BED BUGS: Apartments in Des Moines experiencing a bed bug infestation

Aaron Brilbeck Staff Writer

Residents like Anita Denly find bed bugs and cockroaches roaming around in their apartment complex on a daily basis. Denly has even found bed bug nests on her mattress. She has incurred various bite marks on her back, arms and legs, and has live bed bugs on her pillow.

The apartments, located on East 15th Street, have had an infestation problem for a while.

At first Denly assumed it was only in her apartment but after visiting several of the units in the building, found that other tenants are having the same problem.

When management was notified, they offered her a spray to rid of the bugs but it made little to no impact.

Channel 13 spoke to Mary Powell, the apartment manager, who explains that management is making several efforts to rid of the problem.

“We’ve been working on it and it doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere so we’re just going to keep going until we get the problem rectified,” she said. “We have people coming out tomorrow to treat the building and they should be gone within the next few days.”

That sounds promising but tenants say they’ve heard it before.

The problem has come to the attention of city inspectors who are investigating the issue.

State legislators are considering a bill that would require tenants to report bed bugs to their landlords within two days of discovering. If tenants do not report the problem, they could be forced to pay the extermination fee.

The bill is being debated in a house committee.

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BED BUGS: Apartments in Des Moines experiencing a bed bug infestation