Manor in Dartmouth, had been paying tens of thousands of dollars for pesticide spraying before the cleaning teams were added.
The bedbug issue at the third, Joseph Howe Manor in Halifax, wasn't as severe, but people who lived there pushed for prevention, Burt-Gerrans said.
"Residents played a significant role in helping to bring the pilot project forward," she said.
The extra staff also help with education and outreach, she said.
"It's really important that people understand that we really want to deal with this issue," Burt-Gerrans said. "Coming to us to let us know that you have a problem is not going to get you in trouble. We will come and help."
New baseboards, renovations may prevent bedbugs
In the meantime, the authority has started renovating all its buildings to try and slow the spread of bedbugs, she said.
A hungry bedbug can travel hundreds of metres in search of its next blood meal.
So they have sealed nooks, crannies and holes between apartments.
"They'll start to get into the wall void," Burt-Gerrans said. "They'll travel through the wall void in search of the next unit and then the next unit. They can certainly travel between floors."
In the past year, the housing authority has installed approximately 7.6 kilometres of new baseboards to seal wall spaces where bedbugs like to hide. It has a tender out to install more than twice that amount in the coming year.
These baseboards are designed to stop bedbugs. They're made of clear pine to avoid knotholes, heavily caulked, and coated in a rubberized paint.
The baseboards will hopefully trap any hidden bedbugs inside a buildings walls — and hopefully prevent future infestations.
CBC figures 'a pleasant surprise'
Soin's apartment has been sprayed and new baseboards are being installed this week.
"They will not bother us again, we hope — 100 per cent, we hope," Soin said.
The CBC figures showing reduced emergency treatment costs came as a pleasant surprise to the housing authority, Burt-Gerrans said.
"I was very excited. I think 'awesome' was one of the words that I was using," she said.
"We haven't had a chance to dig into our own data in the way that you were able to do. It really demonstrated in a pretty stark way the effect of the program that we're putting in place."
Not just public housing
Some public housing residents feel stigmatized because of an association with bedbugs — sometimes stopping them from coming forward, Burt-Gerrans said.
Bedbugs aren't just a problem for public housing, she said, but there's more publicity because the housing authority's records are open to public scrutiny.
"People travelling first class ... can transmit and carry bedbugs. Four star hotels in New York City have issues with bedbugs," she said.
"It's a problem that is growing and becoming more common, and is certainly not in any way associated with any particular demographics or portion of society."
$1M bill 'worth it'
The authority hopes the investment pays off. The cost of extra staffing, plus the authority-wide renovations and the upcoming tenders, will soon exceed $1 million, Burt-Gerrans said.
The pilot project was recently expanded to Sunrise Manor and Gordon B. Isnor Manor, she said.
The fight against bedbugs isn't close to being over, but Burt-Gerrans said she thinks the housing authority is heading in the right direction.
"This is worth it because we're making a real difference in the life of people that live in our buildings."
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With files from the CBC's Shaina Luck and Rachel Ward