Bed bugs being evicted from Greater Sudbury housing but it's costing big bucks

In the battle against bed bugs, one Northern Ontario housing authority says it's winning the war but it's taking a big bite out of the budget, and some tenants are still itching for more to be done.

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The Greater Sudbury Housing Corporation (GSHC) manages 1848 subsidized housing units spread over 272 properties in the city.

With about 450 move-ins and move-outs in a year, CEO Mark Scarfone said it's a challenge to keep up with new bed bug cases. At any given time, hesaid there's an infestation under management inabout 2per cent of the corporation's units andthat pestmanagement isn't cheap.

Scarfone said when the first bed bug case was reported to GSHC in 2006, the bill for eradication that year was about $7500. For the last three years, he said the corporation has averaged $100,000 a year in bed bug costs and it's on track to spend that again in 2016.

On a total maintenance budget of $2.3 million a year, Scarfone acknowledged that bed bugs do indeed bite.

"[But], to ignore it is just not responsible," he said.

'They're just chasing the bugs'

But, somepeople told CBC News they feel like they're in a fight against the bugs and the landlord.

DaniellaStevenslived in one of the GSHC'ssocial housinghigh risesas a kid.Her grandma still lives there,and Stevens wantsher to move.

"They're just chasing the bugs from one floor to another," said Stevens. "Every day, [my grandma's]like, 'This friend has a notice, they have to come and spray their unit, that friend has a notice.'"

Stevens said she doesn't understand why all of the units aren't evacuated and treated at once. She said she wants them to stop "spot treating" the problem.

But, with no place to put tenants and no budget to evacuate a couple of thousand people, GSHChas let looseDanSaumur, effectively now the itsde facto bed bug czar.

For the last decade or so,Saumurhas been the authority on bed bugs in Greater Sudbury'ssocial housing so much so, that a plan he helped to develop is now being shared with other housing authorities around the province, including those in Thunder Bay, Kenora and North Bay, Ont.

Hiselaborate plan of attackincludeshigh-tech bed bug detectors, coordinated multi-floor bed bug sweeps, precision-timed extermination schedules, andeven brand new, segregated laundry rooms exclusively to deal with the pests.

"This program is effective and it does work," said Saumur.

Watch a video of Saumur demonstrating one of the tools in his bed bug arsenal: a $400 machine GSHC owns 24 of them that detects the pests by mimicking human breath.

This machine detects bed bugs by simulating human breath

8 years ago

Duration 0:55

The Greater Sudbury Housing Corporation has geared-up in the battle against bed bugs. In this video, learn how special detectors are helping maintenance teams figure out if bed bugs are hiding in a home.