Mom used pellets of phospine, an agricultural pesticide
A gas is produced on contact with the air which can be lethal even in small quantities in enclosed spaces
Despite the children vomiting they were not taken to hospital for several hours
Police say the death appears to be accidental
By AFP REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 21:51 EST, 23 February 2015 | UPDATED: 03:54 EST, 24 February 2015

A baby died and four young siblings were in critical condition after they were accidentally exposed to bedbug fumigation chemicals at their western Canada home, police said Monday.
Shazia Yarkhan’ sister was trying to kill bed bugs with a chemical brought from Pakistan, where the family had recently vacationed.
The substance used in the apartment was a pellet form of phosphine, an agricultural pesticide that is strictly controlled in Canada and requires special training to use.

When exposed to the air, the pellets react with moisture and release phosphine gas. The gas is both colorless and odorless but extremely toxic.
Within hours of the fumigation taking place, all five children that were present in the home became seriously ill, with the youngest losing its life.
Although the pellets were contained mainly within one of the bedrooms, fire crews detected the substance throughout the apartment.
Crews found readings of 4.0 parts per million in the bedroom. It’s immediately lethal at 5.0 parts per million, but can be harmful at 1.0 parts per million after just 15 minutes.

Wood Buffalo RCMP Cpl. George Cameron said the poisonings appear to be accidental.
The woman’s five children started showing signs of illness Saturday night. They all vomited and one of them had diarrhea but they weren’t taken to hospital until the following morning.
Corporal George Cameron of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told AFP the children were rushed to the hospital in Fort McMurray, about 250 miles north of Edmonton, Alberta.
An eight-month-old baby died in hospital. Two siblings, aged two and six, were rushed by air ambulance to Stollery Children’s hospital in Edmonton while another two, a four-year-old and a seven-year-old, were taken to Northern Lights Regional Health Centre hospital in Fort McMurray, police said.
All four children are in critical condition. Their mother is under observation in hospital in Fort McMurray, while their father is with the two children who were taken to Edmonton.
A family member told the daily Edmonton Journal the mother had been using a pesticide to kill bedbugs when she inadvertently poisoned her children.
The property manager also said that she spoke with the mother, who became alarmed when her children started vomiting.

Not All Exterminator Dogs Are Perfect in Sniffing Out Bedbugs
January 9, 2015
By MICHAEL MENDELSOHN and ALEXA VALIENTE via 20/20

It might be a bedbug’s favorite time of year. With the holiday travel season now in our rearview mirror, it’s possible that bedbugs took advantage of your vacation by hitchhiking their way back to your home from your hotel or just from your Uncle Larry’s. Unfortunately, exterminators — like the rest of us — aren’t perfect, and can sometimes fail to find an infestation. They can also tell you have a problem when you really don’t, especially if they’re using dogs to sniff out bedbugs.

The bedbug-sniffing dog has become a go-to marketing tool for exterminators. And it’s no myth that, with their superior sense of smell, dogs can indeed be trained to sniff out bedbugs.

“You just want to make sure that that dog is really exposing a live bedbug,” Matt Fabry, exterminator and owner of Town & Country Pest Solutions in Rochester, New York, told ABC News’ “20/20.” “Because you can pay a lot of money for false alerts.”

Man’s best friend can steer his handler wrong, especially because often, dogs get a doggie treat each time they signal that they’re smelling bedbugs.

“And if he’s really hungry, he’s going to do false alerts … and bark, and there won’t be a bedbug there,” Fabry said.

And that’s why, Fabry also said, it’s important to make sure the exterminator shows you the bedbugs if their dog has alerted to their presence.

To see whether dogs would alert to bedbugs at a home with no evidence of bedbugs, ABC News’ “20/20” set up hidden cameras at a home in Brooklyn, New York, and made appointments with 10 teams of exterminators and their dogs.

Georgia entomologist Paul Bello, who authored “The Bed Bug Combat Manual,” and entomologist Lou Sorkin of Entsult Associates in Rye Brook, New York, first conducted a search of the home and found no evidence of bedbugs.

Still, four out of 11 dogs we met got it wrong, and alerted to bedbugs in the home even though there were none.

One exterminator’s dog — “20/20” will call the dog “Mikey” — smelled bedbugs on a couch, on a chair and on a bed. With each hit, the handler rewarded Mikey with a treat.

“So basically every time she scratches, she’s picking up a scent of a live bedbug in that area,” the exterminator told the homeowner.

Fabry said an exterminator shouldn’t recommend professional treatment, which can run upwards of $600 per room, for a bedbug infestation unless the exterminator himself performs a visual inspection, but Mikey’s handler did not do any further inspection.

Another exterminator’s dog — which “20/20” will call “Skipper” — then alerted to bedbugs in a different part of the house.

That company’s handler even brought in a second dog, which also alerted to bedbugs.

“After he is done, I’m going to jump in and show you the bug myself,” the exterminator said.

“I’m not going to lie to you and say I found the bedbugs here or the eggs or anything like that,” he told the homeowner. “But 100 percent I rely on them,” the exterminator said of his dogs. “If they say there is, there is.”

He then recommended that the homeowner start treatment for bedbugs before they became “visible everywhere.”

But Fabry warns, “Make sure that they show you that bedbug, and don’t just let them tell you it’s there, and, ‘We can’t see it.’ You can see it.”

“Our industry is filled with professionals that are committed to customer satisfaction,” Missy Henriksen of the National Pest Management Association told “20/20.” “There is no cookie-cutter approach to pest control. It’s the handler’s job to make sure the dog is alerting to bed bugs.”

Entomologist Sorkin advises homeowners not to be pressured into doing expensive treatment when a dog alerts to the odor of bedbugs but no bugs are found. Instead, he recommends using bedbug monitors or traps that can be found in stores.

“It’s less than $100 to do some monitoring,” Sorkin said, “and thousands of dollars to do a treatment.”

Bedbugs were found last week in the bunk house in the 1700 block of Polaski in the city’s Hermosa’s neighborhood.

The department believes the bedbugs came from a box spring brought into the house since the department does not provide them. Once they got the box spring out of the house, the departments infectious disease inspectors was called in and confirmed bed bugs were present and an exterminate was called as well.

It seems as if the problem was caught before it became an infestation. A private exterminator put out traps last Friday and so far, according to the department, no live bed bugs have been found.

An email was sent out department-wide warning of the signs of bed bugs and how to spot them. It also asked fire fighters not to bring in outside furniture and make sure they wash and dry their linens.

It wasn’t bookworms but an infestation of bedbugs that caused the Chicago Ridge Public Library to shut its doors for two days, according to a statement issued Thursday by the library and a notice posted at the front entrance.

The statement says a “bedbug incident has been isolated and resolved.” The library, 10400 Oxford Ave., reopened Thursday morning after being closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

Before Thursday, library officials had declined to explain the closing, saying only via two signs posted on the front door and a posting on the library’s website that the library was closed “due to unforeseen circumstances.”

Library director Kathy McSwain was not in her office when a reporter called Thursday, and her voice mail said she would not return until Sept. 30. When asked Wednesday why the library was closed, McSwain said only that “we have building issues” and “our lawyer’s working on it.”

Thursday’s statement did not indicate when or where the bedbugs were discovered but said, “it’s also important to remember that this is a people issue and not a building issue. Bedbugs can be anywhere … in recent years bedbugs are seen as a growing problem in all kinds of dwellings.”

Mary Powers, president of the Friends of the Chicago Ridge Public Library, was surprised when she was told the reason for the two-day closing.

“Oh, my gosh. It makes me want to itch,” Powers said. “I wonder where they found most of them: in the children’s section, the adult section? They are carried on people aren’t they? It’s something I don’t want to think of. I’ll probably go there (Friday) with my granddaughter. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

On Thursday afternoon, several patrons didn’t bother to read the notice on the door. Those who did walked inside, seemingly confident that the problem had been addressed. Well, most of those.

“Really? I’m not going in there,” said one man who didn’t want to give his name. “I’ll give it until Saturday. I’m not bringing any bedbugs home.”

Khawla Mashni, of Chicago Ridge, had no problem bringing her three young sons to the library.

“I’m glad they got it done so the bedbugs don’t jump on our children and come home with us,” she said. “I’m glad they’re able to fix it. I’m not concerned or worried now that they’ve taken care of it.”

Another Chicago Ridge resident, Tony Briseno, was surprised after he read the notice.

“Bedbugs are everywhere. I guess I’ll have to find out if I catch them,” he said. “There’s always a concern. What about if I come in and the next day I have them at my house? I’m trying to figure out how this happened. I assume someone can bring them from their house.”

With the Milshire Hotel closing, does the door shut on bedbugs?

At one point in the legal battle between residents of a Logan Square single-room occupancy building and the landlord who wanted them out, residents actually used bedbugs as a weapon in their argument to stay put.

In court, tenants tried to make the case that if they moved out of the Milshire Hotel, 2525 N. Milwaukee Ave., they’d be taking the hotel’s bedbugs with them, creating a public hazard. Now residents have relented. Under a signed settlement, tenants have agreed to move out of the troubled SRO by Sept. 2 in exchange for $4,000 per unit. As part of that agreement, Milshire management has also promised to provide so-called heat treatment boxes—used to kill items that may be covered with bedbugs—to residents as they pack their belongings. Any items that tenants suspect are infested may be left in the Milshire.

That should be enough to contain the bedbug problem to one building, according to a pest control expert.

“It has to be done properly, obviously,” said Jim Stavropoulos, manager of Eco Tech Pest Control on the Northwest Side. “So anything that comes out of the container or the heat chamber, that would be clear.”

The Milshire is just the latest battleground for Chicago’s SROs, which typically rent small bedrooms with shared kitchens and bathrooms. SROs have grown scarce in the city as developers buy the buildings, evict the tenants and rent remodeled units at market rates. Chicago has lost 30 SRO buildings to redevelopment since the beginning of 2009, according to the city. Now, there are 73 licensed SROs left.

Tenants of the Milshire have been tussling with management since April, when residents were notified of plans to sell the building and told to vacate. Some residents stayed and formed a tenants union; as of late July, about 18 residents remain in the building, according to a resident and head of the tenants union.

The Milshire tenant’s legal complaint against building management will not be officially withdrawn until all the tenants are out and have received their compensation, according to the settlement.

In the meantime, the city has a pending legal complaint against the building for violation of the bedbug ordinance. The infestation is so severe that the city claims the whole building needs to be gutted. But since the Milshire is a licensed SRO, it is subject to the city’s moratorium on renovation permits—and that could limit the kind of rehab work that could be done to mitigate the bedbug problem.

“The next big fight for the Milshire will be how to ensure that the moratorium is honored while the building court ensures that the building code violations are remedied,” said Mark Swartz of the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing in an email Monday.

[email protected] | @crepeau

Chicago’s most recognizable building has a tiny problem it is trying to shake. Bed bugs were found on the 16th floor of the Willis Tower which is home to United Airlines.

Employees are complaining that they’ve been told very little about the infestation which is believed to be contained to an area on that floor.

The Willis Tower sent out two e-mails in late June but nothing else has gone out.

The June 23rd e-mail said, “The crew will use an environmentally-safe technique that ‘freezes’ the insects without using chemical insecticides.”

Jim Stavropoulos from Eco-Tech, which didn’t treat the Tower but is experienced in treating bed bugs says the problem with treating bed bugs in office buildings is that people are in and out all day. They could potentially bring the bed bug back into the office repeatedly.

The Willis Tower brought in K-9’s to detect the infestation and exterminators have visited the site several times. United says it will continue those efforts until the bed bugs are eradicated.

By Gary Stoller

USA TODAY

Frequent business traveler Neil Kelley says bedbug bites were “all over my legs,” and he was awakened in the middle of the night by a cockroach that crawled across his face at a resort two years ago.

“I itched like crazy,” recalls Kelley, who was attending a food industry conference and volunteers information as a USA TODAY Road Warrior. “I would never go back to that hotel.”

“Most chains have experienced bedbugs,” says John Barcay, a senior scientist at Ecolab,a company with a pest-management division that services hotels. “Bedbugs are more prevalent in hotels with high occupancy rates and in high tourist areas.”

Barcay says a hotel’s sanitation standards are unrelated to bedbug infestations, and any hotel — whether budget or luxury — can have bedbugs. They are brought into hotels in guests’ belongings, he says.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says bedbug infestations usually occur near where people sleep — in hotels, apartments and other dwellings — and America is one of many countries “now experiencing an alarming resurgence” in the bedbug population.

Experts suspect the recent resurgence, the CDC says, is linked to several factors, including bedbugs’ increased resistance to pesticides and increased international and domestic travel.

The good news for travelers is that bedbugs — parasites that feed on human blood — are not known to transmit disease. Their bites, which affect each person differently, can cause itching and loss of sleep, the CDC says.

The bites can also cause allergic reactions, including a “whole-body reaction,” and lead to skin infections, the agency says, while some people may not show any physical signs of a bite.

Jerry Barnes, the general manager of the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, Ill., says bedbugs are a problem throughout the hotel industry.

“I have worked for many hotels in the past and dealt with bedbugs for 20 years,” Barnes says. “All 14 hotels I have worked for have, at one time or another, incurred bedbugs. Any hotel who says it has never encountered bedbugs is not telling the truth.”

Barnes says the Pheasant Run Resort has contracted a pest-control company since 2008 and will institute a program requiring quarterly inspection of each guest room for bedbugs.

A website, The Bedbug Registry, says it has received about 20,000 reports of bedbugs in hotels and apartments since it launched in 2006. The website, which states it hasn’t confirmed any reports, shows that bedbugs have been reported in rooms of nearly all hotel chains, including budget and luxury ones.

Though bedbugs are a common problem, many hotels and guests erroneously report bedbug infestations, Barcay says. He estimates that more than half of the times hotels and motels have hired Ecolab to eradicate bedbugs, there were no bedbugs.

A survey last year by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky found that 75% of the 251 pest-management companies surveyed said they treated at least one hotel or motel for bedbugs in 2012. More than 95% of the companies said they treated bedbug infestations in at least one apartment/condominium and one single-family home.

Kathryn Potter, a spokeswoman for the American Hotel & Lodging Association, says “hoteliers have long been aware and vigilant of this particular pest.”

The trade group provides information and resources to help hotel managers identify and treat bedbug problems, she says.

Road Warrior Tim Orris lives in hotels year-round and says he has been bitten by bedbugs in three hotels or motels in the past three years.

Last year, he says he was bitten in the eyelid by a bedbug at a motel in Maryland.

The three incidents, he says, have changed his hotel routine. He now keeps his suitcase in his car and takes into the hotel a change of clothes in a plastic bag. The next day, he puts on the clothes in the plastic bag and seals the previous day’s clothes in the bag. The used clothes are then brought to a dry cleaner.

George Banta, the owner of Super 8 in Middletown, N.Y., says bedbugs are a problem for hotels and other businesses.

Banta says his hotel takes “preventative actions” to decrease the chances of bedbug issues, including training housekeeping staff how to detect the pests, installing protective covers on mattresses and regularly using an exterminator to treat guest rooms.

Such measures “do not guarantee that a business will never have to deal with the issue of bedbugs,” because they are brought into the hotel from outside, he says.

Despite hotel guests’ reports about bedbugs and his company’s efforts to eradicate them, Barcay says bedbugs won’t spread disease, and traveler shouldn’t be overly worried about them.

“Don’t change your travel plans,” Barcay says. “Bedbugs are only in a very small fraction of hotel rooms.”

About 40 used bedbug bombs greeted Mike Deutsch when he entered a small home in Hempstead, N.Y., last year.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘Is everyone okay?'” recalled Deutsch, an entomologist with Arrow Exterminating.

Fortunately, no one in the Hempstead house had been sickened by the chemicals enlisted in the family’s do-it-yourself eradication attempt — although new studies warn of the potential subtle or long-term consequences of exposures to bedbug pesticides, including hormone disruption, reproductive difficulties and behavioral problems. Everyone also escaped unscathed from a duplex in Marion, Ohio, thatcaught fire during a heat treatment for bedbugs in late December.

A pattern of desperate, dangerous and often futile measures have Deutsch and other bedbug experts warning the public that bedbugs pose more significant problems than just their notorious nocturnal nibbling. While the epidemic fills fewer headlines today than when it resurfaced in the mid-2000s, experts also recognize that the bedeviling pests only seem to be multiplying further. A report released by Penn Medicine on Thursday suggested that infestations in Philadelphia are growing by 70 percent a year. Nearly all pest management professionals, according to a nationwide survey published in April, reported servicing a bedbug infestation in the past year.

The issue has also captured the attention of several local and national agencies, which are now drafting and enacting legislation to promote safe bedbug control.

“People become desperate and will do crazy things,” said Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, a community-integrated pest management coordinator at Cornell University. “Overall, the public health effects of bedbugs have been largely overlooked.”

Beyond the toxic chemicals sometimes misused to fight them or the house fires that can result from other efforts, bedbugs are associated with a variety of health concerns. The pests can cause anxiety, depression and lost sleep for those who face an infestation and the social and financial hardships that can come with it, Gangloff-Kaufmann said. She added that sores from bedbug bites may even open up avenues for infections, such as from superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which commonly lives atop human skin. While the general consensus remains that bedbugs can’t transmit disease, some scientists are unconvinced and underscore how relatively little is known about the insect.

People will also put themselves in dangerous situations to avoid the possible presence of bedbugs. As temperatures plummeted across the Midwest late last week, two homeless men reportedly chose to sleep outside rather than go into a Chicago shelter that’s been battling bedbugs.

Kevin Govert, one of the men, told DNAinfo Chicago that he does not want to “get bedbugs again.”

No building is immune. Infestations over the last couple months were reported in libraries, classrooms, movie theaters, hospitals, jails andfire stations, among other locales across the country.

“Bedbugs are not going to go away,” said Dave Stone, director and principal investigator for the National Pesticide Information Center at Oregon State University.

Rising resistance among bedbugs to the chemical arsenal that once helped keep them at bay is making matters worse. One consequence — and even a potential contributor to the insects’ resistance — is the tendency among some people to use more of the chemicals, and more often, should an initial application fail to eliminate the bugs.

In November 2012, the CDC — using data from the National Pesticide Information Center — issued a formal health advisory “alerting the public to an emerging national concern regarding misuse of pesticides to treat infestations of bed bugs and other insects indoors.”

Between 2006 and 2010, 129 mild and serious health effects, including one death, were reported from bedbug-related pesticide use, according to the centers. Stone said that while he doesn’t have any updated numbers, the trend doesn’t appear to have abated.

“Sadly, pesticide misuse is going to be an issue that we need to be vigilant against all the time,” he said.

Stone relayed reports of people putting the chemicals on their skin or on mattresses contrary to the instructions on the product’s label. Victims of an infestation have been known to spray a pesticide not approved for bedbugs or for indoor use — or even one that is outright banned — further raising the risks of ineffectiveness and toxic exposures.

“The thought of an insect feeding on your blood — it’s psychologically traumatizing,” said Stone. “It really makes people desperate, and they do resort sometimes to things that can harm their health.”

In a study published in November, Canadian researchers found that the urine of nearly every one of 779 children studied showed evidence of recent exposure to pyrethroids, a pesticide commonly used in households and the central ingredient in bedbug control products. They are also the same pesticides to which bedbugs are increasingly resistant.

“Since the whole bedbug epidemic started a few years ago, I’d been wondering if these chemicals had any kind of an effect,” said Maryse Bouchard, an environmental health expert at the University of Montreal and co-author on the study. “But we know very little about the health effects of pyrethroids. It’s been relatively recent that we’ve used begun to use them on such a large scale.”

Some even newer bedbug pesticides are emerging under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s expedited approval process, which the agency told The Huffington Post is part of its multi-pronged approach to combat the epidemic. Many of the new products combine different pesticides in an effort to outsmart the pyrethroid-resistant critters. More affordable over-the-counter products are still generally pyrethroid-based.

But Ruth Kerzee, executive director of the Midwest Pesticide Action Center in Chicago, argues that even with the EPA’s blessing, the jury remains out on the safety of the new pesticides, whether employed properly or not. Overall, the science on bedbug pesticides, she said, is minimal — and so is the likelihood that a property owner will use a product precisely according to the label.

Kerzee noted that the burden of bedbugs is particularly heavy on poor people. Without thousands of dollars to pay for safe and effective strategies, such as hiring a professional to organize and heat-treat all of one’s belongings, low-income families are left with few options. Gangloff-Kaufmann’s program does offer a series ofillustrated guides in both English and Spanish on affordable measures to prevent and manage bedbugs, such as removing clutter in which bedbugs love to hide and “making your bed an island.”

Moreover, shelters and subsidized housing for low-income families have been forced to close when building managers could not mitigate bedbugs properly.

Cynthia Northington, program director at Chicago’s Franciscan House and Annex, said she and her staff have been working hard to keep their 300-plus beds open (hers was the shelter passed up by the homeless men). Exterminators strip and spray all beds once a week — a practice Kerzee discourages — in addition to the shelter’s other strategies, such as limiting guests to one bag and incrementally replacing mattresses and encasing new ones in bedbug covers. It’s been a costly program, she said, and they’ve been actively seeking donations.

“Right now we’re in containment,” said Northington. “But bedbugs multiply very rapidly, and before you know it, they could infest.”

Bug bombs or foggers can exacerbate an infestation by driving the bugs into different areas of a building, noted Henricksen of the pest control industry group.

Bedbugs are so “cryptic and insidious” that they hide out in everything from TV sets to iPhones, added Deutsch of Arrow Exterminating. And while drops from a pesticide bomb may never even touch their shells, the chemicals could well penetrate human skin.

“People unknowingly put themselves in harm’s way trying to get rid of these blood-sucking pests,” Deutsch said. “This needs to be taken seriously.”

Preliminary approval has been given for a $2.45 million settlement in a four-year-old class-action lawsuit brought by elderly and disabled bedbug-bitten residents of two downtown Des Moines apartment buildings.

Payments to the estimated 300 current and former residents of Elsie Mason Manor and Ligutti Tower could range from $200 to $6,000, said Jeffrey Lipman, one of the attorneys who represented the residents who filed the lawsuit in March 2010 seeking money for back rent, lost property and other hardships. Problems with bedbugs began in 2007.

The lawsuit ended up at the Iowa Supreme Court, which had been asked to decertify the class-action status. The court deadlocked, which meant a lower court’s ruling allowing the class-action status stood. The case was settled before it went to trial.

“I think this puts landlords on notice that they cannot ignore bedbug issues,” said Lipman, who anticipates filing another similar case in Iowa. “If they don’t take care of it, if they don’t warn consumers, they’re going to be held accountable.”

Residents of the two downtown towers have said they have been stigmatized by the bedbug infestation, which is now under control.

“I’ve never had bedbugs in my life, you know — one night, I had to go to the emergency room because my leg was all swollen up,” said Randy Rohlf, 58, recalling how the microscopic critters dug into his body.

Rohlf said a stigma has been cast upon him since bedbugs struck his residence several years ago.

Resident Jo Ann Meyer agreed. “You go in anywhere, a grocery store, a doctor’s office, anywhere. Everybody just backs off when they hear you live at Elsie Mason Manor,” Meyer said.

She said delivery crews sometimes refuse to carry mattresses and other furniture items up to tenants’ rooms.

Residents of the two towers have said building managers were slow to react to the infestation that left scars on their legs, arms and necks from the wounds caused by the bedbugs. Residents of the two buildings met earlier this week with attorneys about the settlement.

“It’s very significant in that it’s finally coming to a conclusion where in the near future we can get our clients compensation for what happened,” Lipman said.

Settlement money will come from three sources: $2 million will be paid by the insurer of American Baptist Homes of the Midwest, which previously owned the two buildings; $350,000 will come from the development group that bought the properties in May 2013; and $100,000 will come from the insurer of ABC Pest Control, Inc., which formerly serviced the buildings and is listed as a third-party defendant.

In the preliminary settlement, the buildings’ former owners make no admissions related to negligent conduct, Lipman said. However, “we’ve maintained our position that they were negligent,” Lipman said.

David Zwickey, CEO and president of American Baptist Homes of the Midwest, said his organization is satisfied with the terms of the preliminary approval.

Zwickey said his group was focused on providing services at the other facilities it continues to operate across the region. “This was a very unfortunate incident,” Zwickey said.

He declined to comment on steps management could have taken to prevent infestation, saying “re-litigating at this point in time would be pointless.”

Developer Frank Levy took control of the property last year and has started working on a laundry list of improvements, including a new elevator and staff assigned to help reduce the presence of bedbugs.

About 200 class members have completed claim forms since the preliminary agreement was filed, Lipman said.

In the next few weeks, he and his colleagues will seek out others who may be entitled to payment.

A judge has scheduled a three-day hearing to hear objections to the proposed settlement. If the judge approves a final settlement, Lipman and his colleagues will move toward distributing residents money from a fund set up by the court. “Claims are being based on a matrix that we’ve developed,” Lipman said.

He and representatives of two other Des Moines firms plan to ask the judge for about $816,000, or one-third of the settlement.

“By the time that this is over and done with, we will have been working on it five years,” Lipman said.

Bill Battey, a resident of Ligutti Tower, said he’s satisfied with the proposed settlement. “It’s good, especially for the people that have been here the longest,” said Battey, who spent money on supplies to prevent bedbugs.

The bedbug lawsuit was one of the first brought under Iowa’s consumer protection law, which went into effect in 2009.

Bill Brauch, consumer protection division director at the Iowa attorney general’s office, said consumer and business operators should take note if a settlement is signed off on.

“Certainly the fact the action was filed and if there is a settlement, that in and of itself should have some effect across the state regarding anyone who operates a similar facility,” he said.

Brauch, who hadn’t reviewed the preliminary settlement, said the group used a 2009 state law called the “Private Right of Action” law to make its case. Iowa was the last state in the U.S. to enact such a law, which allows consumers to sue businesses that engage in deceptive practices, unfair practices, or misrepresentation or that fail to disclose material facts.

The Iowa attorney general’s office filed a brief in support of the group’s class certification during the legal battle.

“It very clearly was the first bedbug class-action (lawsuit) under that law,” Brauch said.

Rohlf, the building resident, said he wants to continue to stay in the downtown community. He said he enjoys the skywalk access and attending shows at the Des Moines Civic Center.

“I’m going to use my money to pay bills, maybe buy a new bed,” Rohlf said.

“Down the road, I think people will forget about the bedbugs. It’s too early to tell,” he said.

Past and current residents of Elsie Mason Manor and Ligutti Tower and those authorized to act on behalf of them can contact lawyer Jeff Lipman if they have questions about their status in the class-action lawsuit. The Lipman Law Firm is located at 8450 Hickman Road, Suite 16, Clive, Iowa 50325 or the phone number is 515-276-3411.

City will be calling upon condominium associations to inspect their bed bug management plans. What condo owners need to know.

Bed bugs are flat, wingless insects that feed on blood from humans and animals. They resemble the dried red pepper flakes that you shake on to your Chicago-style pizza. While they are not known to transmit diseases, their bites can cause an allergic reaction. Just knowing there are bed bugs in your unit or apartment can also drive you crazy.

Bed bugs hide in mattresses and can pretty much be found wherever there is a bed — homes, dormitories, hotels, shelters, apartment buildings, condos, etc. Dirty living conditions do not attract bed bugs.

That practically new sofa you see in the alley? Don’t bring it into your home because it may have bed bugs, which also like to hide and multiply in the seams and zippers of furniture. The ordinance also prohibits bed bug infested furniture from being pitched in the alley, dumpster or curbside, unless it is enclosed in plastic with a sign attached indicating that its infested.

There are a whole slew of requirements for landlords and tenants of apartment buildings, college dorms and hotels. Condo associations, however, must make their bed bug management plans available for review by building inspectors.

Other requirements for governing associations of condominiums and co-op buildings include:

City of Chicago Bed Bug Ordinance. Passed on June 5, 2013 an it will go into effect in December 2013.
Here are some highlights of the ordinance. You can view the full text here

The governing association or board of directors of each condominium or cooperative building shall prepare a pest management plan for the detection, inspection and treatment of bed bugs in the building. The plan shall include the same provisions as the landlord responsibilities and require notification to the department of health of any known or suspected bed bug infestation within any part of the building. The governing association or board of directors shall maintain written records of any pest control measures performed by a pest management professional in the building retained by the association or board of directors and any report prepared by the pest management professional. The plan and records shall be maintained either on-site in the building or at the condominium’s or cooperative’s property management office and be open to inspection upon request by authorized city personnel, including but not limited to employees of the departments of health and buildings.

Disposal of furnishings, bedding, clothing or other materials infested with bed bugs

No person shall place, discard or dispose of any furniture, bedding, clothing or other material infested with bed bugs in the person’s refuse container or dumpster for refuse collection, unless, the infested object is first totally enclosed in a plastic bag and labeled as being infested with bed bugs.

Every person who sells at retail any secondhand bedding shall post in a conspicuous location by the secondhand bedding a written notice that the bedding is made in whole or part from secondhand material or was previously owned or used.

The commissioner of health and the commissioner of buildings shall have joint authority to promulgate rules and regulations necessary to implement this article.

Any person who is found in violation of this article shall be fined not less than $300.00 nor more than $1.000.00 for each offense. Each day that a violation continues shall constitute a separate and distinct offense to which a separate fine shall apply.

ANNAPOLIS — A woman who lived for more than eight months in a bedbug-infested apartment in Annapolis has been awarded $800,000 because her landlord allegedly failed to correct the problem.

An Anne Arundel County jury deliberated 45 minutes on Wednesday before making the award to Faika Shaaban. She rented an apartment in a house owned by Cornelius J. Barrett.

Shaaban’s lawyer, Daniel Whitney, told The Capital of Annapolis that the jury sent a message with the award.

He said that when Shaaban, 66, rented the apartment in September 2011, there was an open code violation for a bed bug infestation, but Barrett did not reveal that information.

Whitney said when his client moved into the apartment the next month, she developed a rash that was eventually diagnosed as bedbug bites. “Every night, blood-sucking parasites would come into her bed and feed upon her,” Whitney said.

The lawyer said a neighbor had reported the infestation to Barrett, who did nothing. Whitney also said the city found Barrett in violation and ordered to hire a licensed, professional pest control contractor to eradicate. Barrett failed to comply, he said.

Whitney says Shaaban was evicted in June 2012 and all her bedbug-infested belongings were thrown out on the street. Some items were stolen — meaning the thieves probably got more than they bargained for.

The Capital says Barrett did not answer repeated calls to his home seeking comment.

Bug-bomb Foggers Are No Match for Bed Bugs

Lanham, MD; June 3, 2012 — Consumer products known as “bug bombs” or “foggers” have been sold for decades for use against many common household insects. However, recent research published in the Journal of Economic Entomology (JEE) shows these products to be ineffective against bed bugs.

“There has always been this perception and feedback from the pest-management industry that over-the-counter foggers are not effective against bed bugs and might make matters worse,” said Susan Jones, an urban entomologist with the university’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and a household and structural pest specialist with OSU Extension. “But up until now there has been no published data regarding the efficacy of foggers against bedbugs.”

Jones and research associate Joshua Bryant evaluated three different fogger brands obtained from a nationwide retailer, and experiments were conducted on five different bedbug populations. Following application of the three foggers, Jones and Bryant found little, if any, adverse effects on the bed bugs.

Because a majority of bed bugs spend most of the time hiding in protected sites (under sheets and mattresses, in cracks and crevices, deep inside carpets, etc.), Jones said it is very unlikely that they will be exposed to the insecticide mist from foggers. And even if they do come into contact with the mist, she added, many bed bug populations have varying degrees of resistance to the insecticides, so they will most likely survive the application.

“These foggers don’t penetrate in cracks and crevices where most bed bugs are hiding, so most of them will survive,” Jones said. “If you use these products, you will not get the infestation under control, you will waste your money, and you will delay effective treatment of your infestation. Bed bugs are among the most difficult and expensive urban pests to control. It typically takes a professional to do it right. Also, the ineffective use of these products can lead to further resistance in insects.”

The Journal of Economic Entomology is published by the Entomological Society of America, the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Founded in 1889, ESA today has more than 6,000 members affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. For more information, visit http://www.entsoc.org.

Bedbugs invade hospitals

Why more patients share rooms with the blood-sucking pests

As if adapting to health-care reform and curbing the “nightmare bacteria” weren’t challenge enough, hospitals are increasingly plagued by another problem: bedbugs.

More than a third of pest-management companies treated bedbug infestations in hospitals in 2012, 6% more than the year before and more than twice as many as in 2010, according to a survey released today by the National Pest Management Association. The percentage of exterminators dealing with bedbugs in nursing homes has also almost doubled since 2010, to 46%. Bedbug experts also report seeing them in ambulances.

Hospitals are already cracking down on anything that could increase the risk of patient infections, which not only can be deadly but may also lead to more readmissions and reduced federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. While bedbugs have not been found to transmit infections to humans, they leave itchy bites after feeding on people’s blood, which can lead to secondary infections when victims scratch, opening themselves up to bacteria. This is especially problematic in hospitals, where there is a greater likelihood of catching the highly potent and contagious staph infection known as MRSA, says Dr. Jorge Parada, medical director of the infection prevention and control program of Loyola University Health System in Chicago. “You don’t need one more ingredient to increase your risk of infections in the hospital,” he says.

Although hospitals are putting a growing emphasis on strict cleanliness and sterilization protocols, bedbugs still arrive via the many patients and visitors going in and out of their emergency rooms and waiting areas. “We never know when somebody might show up with bedbugs,” Parada says.

The high instance of bedbugs in nursing homes is also concerning, he adds, because hospitals receive many transfers from such facilities, and elderly people often don’t exhibit the same telltale signs of bedbugs—red, raised, itchy lesions—that other patients do: “It’s one less tipoff that it’s a problem.”

To be sure, say experts, you’re still more likely to catch other kinds of bugs in hospitals than you are to get bedbugs—and they aren’t a medical emergency the way other complications would be, says Missy Henriksen of the National Pest Management Association. That said, if bedbugs become a problem in a hospital, they can be a persistent nuisance. “The bedbugs, and particularly the eggs of bedbugs, are even harder to kill than the spores of the bacteria,” says Dr. Dick Zoutman, a professor and infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. “I wouldn’t have thought that to be the case.”

Zoutman helped develop a new hospital sterilization system that can kill highly drug-resistant bacteria as well as bedbugs. The sterilization technology, marketed as AsepticSure by San Francisco-based Medizone International—a firm that is traded over-the-counter as MZEI.OB and MZEI.QB—uses gas to effectively eradicate 100% of bacteria in less than an hour, according to the company. Medizone just began distributing its new disinfecting technology to Canadian hospitals earlier this month, and is seeking approval to market it in the U.S., too.

But Zoutman, who now serves as Medizone’s chief medical officer, says that in tests, the system took up to 24 hours to kill bedbugs, and up to 36 hours to kill their eggs. He says Medizone is now working to adapt the system to kill bedbugs in a faster and more effective manner, both for hospitals and other settings as well.

Advances like that would be eagerly welcomed in hospitals, but for now, exterminators are their only realistic option for addressing a pest invasion. “No patient,” Parada says, “is going to look favorably on a hospital that’s had a bedbug infestation.”

Human hairs help stop the bed bugs biting

Hairy humans do not let the bed bugs bite according to research at the University of Sheffield which shows how hair helps us defend against and detect bloodthirsty invaders on our bodies.

Sensitive, fine hairs which cover our bodies allow us to feel parasitic insects on our skin as well as creating a natural barrier to stop them biting us.

A total of 29 volunteers braved an experiment which saw them have one armed shaved, and the other left naturally, before hungry bed bugs were placed on their skin.

The results, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, showed people with more layers of the longer (terminal) hairs and smaller, almost invisible, hairs (vellus) covering their arms extended the insect’s search for an ideal feeding ground which in turn increased its chances of detection.

Experts say because of this, bed bugs and other parasites, including mosquitoes, midges, ticks, and leeches, favour relatively hairless areas like our wrists and ankles.

Professor Michael Siva-Jothy, of the University’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, carried out the research with Sheffield Zoology graduate Isabelle Dean, who chose the subject for her honour’s project.

“Our findings show that more body hairs mean better detection of parasites,” said Professor Siva-Jothy. “The hairs have nerves attached to them and provide us with the ability to detect displacement. By forming a barrier and providing detection these hairs prolong search time and make detection more likely because the bug has to spend more time clambering over them. The results have implications for understanding why we look the way we do, what selective forces might have driven us to look the way we do, and may even provide insight for better understanding of how to reduce biting insects’ impact on humans.

“For example, if you have a heavy coat of long thick hairs it is easier for parasites to hide, even if you can detect them. Our proposal is that we retain the fine covering because it aids detection and if we lost all hair, even the relatively invisible fine hair, our detection ability goes right down.

Professor Siva-Jothy runs a research group seeking to understand the biology of blood-sucking insects and their reproduction and immunity. Their aim is to find ways of controlling the insects effectively and thereby preventing the transmission of insect-vectored disease.

He added: “Men have more body hair than women which is caused by the action of testosterone at puberty. This does not necessarily mean that women are more likely to be bitten. Blood-sucking insects are likely to have been selected to prefer to bite hosts in relatively hairless areas.”

Notes for Editors: For more information on the University of Sheffield’s Department of Animal and Plant Science visit: Department of Animal and Plant Science

A condominium association in Evanston is suing a man, claiming he refused to let the association treat his unit for bedbugs.

In September 2011, the Maisonette Condominium Association discovered a bedbug infestation at its building on the 2000 block of Sherman Avenue in Evanston, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court.

At that point, an exterminator treated each unit, including the unit of James Collins, the defendant in the lawsuit.

Collins, 67, of Evanston, had a particularly bad case of bed bugs in his unit, according to the lawsuit, and the exterminator returned several times after September 2011 to treat his unit.

When the exterminator returned to confirm that the building was free of bed bugs on Nov. 13, 2012, Collins’ apartment tested again positive for bugs, according to the lawsuit. A couch and a wooden chair, in particular, were too infested to treat, according to the lawsuit.

The association says that because Collins did not return messages requesting that they treat his unit, he in effect was refusing treatment. Collins did not return a call for comment Tuesday night.

Chicago was named the worst city in 2012 for bedbugs by the national pest-control company Orkin. Bedbug extermination in Chicago jumped 33 percent for the company from 2011 to 2012, Orkin officials said.

Method	Pros	Cons
Traditional (Chemical)	Lowest Cost Treatment Chemical left behind has some effect for a few weeks Discreet Service	Some bed bugs have high resistance Too much clutter will hamper effectiveness Some belongings may need to be discarded Some companies may require a lot of preparation
Heat Treatment (Whole House)	Chemical Free Kills all Bed bug life stages Furniture does not have to be discarded	Most expensive treatment Treatment can fail if not done correctly Once it’s done, it’s done. No residual A lot of preparation involved It is not discreet. A lot of equipment is visible on street In cold environment exterior walls may be difficult to heat up to proper temperature Re-infestation from adjoining units is possible Re-infestation from bed bugs from walls that did not reach lethal temperatures.
Heat Treatment (Furniture only)	Chemical Free Kills all Bed bug life stages Furniture does not have to be discarded It is done in home with compact system Discreet Service	Additional expense Treatment can fail if not done correctly
Steam	Chemical Free Kills all Bed bug life stages Discreet Service	Too much clutter will hamper effectiveness Once it’s done, it’s done. No residual Some belongings may need to be discarded
Cryonite Freeze (liquid Carbon Dioxide)	Chemical Free Kills all Bed bug life stage by direct contact Discreet Service Ideal in cases of allergy/asthma/chemical hypersensitivity	Does not penetrate material Once it’s done, it’s done. No residual Some belongings may need to be discarded
Our Combination Standard Treatment: Vacuum Steam Chemical Dusting Bed Bug Traps Encasements Supplemental Treatments we offer:Cryonite Freeze Portable Heat Chamber for Furniture	Cost Effective Treatment Ongoing (residual) Effectiveness Discreet Service Little preparation required 90 day guarantee that starts after confirmation of elimination	Some belongings with heavy infestations may need to be discarded unless treated with the portable heat chamber

With the Milshire Hotel closing, does the door shut on bedbugs?

By Gary Stoller USA TODAY

Bug-bomb Foggers Are No Match for Bed Bugs

Bedbugs invade hospitals

Why more patients share rooms with the blood-sucking pests

Human hairs help stop the bed bugs biting

Need help in a hurry? Request a Quote Now!

By Gary Stoller

USA TODAY