In cases of bed bugs, just inspect the building
Recently, my Peter Cooper Village neighbor (who is in her nineties) discovered that her apartment has a bed bug infestation. She is now going through the same horrible situation that many others have gone through to exterminate bed bugs.
When I spoke to management about this situation and expressed my concerns over the possibility of bed bugs spreading to other apartments, I was informed that their policy is to inspect the two adjacent apartments and the apartment above and below the infested apartment. The Tenants Association Bed Bug Registry, which lists the building and floor (but not apartment number) where tenants have reported being infested, refers to this on their website (www.stpcvta.org/bedbug-registry) as the Cloverleaf Inspection.
Several months before my neighbor’s apartment was infested, the apartment adjacent to my neighbor was inspected and she did not have bed bugs. That indicates one or both of the apartments above and below the apartment next to my neighbor’s apartment must have been infested with bed bugs. If management knows that there have been at least two instances of bed bugs in 531 East 20th Street in Peter Cooper Village, why are they not inspecting the whole building? There are many apartments in both Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town that are having bedbug infestation problems. Bed bugs go through the walls into other apartments.
On many websites that discuss bed bug problems it is recommended that caulking from the baseboard to the floor should be done in apartments that have bed bugs. To the best of my knowledge, management is not doing this simple procedure.
We are all in this together and the next apartment might be yours. We need management to give all tenants in Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town full disclosure on which buildings now have, or have had, bed bug infestations.
These entire buildings need to be inspected, which only involves a five-minute walkthrough by a trainer and a bed bug sniffing dog in each apartment. Caulking also needs to be done in apartments that are or have been infested. This is being proactive and saving all of us from going through the nightmare that our neighbor and many others are going through.
Sheila O’Connor, PCV
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