Uncovering bedbugs in Quinte

(BELLEVILLE, Ont. 08/06/11) Scott Robertson, manager of Hastings County Housing, had to learn about bedbugs a year ago when one of the units in the housing complex reported the intruders. Photo by Jennifer Bowman

By Jennifer Bowman

The fight on bedbugs is about to come out from under the covers.

The Hastings and Prince Edward County Health Unit recently received $54,000 from the provincial government to investigate how bad the bedbug problem is in the Quinte area.

“I don’t think that we knew there was a problem out there,” said Eric Serwotka, director of environmental health and chronic disease and injury prevention. “We had the odd complaint, but realistically looking through our files there wasn’t a lot.”

The health unit doesn’t usually hear about bedbugs because they don’t carry diseases. When the provincial government said it would provide funding for communities to investigate and educate about bedbugs, the local health unit applied and has now received the money.

They’ve only done preliminary research so far, but just receiving the funding has helped the health unit, said Serwotka.

“Once the announcement was made, then everybody becomes quite aware, and we start to hear about those problems,” said Serwotka.

Prior to the announcement, the health unit rarely received any calls about bedbugs.

The Hastings and Prince Edward Health Unit is looking into how big the bedbug problem is in Belleville. Photo by freebedbugadvice.com

“We still don’t know how big that is, our initial assessment would be that it’s not serious, but there is something out there, and there are areas and groups that need to be attended to and we’d like to help with that,” said Serwotka.

Tom Thurlby from Total Pest Management Ltd. in Belleville deals with bedbug issues everyday, doing inspections, giving information and doing terminations.

“The last couple months they’ve [the amount of exterminations] kind of diminished a little bit,” said Thurlby. “We’re probably down right now. I would say maybe one or two a week now, before, we were probably doing one or two a day.”

But when people do get bedbugs, they often don’t want to talk about it.

“One of the key issues that we have is just getting people to recognize that they have bedbugs and getting them to call us,” said Scott Robertson, manager of Hastings County Housing, “or even if they think they have bedbugs, getting them to call us.”

It’s the social stigma that prevents them from calling, he said.

Robertson was notified of the first bedbug in the 1,420 units he manages around a year ago, and has dealt with about a dozen bedbug cases since. Social housing pays for eradication, in hopes it will encourage people to come forward if they do have a problem with the intruders. They haven’t had any encounters in two months.

Bedbugs do not discriminate and can be a scarring experience.

“Some people it’s almost like you’ve killed them,” said Thurlby, “where other people are like, oh well I’ve got them, let’s just deal with it. But you know, some people, I don’t know how they survive it. It’s incredible to witness it… I never thought I had to be a therapist.”

The key is quick action.

“They’re not going away,” said Thurlby, “And most of our customers we tell them, it’s not if you get them, it’s when you get them, and you better have a plan in place so they don’t spread through your whole building.”

That is Loyalist College’s policy.

During the school year, one student thought they had bedbugs, said Dave Templar, residence coordinator at Loyalist College. The professionals came in that day, as well as the health unit. They didn’t find anything.

Although there haven’t been any cases of bedbugs at the college, Templar said they are still taking preventative measures.

Every two weeks throughout the school year the health and safety check-ups include inspecting the residences for bedbugs. They also recently started an annual bedbug inspection.

That is the type of thing the health unit will be teaching people to do. They will be providing kits and education for housing group operators, as well as create a referral system to help people who have bedbugs connect with eradicators, and create education programs.

“Our role is to educate and point people in the right direction, then they’ll have the capacity to deal with the problem in the future,” said Serwotka.

The money for the project is only available for a year, but according to Serwotka it will probably be used within the next six months.

“We’re going to start probably in the next couple weeks in its full capacity,” said Serwotka.