Battle waged against bedbugs

St. John’s Centre officials say outbreak is under control now

Some seniors living in a downtown retirement home are at their wits’ end over a recent outbreak of bedbugs, while building management – who say they’ve tackled the issue head-on – are confident the critters have been eradicated.

Two residents of St. John’s Centre at 440 Water St. spoke to The Examiner about their experience, although they did not want their names used for fear of possible reprisal. Others did not want to speak, even anonymously.

The women – whose apartments have been treated by a pest control company five times – say they are not the only ones whose lives have been turned upside down and are urging management to take broader action.

“It’s just rampant. There is definitely a problem in this entire building,” said one tenant, who we’ll call Jane Smith for this story. “We are at our wits end here.”

Chief executive officer Lauraine Cyr rebuffed that suggestion, saying the battle against the bugs appears to have already been won.

“I’m proud to say we have no bedbugs,” she said, adding the building is one more inspection away, in two weeks, from being

deemed all clear. “We have been on top of this.”

Smith – who first discovered three of the insects in early June – couldn’t have been happier to learn Tuesday that inspectors declared her apartment bedbugfree.

The 72-year-old has been living in a perpetual state of disarray. She’s even been showering elsewhere because her bathroom is full of hanging clothes and stacks of boxes.

Just down the hall, a 78-yearold resident – we’ll call her Emily Jones – isn’t so confident she is out of the woods just yet.

She first spotted her cat playing with two bedbugs about 18 weeks ago before getting bites on her feet, back and face. Soon she had moved nearly all her clothing onto her balcony while waging war against the tiny insects.

Jones has lost 10 pounds from the stress of the situation and guesses she has spent about $1,000 from her fixed income on the battle, such as buying caulking to fill voids in her bedframe where the insects can hide.

“I feel like a prisoner in my own home,” said the seven-year resident of the 101-unit building for tenants 65 and older. “It’s just a wait-and-see battle.”

The source of the bedbugs was traced to an apartment on the same floor, in between the two residents who spoke to The Examiner, Cyr said.

The man who lives there has been in the hospital – and staff have been cleaning in his unit during that time.

She listed the efforts the centre has taken to thwart bedbugs, amounting to about $32,000, and the procedures it employs to deter them.

A mattress encasement was purchased for every tenant, for example, while extra staff – including personal support workers – were hired to ensure they were installed. “It was a gesture of good will on behalf of St. John’s Centre, myself and the board of directors.”

All furniture going in and out of the building is also inspected as part of standard procedure and anything in question on the way out must be professionally wrapped.

“Our precautionary measures are way beyond what people can even imagine.”

Centre officials are also looking at acquiring the equipment needed to conduct heat treatment on empty units before move-ins, for example.

“I’m really doing everything I can,” Cyr said.

The issue has forced tenants into isolation.

Jones, who has no other complains, has enjoyed making many friends in the building but hasn’t been able to see them. “That is what I miss the most.”

In fact, when her granddaughter last visited, they had to meet on the patio downstairs over the possibility of spreading the bugs. “That was terrible.”

Jones is also concerned about the impact on her health of the treatments.

“I don’t think it’s very healthy because my voice has been different.”

Those affected have been treated like “pariahs,” Smith said. Some, because of their age or deteriorating mental state, did not even realize they had bedbugs until others saw the insects falling off them in the dining room.

“It’s like we are being punished for something that is no fault of ours,” she said.