Montreal mom describes bug infestation 'hell'

A Montreal mom who was forced to flee from her bug-infested apartment has taken her case to the Quebec rental board.

Anne-Marie Berthiaumeshared her emotional ordeal with CBC's Montreal's Daybreak.

Me and my son have been going through hell and I have the feeling that I lost everything that I own, she told CBC's Mike Finnerty.

Its very difficult, when I look at the picture of my son with a lot of bites.

She and her 3-year-old son were evacuated from their subsidized apartment in the Cte-Saint-Paul borough last month because of a bedbug and cockroach infestation.

A few days later, after Berthiaume was re-located to a new building, she said the Montrealmunicipal housing officegave her the go-ahead to move some of her furniture into her new apartment.

They told me there would be no problem, 100 per cent guaranteed theres no more bugs, we treated the problem, you can start bringing stuff to the new place, Berthiaume said.

Berthiaume asked a friend with a car to help her move some basic essentials her TV, her DVD player and her microwave.

But Berthiaume said a surprise was waiting inside the microwave.

My friend plugged the microwave on the counter, as soon as he plugged the microwave, five cockroaches came out.

Berthiaumeblames Montreals municipal housing office for not carrying out athorough enough extermination.

She said they gave her the go-ahead to move her furniture before the infestation was properly addressed.

Nicole Halpert, spokeswoman for the municipal housing office, said she cant talk about the specifics of Berthiaumes case because itis now before the rental board.

But she said she is confident in their approach to dealing with bug infestations.

In the case of low-income housing, because there's been a history for years, we do preventive visits and we know we the history of certain buildings that have a problem, she said.

Halpert said the latest numbers show that 80 per cent of the cockroaches have now been eliminated.