Fear and loathing in bedbug-infested seniors building

Years of living in a regularly infested suite in an always-infested building have given Lewie Gwyllt nightmares in which he’s wrestling giant bedbugs.

The 64-year-old has lived at 529 Country Club Blvd., a 107-unit seniors’ home run by Manitoba Housing, for nearly eight years. Much of his tenancy has been marked by monthly, but futile, bedbug-eradication treatments.

Gwyllt’s routine is set in stone: he bags his laundry, steams his clothes, and buys covers for any piece of furniture he buys. He has a physical disability and struggles to move things when the pest-control people arrive to spray for the bugs, but he knows the nooks and crannies of his baseboards are a problem spot.

The mental toll has weighed heavily on him. He takes anti-anxiety medication to deal with the stress and despair when the treatments don’t work.

“My anxiety level, it just goes through the roof. I’m in a panic state, I’m paranoid, I can’t sleep, I can’t rest,” he told the Free Press Tuesday.

“It becomes almost impossible to sleep, and it becomes unhealthy because you’re just at your wit’s edge. You can’t even function properly. The comforts of a home are gone. I have very little comfort. I wish I didn’t have to be here.”

He was among a number of tenants who took their concerns about pests to area MLA Logan Oxenham, who visited the building’s lounge to meet with constituents and hand out ice cream Tuesday afternoon.

“I have to draw the line when I hear people blaming other people for bugs — it’s an act of nature, it doesn’t really matter where they come from … but I don’t understand how they could be spraying a building for (years), and they haven’t eradicated the bugs,” one tenant said at the afternoon gathering.

“This blows my mind, because I’ve seen (private companies) come into a private building and clean it up.”

At the meeting, Oxenham (Kirkfield Park) acknowledged the bedbugs as a serious issue and committed to listening to the needs of the building’s tenants.

“Folks deserve to live in housing that is healthy and safe,” the NDP MLA said.

A spokesperson for Housing Minister Bernadette Smith said the province was working on controlling the pest outbreaks at 529 Country Club Blvd.

“Maintaining the safety and dignity of units in Manitoba Housing is something we are always working on, and we will continue to monitor how we can best support all Manitobans living in Manitoba Housing,” they said in an email.

But Gwyllt doesn’t believe the spraying done by Manitoba Housing is enough to address the root problem. At times, a whole floor is sprayed in just 20 minutes, he said, and he’s had experiences where he’s re-entered his suite after it’s been sprayed and immediately spotted a living bedbug.

“If there’s not going to be somebody that’s being proactive in this matter, it’s going to go on and on and on, and it’s going to get worse, not better, not even stay at this level,” he said.

“They might say, ‘Yes, our numbers are coming down,’ but they’re not, I’m sure they’re not, because new people are being infected with it, so they’re spreading.”

Pest-control companies may have a number of tools at their disposal to treat bedbugs, including insecticide sprays, heat treatments, vacuums and even dogs trained to sniff out pests.

Manitoba Housing does not allow tenants to hire their own pest-treatment companies under Environment Act regulations. As Manitoba Housing is a Crown corporation, chemicals used in treating its buildings have to be approved through those regulations.

Lincoln Poulin, president of Poulin’s Pest Control, said he gets calls from Manitoba Housing tenants seeking additional pest control, but has to turn them away because of provincial legislation.

While it may be true that the province could offer more in-depth treatment in the housing units it operates, Poulin said his staff will run into issues where one tenant is refusing to have their unit treated and it’s creating recurring infestations in surrounding apartments.

“Do I think that something more needs to be done? Yes, but before I can say it’s all on the applicators, I’ve got to go back and look at what is the tenant co-operation like, and that is such a huge factor for the pest-control (staff) to be able to get control,” he said.

There are some private seniors’ buildings where ownership will hire Poulin’s to inspect potential tenants’ belongings and confirm they are bedbug-free.

He said a multi-year infestation in any building is too long.

“First thing that would come into my mind is, what is the procedure, if any new people are introduced to that apartment block?” he said.

Mice are still Winnipeg’s most prominent pest, Poulin said, with bedbugs and cockroaches fighting for second place.

“Bedbug infestation levels are down. We’re not finding thousands of bedbugs like we did 20 years ago, 25 years ago, but we are still constantly dealing with bedbug work,” he said. “It’s still a huge part of our business, and it’s an ongoing thing.”

Access to safe housing is a public health issue, and part of what makes housing safe is being able to properly treat pests, said Noah Schulz, the provincial director for the Manitoba Health Coalition.

“Health and housing are hugely connected,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

morgan.modjeski@freepress.mb.ca