August 16, 2012

A persistent problem with bedbugs in a Moncton apartment building has forced a mother and her son from their home.

To make matters worse, Crystal Ayre depends on income assistance and her son has respiratory problems, which means the fumes from the spraying are keeping them out of their unit even longer.

“I haven’t paid this month’s rent because I had to pay it elsewhere, and now I’m flat broke,” says Ayre.

Ayre says she never thought an insect would wreak so much havoc in her life, but bedbugs have been a problem in her apartment building for the last few weeks.

The problem first began in another tenant’s unit and Ayre was forced to leave the building so it could be sprayed. But the bugs returned last week, and this time closer to home.

“I went, started moving everything back into my room, moved by bed around, and found bugs on my bed,” she says.

Workers showed up to spray her apartment this morning, but left without doing so. They told Ayre her apartment wasn’t ready to be sprayed because her belongings weren’t wrapped up. Ayre says she would have done so, had she been told.

“I would have taken every precaution to avoid this situation,” she says.

The building’s owner confirms bedbug reports have been filed but wouldn’t give any further details.

With Ayre out of her apartment for at least another night, her expenses are quickly piling up.

“I’m paying out two weeks so far in rent elsewhere, so it’s like two or three days here, two or three days there. Every time they spray because my son, he has severe asthma.”

Officials with Social Development say they generally don’t give further help in bedbug cases because tenants are typically displaced for just a few hours while pest control companies do the cleanup and they wouldn’t comment on Ayre’s case.

Stephen Heard, a biologist at the University of New Brunswick, says he’s not surprised to hear about an apartment building struggling to control a bedbug problem because the critters are simply getting stronger.

“Anytime you use an agent to kill something, it’s a selective force we call it,” says Heard. “And what we expect, they evolve and become more difficult to kill and it’s happened to bedbugs so chemicals that used to work well don’t work well anymore.”

For now, Ayre says she will have to keep away from her unit, until she is certain both the bugs and fumes are gone.

http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/mother-son-forced-from-apartment-due-to-bedbugs-1.915865