Category Archives: Bed Bugs Vancouver

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Bed bugs crawl around in a container on display during the 2nd National Bed Bug Conference in Washington, DC, February 2, 2011. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

CALGARY Two seniors homes in southern Alberta are being treated for bedbugs, but health officials say theres no reason for concern beyond the ick factor.

Alberta Health Services confirms staff at the Pemmican Lodge and Black Rock Terrace in Lethbridge have been dealing with the itchy insects for the last few months. Exterminators have been brought in and, last week, education sessions were held for residents and staff.

While bedbugs are for the most part harmless, the stealthy insects are hard to detect and even more difficult to kill, said Lynne Navratil, supervisor of safe-built environments for Alberta Health Services.

Small, flat, oval-shaped and about the size of an apple seed, the bugs feed on the blood of people and animals.

And they have been popping up in some unusual places lately.

Four buses in Edmonton have been fumigated this year after someone reported seeing bugs, although the city says that ultimately no insects were found. There have been reports of bugs at courthouses in both Vancouver and St. Johns, N.L.

Navratil said theres no doubt that bedbug infestations have become more prevalent. Public health officials deal with complaints regularly.

When I started as a health inspector 17 years ago, we really didnt deal with bedbugs a lot. It was pretty rare, Navratil said. It was more something that parents said at night the old saying: Dont let the bedbugs bite.

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Bed bugs pop up in seniors homes, courthouses across Canada

Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) May 29, 2013

Terramera, a pioneer in developing effective and safe biopesticide products for pest management, today announced that CIRKIL Biopesticides, the only products that kill both bed bugs and their eggs as a residual, received state registration for New York. The product is now registered for use throughout the United States.

We are thrilled to be able to offer CIRKIL products in New York State, said Dave Buzzelli, VP of Sales for Terramera. With registration in New York, CIRKIL products are now registered in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. As bed bugs continue to increase their presence across the United States, Pest Management Professionals (PMPs) need effective products to combat these difficult pests. CIRKIL products create significant opportunities for the industry.

CIRKIL products are the only EPA-registered pesticide on the market that not only kill bed bugs but also kill eggs and prevent egg hatch as a residual. CIRKIL products are effective against pyrethroid resistant strains. They have a broad and flexible label and can be used in nearly all indoor spaces and surfaces including mattresses and carpets. CIRKIL products have been used by PMPs in the US for nearly a year, starting in California in 2012.

CIRKIL provides a solution to the bed bug problem that has stumped PMPs, said Tim Guererro, General Manager at Pro Pacific Pest Control in San Diego, CA. We are now able to treat bed bug infestations with confidence. CIRKIL has proven over and over again that it will eliminate 100% of the bed bug population in a home quickly. Our customers are glad to hear its a botanical insecticide and we are glad that we wont need to make numerous retreats. The lasting residual effect is like nothing weve used before.

In addition to bed bugs, CIRKIL products are also registered for use on cellar spiders, smoky brown cockroaches, house crickets, firebrats, silverfish, moisture ants, ravida field ants, pavement ants, bean aphids, pea aphids, and green bottle flies, with additional pests additions to come.

About Terramera

Terramera is the leader in developing revolutionary plant-based products that are a highly-effective, minimal-toxicity means of pest management. The companys flagship product CIRKIL is EPA-registered for control of bed bugs and other pests. CIRKIL works against all stages of a bed bugs life cycle including eggs. Terramera is a Vancouver based company founded in 2009 with the mission to provide safe and innovative pest management products for every person and family. For more information about Terramera, visit our website at http://www.terramera.com.

CIRKIL products are only registered for use against bed bugs in California.

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CIRKIL® Biopesticide Products for Treatment of Bed Bugs & Their Eggs Receive State Registration for New York

Transit staff in Edmonton may recently have had to seal and fumigate four buses in that city to kill bed bugs found on board. But Coast Mountain Bus staff here in Metro Vancouver say they have the situation covered.

Spokesman Derek Zabel says they do get calls from time to time about different kinds of bugs on the buses and trains.

He says they use the approach of a good offense is the best defense.

In order to make sure that we don't have any of those critters that are crawling along, what we do every three to four months is that we scrub each bus from top to bottom and they we use a steam cleaning what we call an extractor which sucks up the contents out of the cushy seats. Buses are swept and wiped down on a nightly basis as well."

Zabel says drivers also inspect vehicles at the beginning of each shift and notify maintenance of anything unusual.

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Coast Mountain buses scrubbed, streamed regularly for bed bugs

Like many whose homes have been invaded by the revolting bed bug, Michelle Ruthven is an emotional mess.

Honestly, it has changed my life, says the distraught woman, who lives in a block of eight townhouses, owned by Ottawa Community Housing, in Mechanicsville.

Ruthvens situation is baffling because she has had to put up with the pests since September, despite repeated sprayings. The exterminator has been to her home six times most recently on Wednesday. Thursday morning, her son, whos been sleeping on an air mattress, woke up to find more bites on his body. Her daughter, who was visiting, was bitten, too. Ruthven figures the bed bugs first came in from an adjoining unit six months ago.

OCH chief executive Jo-Anne Poirier promises the housing authority will do what it has to do to destroy the pests. It is notifying all other tenants in the building to see whether they have the problem, too. She says there are various reasons why treatments might not work at once, even if they are applied repeatedly. For one, products used to spray for pests have to be environmentally friendly, so they might not be as strong as they used to be. As well, says Poirier, tenants often enough fail to take all necessary steps to prepare for a spraying. For example, tenants are asked to wash and dry all clothing, linens and towels to kill any possible bugs or eggs. They are then to store the garments and such in sealable plastic bags until it is determined whether spraying has done its job. Ruthven maintains she did all that work, numerous times.

Ruthven has been told bed bugs do not discriminate, are not a cleanliness issue and can invade any household, whether they are mansions or multiple-dwelling buildings. The bugs have turned up in offices, hospitals, and, last month, at the Vancouver provincial courthouse.

Still, she is ashamed of what she is going through and is exhausted by the worry and work the bed bugs have created. She even considered moving, but soon realized she cant afford to give up her subsidized unit. She inquired about a transfer to another OCH building, but was told she would need a number of documents, including a doctors letter indicating she was under duress as a result of the insects.

She feels like a leper and is isolating herself from her friends. Her close friend and neighbour, Sandra Hamilton, says Ruthven doesnt want them visiting her in case they end up transporting the tiny, flat pests back to their homes. Hamilton, whose unit was sprayed as a precaution and has remained bug-free, says Ruthven also doesnt want to drop in on people in case she brings the bugs to them. Shes afraid to come up and visit me.

Hamilton says she believes five of the eight units have received at least one treatment.

But, says Ruthven: Im the one who has been continually sprayed, and they still show up, somehow. I dont know if any of my neighbours still have them, and I havent said anything to anybody.

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Hugh Adami: Bedbugs have driven Ottawa Community Housing tenant to despair

VANCOUVER - Herb Varley measures the transformation of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside by the trendy cafes, upscale grocery stores and high-priced salons that are quickly creeping from the city's maze of glass condo buildings toward the notorious intersection of Main and Hastings.

Fifty dollars for a haircut. Ten for sandwich. Three bucks for a doughnut.

An afternoon of that, and Varley, a 28-year-old who's currently living in social housing, would have spent away more than a quarter of the portion of his social assistance money that's set aside for food and other living expenses.

"There's a spa, there's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu place, these boutique shops that don't cater to low-income people," says Varley.

Varley, who was born in Vancouver but whose family is from the Nisga'a First Nation in the province's north, moved to the Downtown Eastside three years ago after a decade of sleeping on relatives' floors and friends' couches. He spent some time at a single-room occupancy hotel, living in a cramped room in a run-down building infested with bed bugs and cockroaches, before finding a suite recently in a native social housing building.

Last year, Varley joined the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council and waded into an emotional debate about the future of the area, which has revealed deep divisions between activists, residents and politicians over how to fix its problems and what kind of community it should be.

"We have a very large, low-income population down here, but developers are trying to upscale the neighbourhood," says Varley. "I don't know where we're supposed to go."

Varley, the neighbourhood council and other activists in the neighbourhood decry the recent push to build condos and attract new businesses to the Downtown Eastside as harmful gentrification, which they argue will increase the cost of living and displace the low-income people who have lived there for years.

Vancouver's city council, the provincial government and developers behind such projects say the Downtown Eastside is going through a rejuvenation that will help the neighbourhood thrive and will actually bring in more affordable and social housing.

The Downtown Eastside is a neighbourhood best known by outsiders through a series of cliches and grim news stories: Canada's poorest postal code, where its gritty streets and alleys are strewn with stories of poverty and addiction. The home of the safe-injection site. The hunting ground of Robert Pickton.

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Recent projects renew debate about gentrification in the Downtown Eastside