Landlord/PCO/Bedbug Experience - How To Get Rid Of Them

by Terry
(Saskatchewan)

I live in an old brick building in Canada with hardwood floors. I have refinished it to it's original condition with a modern touch. I expected to stay here for many years as it has great character, reasonable rent and a great location. Then I got bedbugs. I have been battling them stubbornly for four years and if I had not done the work and made this place so beautiful (exposed brick, refinished hardwood, stripped and re stained fir trim, I would have left long ago. That is what I would recommend to anyone who lives in a multi dwelling apartment with bedbugs, especially if it is older with lots of wood and especially if your landlord is an idiot. (Mine kind of is but he did spend a lot of money trying to fix the situation and part of his solution was to get rid of tenants who complained and replaced them with immigrants who are not likely to complain or speak very good English and stop paying the PCO and spray chemicals himself "as needed")

Bedbugs love wood just like we do. They DO NOT GO AWAY! Ever...Unless you can convince the landlord to spend tens of thousands of dollars to fix the problem which my landlord did. Unfortunately, he hired Poulin's which I do not recommend. They were not as informed as they say they are. They have the tools but do not seem to have the capability or the understanding or the care to use them in an optimal and cost-effective manner. I had four heat treatments from them. Bugs came back every time because they failed to follow up with inspections and didn't have the capacity to treat other apartments simultaneously. The bed bugs just ran to a cooler climate until the heat subsided and then came back. Took a while but they came back. Then we decided to get the chemical treatment. Poison to me and my dog, the smell is horrific and really doesn't work in the long term. They say it lasts for 30 days and has to be sprayed twice for it to work to kill any eggs that hatch. In my experience it has only proved to delay the onslaught to a variable degree and constant spraying only builds up their tolerance to the poison.

And say good bye to living in your apartment for at least a day not to mention hoping your dog doesn't get this shit on her paws, licking it and getting poisoned. My bed bug bites started on my feet about four years ago. Minor infestation which was ignored by Poulin's and the landlord until it was an epidemic and my landlord made it clear to not raise any alarm bells with other tenants. Poulin's is a company that will not treat your abode until they have proof that you have bedbugs. That means you have to find one. It took me months of getting bitten, sleepness nights, depression, anxiety, feeling helpless and isolated until I finally found one and took it in to Poulin's (my landlord's PCO) and they agreed to treat it chemically. That involved morning to work, come home, do laundry, vacuum, live out of plastic bags, apply carpet tape to bedding/couch. It was exhausting after a week of doing load after load of laundry. Finally, I tossed so much stuff out because I couldn't and didn't want to keep it. I downsized. ALOT.

In hindsight, I wish I would have purchased a mattress encasement. The only thing I didn't adhere to with the rigor of bed bug eradification in the first years. I have not received it yet but after speaking with a different PCO, and studying for four years about these nasty bedbugs, I realized that there is so much misinformation and ignorance, not to mention the stigma and isolation involved that I wanted to share my story. If not for others, for my own healing because there is not a person on this planet that I hate enough to inflict these fucking things on. If you have them and can move, get yourself a heat treatment at midnight and move in the morning. If you have crappy furniture that can be replaced, take it out to the dump, or burn it. Do not leave it in a dumpster for the love of God!!!!

These things are literally taking over our homes and apartments and are not going away. They are making US go away. Anyways, I'm off to vacuum my bedroom, caulk everything that I can, seal the floors with a coat of stinky oil varnish, sprinkle some diatomaceous earth lightly around the baseboards and anywhere else I think they might have laid their eggs or might be walking around and then think about sleeping in this shit. That's my story and it sucks shit and I feel trapped. And yes, easy to say, just leave, but it's my home and I have made it personal through the work I did and it will not be possible to find anything other than boring, crap cookie cutter apartments with the personality of a dial tone for more than I pay for this. NOt to mention the thousands of dollars I would need for a damage deposit, first months rent and the treatment before I even move to ensure they don't come with me.

Everything about this character apartment, I love, then bedbugs came and my life and the life of this character building changed. My community left in hordes and I probably should have but I stayed and went to war. I've won a few battles but they are winning the war. I'm giving it one last try on my own but know my odds aren't good. It's still isolation and depression daily but no one wants to hear about it anymore and I can't blame them. Until you have lived this, you have no idea the psychological effects it can have on someone. To anyone who is suffering from these relentless pests, be smart, be strong and, if you can, be responsible with your belongings to the best of your ability and run away to a bed bug free
environment. But please, do it right or you just make it worse for everyone.