HOTEL BEDBUG HELL
Educator: Midtown pests left me homeless
Bedbugs from a Midtown hotel drove a Harvard doctoral student to homelessness, a new lawsuit charges.
Brilliant educator Madonna Ramp was so infested by the creepy crawlers that “she has been forced to sleep in vehicles, coffee shops, outdoors and on floors,” according to court papers.
The Texan’s life was turned upside down after a three-day stay at the Grand Hyatt New York Hotel on 42nd Street, she claims.
Ramp, 35, was in town to pick up a teaching award and stayed at the hotel in October 2013, said Ramp’s attorney, Effimia Soter.
“She saw bedbugs in her room and ended up bringing them back home inadvertently to her home in Austin and she continued getting bitten,” Soter said.
The solution almost was as bad as the problem. Ramp called an exterminator to treat her home and her 2000 Honda Civic but had a severe allergic reaction to the chemicals.
Ramp later had to throw away belongings, get rid of her car and move out of her home, the suit claims.
Soter said Ramp complained to Grand Hyatt employees about the “red, itchy welts on her arms and legs . . . [but] they didn’t end up helping her in the end.”
“She was living out of her car and living out of hotels that had ‘clean rooms’ that didn’t use a lot of chemicals,” the lawyer continued. “It really displaced her tremendously.”
The suit against the Hyatt Corp., filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleges hotel management was negligent. Ramp seeks unspecified damages.
“Grand Hyatt New York maintains regular inspections, and we pride ourselves on keeping colleagues equipped with the knowledge, training, and tools needed to identify and address any issues.” said the hotel’s general manager John Schafer.
Ramp now suffers from “mast cell activation syndrome,” which affects her ability to tolerate certain irritants, the suit charges.
Ramp, who earned a master’s degree from Teachers College of Columbia University before attending Harvard, was a social-emotional learning specialist in Austin.