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.
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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.”
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