Category Archives: Bed Bugs British Columbia

If you find evidence of bed bugs, inform your landlord in writing right away, and request that they treat the problem. Remember to keep a copy of the signed and dated letter that you send them. It is also a good idea to take pictures and take other steps to gather evidence of the problem, such as having a friend come over to witness it. If you find a bug, try to trap it and keep it in a sealed plastic bag. This will be helpful to show to both your landlord and the pest control company.

You can use our template letter Bedbugs, Rodents or Pests.

Your landlord should hire a professional pest control company to inspect your unit, and if bed bugs are confirmed, treat it. Neither you nor your landlord should attempt to treat the bed bugs on your own.

If your landlord has not hired a pest control company within a reasonable period of time, you can apply for dispute resolution at the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) and request an order for your landlord to treat the unit. See our page on Applying for Dispute Resolutionfor more information.

You can also contact the city that you live in. Some cities have Standards of Maintenance bylaws, which often require landlords to treat infestations. A city may send a bylaw, health, or building inspector to inspect your unit and order the landlord to treat the infestation.

Do not throw away your belongings without getting instructions on how to dispose of items properly. It is also not a good idea to start sleeping on the couch, as this will just spread the infestation to the living room.

Discovering bed bugs is usually not an accepted reason for ending a tenancy early.Nor is it a valid reason to withhold rent, even if your landlord is ignoring the problem. Again, you will need to apply for dispute resolution through the RTB.

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BED BUGS AND OTHER INFESTATIONS - tenants

Bedbugs are small blood-sucking insects that live in cracks and crevices in and around beds. They crawl out at nightand bite exposed skintofeed onblood.

Adult bedbugs are oval-shaped, flat and up to 5mm long similar to an apple seed.

Their colour varies between dark yellow, red or brown.

Bedbugs aren't dangerous anddon't spread any diseases, but some people experience a reaction to their bites and they can be stressful to live with.

This page covers:

How to spot bedbugs

How to get rid of bedbugs

Bedbug bites

Preventing bedbug infestations

Signs of a bedbug infestation can include:

Bedbugs tend to prefer fabric or wood over plastic and metal, and often hide near to where you sleep for example, under the mattress or along the headboard.

Butthey can be found away from the bed in other furniture, along the edges of carpets and even behind mirrors or inside smoke alarms.

Bedbugs can be very difficult to get rid of. Your best chance of successfully treating an infestation is to get professional help.

Contact your local council ora pest control firm that's a member of the British Pest Control Associationor National Pest Technicians Association.

A technician will carry out an inspection to confirm an infestation. They can thenusespecialtreatments such as insecticide, a steamer or rapid freeze system to get rid of the bugs.

Theymay also advise about things you can do to help, such as:

Bedbug bites are painless, butsome people experience a reaction to them. This can occur from a few minutes after being bitten up to a week or two later.

Bedbug bites:

The bites usually fade in a few days. If they'revery itchy, you can buy a mildsteroid cream (such as hydrocortisone) or antihistamine tablets to relieve the itch.

See your GP if you develop signs of a skin infection (pain, redness and swelling). You may need antibiotics.

It can be difficult to avoid bedbugs, as they can be transported easily in luggage, clothing and furniture.

Once in your home,they canquickly spread from room to room. They don't jump or fly, but can crawl long distances.

It can help to:

Bedbugs aren'tattracted to dirt, so they're nota sign of an unclean home, butclearing up any clutterwill reduce the number of places they can hide.

Page last reviewed: 02/12/2016

Next review due: 02/12/2019

More:
Bedbugs - NHS Choices

To prevent bed bugs, keep clutter to a minimum. Bed bugs thrive in clothes, newspapers and piles of stuff in general.

And stay vigilant! Watch for signs within your apartment building, local libraries and hotels. You should also know what bed bugs look like, so that you can report them immediately before they spread.

Generally speaking, high heat or extreme cold kills bed bugs. Try these tips from my friend, Adria Vasil, author of Ecoholic, if you already have bed bugs:

Diatomaceous earth is also used to control silverfish, fleas and roaches in the home. Sprinkle a small amount along cracks and baseboards, or above the cupboards. Naturally occurring diatomaceous earth is made from crushed fossilized algae. This fine powder is like glass. It is so abrasive that it damages the protective outer shell of creepy crawlies. When that protective exoskeleton is pierced, insects dry up and die. Ask for it at your local garden store.

Kleen Green is an organic blend of enzymes specifically designed to remove and eliminate dirt, germs, bacteria, odours, and pests, including bed bugs, lice, scabies, crabs, fleas, mites and more, naturally. I've never used this product but it beats toxic pesticides, so it could be worth a try! It claims to be non-toxic, no-residue formula, non-flammable, hypoallergenic, rinseable and biodegradable.

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How to kill bed bugs without pesticides | Toxics | What ...

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They look like regular jars. For baby food, maybe. Or a charming collection of shells. But these jars are filled with tiny bloodsucking monsters. Theyre bedbugs, housed (and fed) as part of research to create a new kind of trap based on pheromones. Regine Gries and her husband, Gerhard, both biologists at Simon Fraser University just outside Vancouver, British Columbia, have perfected a chemical lure capable of enticing bedbugs away from our mattressesand our fleshand into traps. But science takes sacrifice: Every Saturday, Gries rolls up her sleeves, slips off her watch, and lets a thousand hungry bedbugs feast on her arms.

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Gries feeds as many as five jars worth at once, by holding the containers upside down against the length of her forearm and letting the bugs mouths (or, more specifically, their stylet fascicles) reach through the mesh and into her skin. Since the bedbugs get only one chance to eat per month, theyre hungry enough to overcome their natural fear of light; it takes just 10 minutes for all 1,000 of them to fill up. Gries likens the feeling of each bite to that of a mosquito, and shed know, having previously served as an all-you-can-eat buffet for the labs mosquito colony on another project. Since the bedbug research began in 2006, Gries has been bitten some 200,000 times.

Shes an ideal host for her tiny subjects: Some people suffer allergic reactions to bedbug bitesa population that includes her husband. When he tried to feed just a few dozen of the colonys residents, his arm swelled to twice its normal size. We went to one of these walk-in clinics, and the doctor didnt have a clue, Gries says. Her symptoms, on the other hand, are comparatively minor: itchiness and swelling for about two hours. (She also changes the jars before each feeding for hygiene.) Letting the colony feed on fresh human blood is also less complicated and less risky than other approaches. At first one of Gerhards grad students tried feeding the bedbugs chicken blood from a nearby slaughterhouse, but it turned out the chickens had been medicated, and their tainted blood nearly wiped out the entire colony. Next, Gries got permission for the bedbugs to feed from a group of research guinea pigs kept on campus. That didnt work either: The rodents had to be sedated and shaved before every single feeding, as the bedbugs couldnt eat properly through their fur. Eventually, Gries took pity on the guinea pigs and decided to become one herself.

Now that their chemical lure is finished, a Canadian company is using this research to build a commercial trap that it hopes to bring to market this year. Which means it may soon be possible to stop bedbugs in their tracks, thanks to Gries blood, sweat, and tears. Well, mostly blood.

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The Woman Who Let 200,000 Bed Bugs Bite HerFor Science ...

This hotel is in fairly bad disrepair. The elevator to the first floor is broken, my bathtub was all peeling off on the bottom (I would not shower!) There were stains on the wall and a lot of dings/chips in the colored paint. The lobby door had a big sign that said "Use side door please" (a tiny door that was difficult to pull my suitcase through) then I saw people walk through it, it slid open just fine, so I'm not sure why the sign said not to use it?? In my room there was garbage and a toy and an insect/rodent trap right behind the night stand when I went to plug in my phone, so obviously not very good cleaning. The baseboards were filthy. The website said it was 6 km from the airport, and when I got a cab there the cab driver said it was much more than that. On that note, I was told by the morning cab driver ( that I needed because the shuttle to the airport did not start early enough for my flight!!) that there are zones for cabs and I should NOT have been charged more than 20$! Not the hotel's fault but I wouldn't have needed cabs if their shuttle was running. I DID carefully check the bed as soon as I saw the condition of the room and didn't see bedbugs but maybe I was lucky. Would NOT recommend ever going here!

This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.

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Mice in rooms & Bed Bugs Infested!!! DO NOT STAY HERE ...