Bed bug treatment displaces some residents – The Killeen Daily Herald

Some tenants at Bradley Arms Apartments in downtown Killeen are complaining that the apartment managements effort to rid the complex of bed bugs is causing hardships on families who live there.

We have to sit out here for 12 hours, said Emma Jones, 39, who lives in the apartment complex on North Eighth Street with her three children, ages 12, 13 and 19.

Jones said the management company Isbell Property Management gave tenants about a weeks notice before the pest control action began, but the mother and her children had nowhere to go.

Property manager Josh Isbell said Wednesday tenants were informed several weeks before the process began so that they could choose to have their apartments sprayed or not for bed bugs. Isbell also said management went out to the properties to talk with tenants and tell them what would be required of them if they opted for the service.

This procedure was entirely optional, he said. The majority of the properties werent affected, and the ones that were, were mostly vacant, and we just decided to offer it to all of our properties.

Isbell said the spraying began about 1 p.m. each time they sprayed, and tenants were allowed to go back to their apartments after the close of business.

Jones said her concern was she had to stay outside with her property to protect it.

The thing is, I dont know anybody here, she said Tuesday as she waited outside.

Jones said she is disabled, on a fixed income and cant afford a hotel room for a day.

She and her children also had to remove all of her furniture and her belongings from the apartment. The kids missed a day of school because of it, and the family had to stay in the apartments parking lot all day to keep watch over their belongings.

Jones said the apartment should have provided a storage area for tenants to store their belongings while the apartments were being treated.

For tenants that opted to have their properties sprayed, removing the furniture from the apartment was recommended but not required, Isbell said. Because of that, no storage area for furniture was provided because it wasnt required that it be removed."

Jones said her particular apartment did not have bed bugs, but another did, causing the management to spray for the hard-to-kill insect in all of the apartments, which they are doing over the course of days or more.

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Bed bug treatment displaces some residents - The Killeen Daily Herald