Check if the building has bedbugs before you rent:

http://bedbugregistry.com/metro/tor

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http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/life/health/article/81188--reference-library-fights-bed-bug-problem



The Metro Reference Library has bed bugs.

Workers there have noticed signs of the parasites at four spots in the building, including the fourth-floor periodical section, the Toronto Star reports.

The building’s facility manager said the library has hired a pest control company, which has used sticky tape, traps, powders, steam and sprays. And cleaners have been coming in regularly for four-hour sessions when the building is closed.

The manager also mentioned the library has reupholstered one room to make it easier to clean.

The building’s wall-to-wall carpeting – meant to reduce noise – and padded chairs are an ideal environment for bedbugs.

The stubborn pests have also turned up in the Yorkville and Parliament branches.

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Kamla Ross had chosen the apartment in downtown Toronto for all the right reasons: It was clean, in a safe neighbourhood and near the subway.

She loved it, until the night she saw an apple seed-sized bug crawling on her bed. Unsure if it was a bedbug, she went to sleep, setting herself up to be human bait.

It bit. She still remembers waking up in the middle of the night to confirm her worst nightmare: A red itchy bump slowly forming on her arm.

“I had to move out of my place because I became obsessed that I was seeing bugs all the time,” said Ross, who spent more than a year dealing with the infestation, and eventually left the apartment and thousands of dollars of furniture behind to escape. “And for three months after that, I couldn’t sleep in fear that I might have taken them with me.”

Across the city, thousands like Ross, are realizing that the scourge of bedbugs is not limited to social housing, crowded shelters, or low-income dwellings. Bedbugs are quickly becoming everyone’s problem. Pest-control companies in the GTA say they receive four to five calls a week from mortified residents in swanky neighbourhoods, owners of upscale condos and helpless tenants in rental apartments struggling to cope with infestations. And in recent months, hospitals such as William Osler Health Centre in Etobicoke, the Toronto Public Library, and retail stores have joined the list of those battling infestations — which suggests that, despite the best efforts of public health officials, pest-control companies and the afflicted, the city is on its way to a full-scale bedbug crisis.

“We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said Rima Zavys, of WoodGreen Community Services, who also served as co-chair of the Toronto Bed Bug Project Steering Committee. “It’s not close to going away; in fact it is going to get a lot worse before it’s going to get better,” she said.

And the biggest problem isn’t just the bugs, but the anxiety, paranoia and “social paralysis” they almost always leave behind — isolation from family, disgusted co-workers and friends, few places to go for support and difficulty going back to a normal life.

“All I wanted was a hotline to call in the middle of the night when I was freaking out, someone who could understand what I was going through and tell me that it would be over soon,” said Ross. “Now I am scared to take the TTC, to go anywhere with cloth chairs, to even go to the movies.”

Last week, in an act of desperation, city officials in New York City declared war on bedbugs, after reports of the pests dramatically increased. In 2009, the city received 33,772 bedbug-related inquires, up from 21,922 in 2008 — a jump of 54 percent. But it has been the growing evidence of the pests in every corner of society — in the changerooms of retail stores, fancy hotels, libraries and even as plot lines in NY-based sitcoms — that pushed city officials to announce a $500,000 initiative that includes the creation of a health department task force, improved tracking tools, protocols for the proper disposal of infested items, and requiring landlords to provide information on infested units to tenants.

In Toronto, infestation numbers are also rising. In 2003, Toronto Public Health had only 46 reports. In 2008, when TPH set up a self-reporting bedbug hotline, it received 1,324 calls. This year, the city has received 1,076 calls so far and expects hundreds more.

David McKeown, the city’s chief medical officer of health, admits that a better tracking system is needed. Most calls come from vulnerable tenants living in social housing. Hotels, condos and apartments rarely call.

“Many institutions don’t want to be stigmatized,” said McKeown. “So if a hotel gets bedbugs, they may not call Toronto Public Health and will likely try to find a way to deal with it quietly,” he said. “It’s almost certainly under-reported.”

And even though it’s impossible to know the scope of the problem, almost all experts agree that without further resources and coordination from all levels of government, Toronto could easily become another New York.

It’s been eight months since he saw the first bedbug under his sheet, but Jim still vacuums his bachelor condo every night before going to bed. He sleeps wearing multiple layers of clothing. And it’s only in the past week that he’s been able to muster the courage to lie in bed to read at night.

He had never once thought about bedbugs until he found himself with a small infestation in his waterfront condo during Christmas. He called in a pest-control company to investigate, moved into a hotel for a week, and bagged all his clothes and belongings and sent them for dry cleaning. The bill came to a few thousand dollars. The emotional toll is ongoing.

“You can’t sleep, you are exhausted, and you can’t tell your friends about it. There is this huge issue of shame and embarrassment,” said Jim, who didn’t want his real name used. “I stopped visiting friends, because I didn’t want anyone else to get it.”

Even with a supportive family, the isolation began almost immediately. His sister-in-law asked him not to attend his niece’s birthday party. His parents allowed him to move in while his place was being fumigated, but his father lined the car with plastic, and Jim went through a daily ritual of changing clothes in the garage, bagging the clothes he had worn, running into the shower, and wearing new clothes his parents had bought him.

“It was insane,” he said. “But my family didn’t want the bugs, either. You are driven by paranoia. Mentally, it really screws you up.”

It is even worse for those without money or support, says Toronto Public Health.

“For those who have the means, it can be a distressing and unpleasant experience,” said McKeown. “But for someone who is very vulnerable, has a mental health problem, a disability, or a chronic health problem, it can become a very serious health issue.”

The city has three staff members who help to investigate and support vulnerable people caught in the middle of severe infestations, he said. This year, they have helped more than 100 individuals. The city also approved a one time allocation of $75,000 last April to help low-income individuals to buy furniture and supplies once an infestation has cleared. And in addition to educational material available online, the city will soon be publishing a resource guide for landlords and property managers so they know how to identify and deal with infestations.

“People should feel that they can call,” said McKeown. “There is no need for anyone to feel they need to struggle on their own.”

But as a homeowner, that’s exactly how Jim felt. When he reported the issue to condo management, they “basically said it was my problem,” he said. Toronto Public Health offered him some advice but said that unless the infestation was very bad he would have to deal with it alone.

“I had to foot the bill,” said Jim. “Although, ideally, I think the condo management should have taken responsibility and had the units besides me sprayed, and those above and below me sprayed.”

He also decided against telling his neighbours about it. “The problem is that you don’t want to get the word out, because you are worried about your property value dropping. So you are in a bind.”

That’s the catch-22 landlords also find themselves in when they find a unit or units are infested, said Vince Brescia, president of the Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario. Landlords and building managers in the province have a legal obligation to maintain their properties to allow for “reasonable enjoyment of the premises,” and tenants have to prepare for the pest-control treatment if they are able to. In cases of bad management, cases can be taken to the Landlord and Tenant Board, which can issue orders to landlords and enforce compliance.

Many landlords are just as traumatized when they hear of an infestation as the tenants are, said Brescia. Beyond the high costs of extermination, they fear the building will become stigmatized, he said.

But an increasing number of tenants believe they have the right to know. As bedbugs gain ground across the city, tenants say they should be informed if the pests have moved into the apartment before them.

Dion Angelini found out just in time. He had rented an apartment in the city’s east end, signed the lease and paid the first and last month’s rent. As he began to move his furniture in on July 1, he ran into an upstairs neighbour who told him the apartment was full of bedbugs, as was hers.

“She showed me her place, and all the squashed bugs and all her furniture wrapped in plastic,” he said. She had been there only a few weeks and was planning to move out soon because of the infestation. When Angelini called the property manager, he was told the unit had been treated numerous times.

“I never even thought about bedbugs. To be honest, I always thought it was a lower-income problem,” he said. “Landlords should be obliged to tell you. It’s not right to send someone to rent a place when they know very well that it’s unlivable.” The property manager has yet to return his last month’s rent.

In Toronto, landlords are not required to disclose bedbug infestation information to incoming tenants. In June, Mike Colle, MP for Eglinton-Lawrence, introduced a private member’s bill, the Renter’s Right to Know Act, which would require landlords to let prospective tenants know if there are, or may have been, bedbug problems in their buildings going back five years. New York is mulling over similar legislation.

While many believe such legislation would force landlords to take swift and effective action against bedbugs, others believe it is not really a solution.

“I am not sure how useful it is, unless of course someone is moving into a unit that has bed bugs now,” said McKeown. “This might be useful from a consumer-protection point of view, but not in terms of fighting bedbugs.”

The action plan introduced in New York stays away from legislation, but calls for improved cooperation between building owners and tenants, including quicker response to bedbug complaints, implementing innovative solutions such as the use of heat treatment chambers, and requiring landlords to give tenants bedbug information upon lease signing and renewal.

Some, like bedbug expert Michael Potter, of the University of Kentucky, say the New York plan is a step forward in the battle. But he scoffs at how much can be done with just $500,000.

“It has cost some buildings half a million dollars just to treat the infestations in their building,” he said.

Without more money, Toronto is also on the losing end of the battle. Part of the challenge has been to get other levels of government on board, said McKeown.

“We have been talking to the province about how they can support our work, because it’s not only a problem in Toronto, it’s a problem in other cities, too,” he said. The city has yet to hear back from the province on the subject.

“Bedbugs are really not a part of the public health program that the province pays for us to implement,” said McKeown. “But it’s an important health problem in Toronto and we need more resources to address this issue effectively.”

Currently, the public health unit uses money allocated for other programs and services to tackle bedbugs.

“We don’t have any dedicated funding from the city or province to do this. We are just making do with what we have got,” he said. Which is why, he admits, the city really can’t do much more.

That’s little comfort for those coping with bedbugs, who say that as the province and federal government figures out what to do, people across the city will continue to suffer.

“I don’t understand why the government isn’t taking this more seriously,” said Ross. “It’s probably because the politicians haven’t experienced it yet.

“It’s one of those that you really don’t get, until you get it.”