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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (May 25, 2012)
Street roots 7 May 25 2012 BUGGED, fro m page 3 bugs, Duncan says. “Any time you have a deterrent for tenants to report, it’s going to cooperate with landlords during infestation have a negative impact.” treatments. Since bed bugs began infesting hotels, It is generally the case that most of the apartment complexes, and other buildings in costs associated with the infestation are Portland and other cities throughout the born by the owner,” Jones says. “This is country two years ago, low-income housing only for the possibility that an owner finds a providers have taken aggressive steps to hostile or uncooperative tenant who does reduce infestations. not want to cooperate at all. Just as it takes Roger Moore, assistant director of two to tango, it takes two to eliminate bed property management for Home Forward bugs.” (formerly known as the Housing Authority But Gramlich thinks the notice is of Portland), says the agency has used two potentially very harmful to residents,” and different types of bed bug sniffing dogs, a thinks it may deter them from reporting cryogenic freezing unit, chemical they have an infestation. treatments, cedar oil, steam treatments, In response, Gramlich says the National getting rid of baseboards and sealing cracks Housing Law Project intends to organize and crevices in apartments, doing yearly various Legal Aid offices and other legal inspections, and even giving residents clinics serving low-income people in urging quarters to encourage them to do their HUD to reinstate the language from the laundry more often. August notice. The shotgun approach has worked. “We Elisa Harrigan, the executive director of have seen dramatic decreases in the amount the Community Alliance of Tenants, says it’s of bed bugs,” he says, guessing the numbers hard to tell exactly what the obligations and have gone down between 60 and 70 percent. “We have invested a lot of time and expectations of tenants are in the new notice. It s so vague and so new that we resources into this. We’re not going to find a silver bullet.” don’t know the legal implications,” she says. But he says the most important Ben Duncan, a Multnomah County Environmental Health program specialist component of treatment is getting residents and the coordinator of the county’s Bed Bug to report they have bed bugs in their unit. “You have to get residents to report,” he Task Force, agreed. But he and others says. “The longer bed bugs stay in a unit, worry that the notice will have the the more they multiply, the harder they are unintended consequence of causing tenants to get rid of, and the more costly it is.” to not report that they have bed bugs in Adrienne Karecki, Central City Concern’s their unit, in order to avoid paying the steep Director of Social Enterprises and costs of treatment. That, he said, would negatively impact the Employment Services, says a great deal of stigma still exists in the minds of Central efforts to reduce bed bugs throughout the City Concern’s residents despite efforts to county. “Everybody knows that early educate them about bed bugs and response and appropriate communication encourage them to report infestations. between the landlord and the tenant is “They think it’s an embarrassing problem,” critical to controlling and mitigating bed she says. Sisters 01 The Road c r e a t in g c o m m u n ity , c r e a tin g c h a n g e , to g e th e r M a ry P acio s: A SISTERS OF THE ROAD Stop by {or o delicious meal, Monday-Friday, 10am ■ 230pm M ir a d o r . COMMUNITY .STORK . 'y . - Ï. w ■ « Natural Kitchen ¿2 Honte 2106 SE Division 5 0 3 * 2 3 1 ’5 1 7 5 m ira d o rc o m m u n ity s to re .c o m M o n -S a t 10-6 * S u n 11-5 Retrospective Now through June 1 we ore— )> hospitality & friendship )) community change through the Dorothy Day Community School )) working together for nonviolence & justice » and don’t forget: fun! She refers to the work Central City has done to reduce bed bugs as “a process.” Tenants are more receptive than they have been in the past, and she says, “If the tenants work with us ... we can significantly reduce and get rid of the bed bugs.” Both she and Moore say tenants have been cooperative when dealing with treatments, which can take months and cost tens of a thousands of dollars. Y oh h a ve to g e t re s id e n ts to Moore says that, re p o rt. The lo n g e r bed b u g s on average, the tenants in Home s ta y in a u n it, th e m o re th e y Forward’s high-rise m u ltip ly , th e h a rd e r th e y a re buildings — where to g e t r id o f, a n d th e m o re bed bug infestations c o s tly i t is ." are the worst — earn — ROGER MOORE 19 percent of median A S S IS T A N T D IR E C T O R O F P R O P E R T Y family income, or a M A N A G E M E N T FOR H O M E F O R W A R D little over $8,000 a year for one person. In his mind, it’s ludicrous to charge tenants for any part of the bed bug treatment, not only because they are unable to pay for it, but also because it can never be known if that tenant brought bed bugs into the unit in the first place. “We want to help residents as much as possible,” he says. “We wanted to take away as many of the barriers as possible. We found that it was so much cheaper for us in the longrun if they would report in a timely manner rather than waiting.” If tenants knew they had to pay for all or some of the cost of treatment, Moore predicts they would simply “live with the nuisance of bed bugs.” Karecki also says Central City does not charge residents for the cost of the treatment. “They just couldn’t pay,” she says. “It would be a pretty huge barrier.” ARTREACH GALLERY : ■ 133 NW 6th Ave. in Portland 503-222-5694 w w w .s i s t e r s o f t h e r o a d .o r g Canning jars & equipment, cookware, kitchen tools & appliances Organic cotton sheets, towels, & blankets SW Park & SW Madison First Congregational Church (Across from the Portland Art Museum) Portland, Oregon 97205 H ou rs: M on - Fri 10:00 am - 2 :0 0 pm Food dryers coffee bean Juicers I N T E R N A T I O N A L ® Books on meat-free cooking, gardening & sustainability We tip our mugs to Coffee Bean International for donating coffee to Street Roots and keeping our vendors warm in the morning! Thank you!
