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St. James Town focus of bed bug project

Feb 4

Written by: admin
2/4/2009 

St. James Town focus of bed bug project

Bed bug audit slated for Wellesley building this month
JUSTIN SKINNER 
Feb 04, 2009

A Wellesley Street Toronto Community Housing site will be one of five sites across the city selected for a pilot project designed to address the Toronto's bed bug problem.

The initiative, which is being led by Toronto Public Health in partnership with community agencies, is looking at sites that feature a variety of factors that could lead to widespread bed bug infestation problems. As one of Canada's largest rental buildings - and a site with a recurring bed bug problem - the site at 200 Wellesley St. E. was a natural choice as one of the five pilot project sites. A bed bug audit will be conducted at the site sometime in February.

"Sites were chosen because of a range of variables," said Reg Ayre of Toronto Public Health. "There was one site where a large number of folks don't have English as their first language, another with a high percentage of folks with mental health issues. The site at 200 Wellesley, partly because of its size, has its own issues."

The pilot project will look at the level of bed bug infestation in the buildings, identify those who need help and look at solutions to the problem. It will bring local agencies together with Toronto Public Health to help address the problem both on the city-wide and community levels.

"Community plays an important role and community agencies play an important role when it comes to controlling the (bed bug) problem," Ayre said.

While bed bugs were relatively uncommon in most of the city as recently as a few years ago, they were once simply seen as a fact of life. The rise of powerful pesticides decades ago reduced the problem, but as harmful toxins such as DDT were banned, there has been a resurgence in bed bug infestations.

"The old pesticide sprays and treatments provided a dry residue that would kill the bugs, but they were also harmful to people," Ayre said.

He added that bed bugs are also adaptable, able to build up a strong resistance to many pesticides and toxins.

"You've basically got to hit them in the head with a chemical to kill them," he said.

Bed bug infestations move beyond the borders of the bed into clothes, drawers and other spaces in homes and apartments. In some buildings, it is easy for the pests to move from unit to unit, spreading across wide areas.

Rima Zavys, director of mental health at local agency WoodGreen Community Services, said it can take months of constant clothes-washing, vacuuming and cleaning to get rid of an infestation and ensure that it won't recur instantly.

"What's unique about bed bugs is the rate at which infestation can grow and go unnoticed," she said.

The constant cleaning can be difficult for seniors and those living with mental and physical disabilities that impede their ability to keep on top of the situation.

Zavys said bed bugs were once rare in St. James Town, but noted there was a noticeable increase in the number of reported bed bug cases starting about three years ago. As people became more familiar with the signs, people were able to identify the infestation in some cases even though the bugs themselves were not even spotted.

"We started working to help people identify some of the early warning signs, because the sooner you can identify that you have bed bugs, the less time it takes to get rid of them," she said.

Some early warning signs include bites incurred in the night, often with two or three bites occurring close together on exposed skin and blood spots on bedsheets from where the bugs have been crushed.

The impact of bed bugs cannot be taken lightly. While the pests themselves are small, the difficulties they can cause are massive.

"Your bed's supposed to be the place where you feel the most comfortable and safe, where you give your body some much-needed rest," Zavys said. "When people have bed bugs, they have problems sleeping and feel very much on their guard, always looking around for bed bugs. They wake up repeatedly in the night and it becomes very stressful and difficult to function because they can't rest."

There is also a stigma associated with bed bug infestation, which makes it difficult for some to admit that they have a problem.

While the problem is widespread throughout the city, Toronto Public Health hopes the pilot project, which will begin early this month in the St. James Town site, will help find a long-term solution to the problem.

"We want to find an integrated approach to find out how to deal with these things," Ayre said. "We're trying to find a mechanism to track the level of infestation and then find the best ways of dealing with it in a comprehensive way."

For more information on the Toronto Bed Bug Project and on bed bugs in general, visit www.toronto.ca/health/bedbugs

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