Bronx Bed Bug Registry Infestation Maps, Residential and Hotel

Heres Why You Should Kill Spotted Lanternflies  The New York Times

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Heres Why You Should Kill Spotted Lanternflies - The New York Times

The best websites for buying and selling used furniture in NYC  6Sqft

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The best websites for buying and selling used furniture in NYC - 6Sqft

These Major US Cities Are Dealing With Bed Bug Infestation (Again)  The Citizen

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These Major US Cities Are Dealing With Bed Bug Infestation (Again) - The Citizen

Bwog In Bed: Avery Bedbug Edition  Bwog

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Good night, sleep tight, dont let the bed bugs bite unless your building has an infestation.

No New Yorker wants to think about bed bugs heck, New Yorkers dont even dare speak their name. And if your skin doesnt feel itchy yet, a new third-quarter study is out from the no-fee rental listings portal Rent Betta to show the citys worst bed bug-infested buildings, or at least the ones known to be alleged creepy-crawler hotbeds between the months of July and September.

Among the reports findings, the top three alleged offenders during that span of time are all located in Brooklyn.

To claim the title of one of the worst-infested buildings, Rent Betta determined whether a property had 10 or more units all of which reported bed bug infestations to New York Citys office of Housing Preservation & Development.

Most buildings immediately take action to treat all units and report no re-infestations. By law, a building must hire an exterminator at no cost to the tenant.

But there are other landlords who ignore the situation or let the problem drag on, their residents charge.

I had bed bugs in an apartment in Queens, and it took two months of fumigating the place to get rid of them, Ze Xu, who now lives on the Upper West Side, told The Post. Im glad theres an easy way to see if a building has a history of bed bugs.

In the third quarter of 2022, there were 13 buildings around town where every unit reported bed bugs.

Of the 13, the building that earned the title of the citys most infested building goes to 944 42nd St. in Brooklyns Borough Park neighborhood, where all 42 of their units reported bed bugs. Whats more, none of the buildings units were reported as treated, with the study showing a 100% infestation for that building.

There are currently no active listings there, and a two-bedroom apartment was last listed for $2,100 per month in July.

Up next, a 37-unit rental building in East Flatbush located at 948 Clarkson Ave. There are no active listings there either, but all 37 units reported infestations, which Rent Betta says remain untreated. Meanwhile, No. 3 on the list, 8609 Bay 16th St. in Brooklyn, had all of its 33 units treated for bed bugs, the report adds.

The Post has reached out to all 13 of the building units for comment.

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These are the most bed bug-infested buildings in NYC: report

Workers at the New York City Starbucks Reserve Roastery in the Meatpacking District have been on strike since the beginning of last week against unsafe work conditions and the multi-billion dollar corporations refusal to bargain in good faith with the union for a first contract. The striking workers note how managers at one of Starbuckss flagship stores refuse to address work conditions that are proving to be health hazards: the store had a recent outbreak of bedbugs in the break room and there has been black mold in the ice machines for months.

Two workers who spoke with Left Voice under conditions of anonymity described how management instructed them to discard any ice with mold in it and carry on, without addressing the root of the problem. When the bedbug infestation happened, workers were asked to remove their belongings from the break room, but were not told why. It was only days later that they learnt of the bed bug infestation; the fumigation and cleaning for which, workers believe, were substandard.

One worker, Laura Garza, says, I myself have gotten sick from attempting to clean the mold from the ice machine without proper training, and the bed bugs were just the last straw for us. We cannot risk bringing that home.

Workers United, the union representative of the workers, filed an OSHA complaint against the facility as well as a national Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the failure to bargain and listed the Roastery and 151 other locations where Starbucks has refused to begin bargaining.

Workers at this Starbucks Reserve Roastery many of who are young, queer, women were the first Starbucks shop in NYC to unionize, winning their union election on April 1 of this year. They are one of twelve Starbucks locations to have unionized in downstate New York, and one of seven in the city. Nationally, over 250 Starbucks stores have elected to unionize. With over a 100 workers at this location, this is one of the bigger shops to have unionized nationally.

Although it has been months since they won their elections, workers at the Roastery, like other unionized stores across the country, still dont have a first contract as Starbucks refuses to bargain in good faith with workers while continuing their union-busting practices. The company is facing over 300 unfair labor practice charges, and NLRB offices around the country have issued Starbucks over 35 official complaints, citing it for coercing, threatening, and firing employees over union activities and withholding wage increases and benefits from unionizing stores. Since the wave of unionization at the coffee giant began, Starbucks has fired over 100 workers who were organizing for a union.

Although the store has over 100 workers, not everyone is out on the picket lines, with many fearing retaliation from management. At the Roastery and every other store that has unionized or is seeking a path towards unionization, management has worked overtime to maintain an air of fear, often even depriving workers of knowledge of their rights and that they have a union. But, since the strike began at Roastery, workers have been picketing outside the facility every day, forcing it to close early the last few evenings. Workers at the picket also spoke about how management was bringing in scabs from the yet-to-open Empire State Building location to work at the store.

Workers at Starbucks make hundreds of dollars worth of beverages every hour, creating value far beyond what they are compensated for. The companys massive profits are a direct product of workers labor. For striking workers, it is essential to expand, mobilize, and use this power of the shop floor to fight not just for safe conditions, but against every injustice suffered under Starbuckss management and beyond.

Sou Mi is an activist based in New York City.

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The Bed Bugs Were the Last Straw for Us: Starbucks Workers at the NYC ...

As Marie Ramos carried boxes up to apartment 4L on the fourth floor, her new neighbors periodically stopped her.

Are you moving in? Ramos remembered them asking.

After she told them she was, they all responded the same way: Find a new place.

Ramos didnt immediately believe the warnings given to her about 87 Pleasant St., managed by Northeast Properties in Worcester. She heard the stories as she unloaded her belongings. They focused on infestation including roaches, bed bugs and mice.

Her concern, however, focused on a leak. Northeast notified her about it which delayed her move-in date to the beginning of May 2019. But they assured her, they would address the problem.

The promise of a fix offered a false sense of security that would soon evaporate.

Shortly after Ramos carried the final box up four flights of stairs, she realized her neighbors experiences were now also hers.

The first night Ramos said her cat chased two mice across the kitchen. The leak that Northeast assured her had been fixed was now replaced by four mushrooms sprouting out of the wall.

The living conditions at 87 Pleasant St. in Worcester included mushrooms growing out of the wall and damage walls.

The next morning when she called Northeast and noticed more mouse droppings.

The following day she woke up with bed bug bites on her arms, legs and near her left eye. Even at work, she couldnt escape the apartment from hell.

Her retail employer sent her home to prevent possible spread.

Ramos eventually lost her job due to the infestation. Northeast blamed her family for bringing the bed bugs with them.

Her mother, who lived with her, was hospitalized with an allergic reaction to one of the bites. To seek shelter from the bugs, her mother stayed with friends or slept in her car.

It was hell, to be completely honest, Ramos said.

Ramos apartment represents just a fraction of the residential properties owned by Felicio Lana, president of Northeast Properties, across Worcester, Uxbridge, Leominster and Garder. Lana declined to provide an exact number of properties and units he owns across Central Massachusetts.

While Lana didnt offer an exact number to MassLive, in an interview with the Worcester Telegram and Gazette in 2020, he said he more than 1,000.

He also owns prominent commercial properties in downtown Worcester such as the Midtown Mall.

We can tell you we remain committed to providing quality living spaces to all our tenants. Our goal is 100% tenant satisfaction, Lana said in a statement through his attorney. In reaching for this goal, we understand that it is important to continually seek to correct and improve our performance.

In the statement, Northeast Properties didnt reference any of the questions regarding rodent and bug infestation, electrical issues, heating problems or severe leaks.

Instead, the statement focused on the difficulties the COVID-19 pandemic presented for the company.

Ramoss experience represents a common theme repeated by a half dozen tenants who spoke with MassLive about their experiences with Lanas Northeast Properties. And the issues far predate the pandemic. Many of the grievances are backed up through more than 100 complaints filed against Lana in Worcesters housing court over the last decade, well before the pandemic.

Many other complaints never reached court such as the situation experienced by Ramos. It wasnt until she and her mother threatened a lawsuit that Lana finally began to help her.

Thats when Felicio sat down with us and said well give you a better apartment, just ease out of the court issue, Ramos said. We agreed to it because at that point I didnt have the money to just up and move out.

Beyond moving, Ramos also went on to work for Northeast Properties in August 2020 before quitting on Christmas of that year. Ramos wasnt able to discuss her time as an employee due to signing a non-disclosure agreement.

I was hesitant [to work for him] because of our past with each other, Ramos said.

After the problems she experienced on Pleasant Street and to avoid court hearings, Lana provided Ramos with a new apartment, at 82 Elm St. for a lower cost of rent beginning in July of 2019, which made her feel better about the job opportunity.

For the most part, the apartment hasnt had many issues, but Ramos said recently mice have started to appear.

The property appears in a pair of suits brought by the city against Lana for issues ranging from cross metering (where a tenants electric account includes lines from other tenants apartments) to rodent infestation. Both suits were voluntarily dismissed by the city.

The city dismisses enforcement cases when the work is done and all fines and costs have been paid, the city of Worcester said regarding the complaint, but didnt elaborate on the habitual nature of the issues from one of its most well known property owners.

Infestation is only one of the problems at Lana-owned properties that surpass the annoyance of a run-of-the-mill absentee landlord and enter more serious issues.

David and Maggie Grenier moved to Worcester from California at the end of October 2020.

David grew up in Massachusetts and returned home to be closer to his family with Maggie, who never lived in the Bay State before.

She was moving back to my home, Grenier said. This was nothing like what I was hoping for. Not even a dull situation. It was the exact opposite situation for what I wanted for my wife.

The Greniers became neighbors with Ramos on Oct. 30, 2020.

We immediately had problems, Maggie said.

Coming from California, the couple only viewed the apartment online until they arrived. They conducted a walk-through before moving in. They said everything was working great.

In the first chapter of their new life in Massachusetts, Maggie picked up dinner and the two sat on the floor to eat in their new apartment. After a few bites, the lights went out.

It sparked a two-month-long nightmare that ended with the city of Worcester forcing them to evacuate the apartment at 82 Elm St. at the end of December of 2020 due to safety issues tied to the electrical wiring in the home.

[The city inspector] told us we essentially had to grab our essentials and be out within 30 minutes because it was so dangerous, Maggie said.

The Greniers shared about 80 videos with MassLive that revealed paper-thin walls, water leaks from the ceiling but most of all comical, but dangerous, electrical issues that involved situations like kitchen light controlling the power to the oven and the refrigerator door turning off lights in other rooms.

Lights flickered or lost power when they tried to use electricity in other rooms. The apartment contained mostly outdated two-pronged outlets that dont include a grounding wire. They provided little power or at best inconsistent surges, the couple said.

Weeks after the couple moved in, Northeast installed new electrical outlets in the kitchen, David Greiner said. It forced the couple to run extension cords throughout the apartment back to the outlet in the kitchen for lamps, laptops or any other electronics.

All the while, the refrigerator and oven still affected the lights in the ceiling.

There were two times we tried to connect to the two-pronged outlets, Maggie said. One time my computer almost blew up in my face and another time a fan almost blew up in his face. It was so unsafe. We were terrified to plug in anywhere except the outlets in the kitchen.

David described the fan suddenly becoming super-charged in one of the two-pronged outlets, rotating faster and faster until he unplugged it.

While the fan became a dangerous propeller, the refrigerator didnt work consistently due to the uneven power sequences. The Greniers told MassLive Northeasts quick-fix solution was to plug the appliance into the outlet in the hallway through the front door.

He literally ripped out the ground prong of the refrigerator so it could fit into a two-prong outlet, Maggie said. We were there for that.

David continued, I saw him do it with the pliers. He ripped it out and I was like, Well thats not right.

The electrical concerns crossed over with the water leaks in the bathroom as videos show drops falling above the kitchen sink and near the only workable outlets in the home.

The never-ending issues caused literal sleepless nights for Maggie, who lived in constant fear of a fire erupting within the home.

With having all of those electrical issues and those exposed wires, I was constantly terrified of a fire. I got to a point where I wasnt sleeping, Maggie said. I developed insomnia and basically got terrified to eat because I was afraid to cook.

For the two months they lived at 82 Elm St. in Worcester, the couple ordered takeout nearly every day because of the electrical issues and the problems with the oven and refrigerator.

Amid a pandemic, David struggled to work from home as extension cords slithered across the hardwood floors of the apartment acting as his own hub for electricity.

Lana offered to charge them half the cost of rent for November and December, but never actually came through on the offer.

He would say, Oh thats in the finance department, Maggie said.

On the morning the inspector arrived at the Greniers apartment and told them they had 30 minutes to leave, Northeast Properties had been in the unit earlier.

Maggie said several men, who she identified as Lanas workers, pounded on the back door of the apartment. They told her they needed to grab some things from the laundry room on the enclosed porch.

Maggie returned inside the apartment to socially distance herself from the men, but she said she heard a commotion back in the kitchen.

Theyre in my kitchen and theyre ripping out all of the new wiring from the new outlets and the extension cords, Maggie said. Theyre ripping it all out, our only form of electricity. They never asked me if they could enter my home and they never told me they were going to do any of that stuff and none of them are electricians.

Northeast Properties owns 16 Windsor St. which tenants said is plagued with leaks, rodents, dilapidated exterior and problems with heat and hot water.

Liz Whynot lives at 16 Windsor St., a large Victorian beauty thats showing its early 1900s age. Plywood covers space above the windows. Holes pepper the exterior allowing rodents like mice or as large as birds to enter the residence.

Like the Greniers, Whynot experienced Northeast Properties empty promises firsthand.

Whynot reached out to Northeast on July 8, 2019 about the unit, and was approved to move into the apartment on Aug. 1. Part of the agreement between the two parties was the bathroom would be complete, Whynot said.

On Aug. 1, she moved into an apartment that didnt include working facilities. Whynot said the bathroom work didnt begin until Aug. 6 and wasnt completed until more than a month later on Sept. 10.

The bathroom when Liz Whynot moved into her apartment. Northeast Properties said it would be done when she moved in. It wasn't.

Without a bathroom, Whynot worked all day only to arrive to a bathroomless apartment at night. While she waited for the work to be completed, she showered at her friends house and stayed the night before returning to her apartment in the morning to feed and check on her cat.

It was ridiculous, Whynot said.

Northeast Properties owns 16 Windsor St. which tenants said is plagued with leaks, rodents, dilapidated exterior and problems with heat and hot water.

Bianca Rantala lives in the same building as Whynot. She has two dogs, which led her to move into a Lana-owned property last year even after having a bad living experience in the past and having worked for Northeast Properties.

I had a deadline and I moved into one of his apartments in Gardner, Rantala said. Long story short, because of the dogs. I had to pick and choose my battles. Im not giving up my dogs. I didnt want him as my landlord but my hands were completely tied. There was nothing out there.

Rantala worked for Northeast Properties for four months during the pandemic. She, like Ramos, signed a non-disclosure agreement regarding her employment.

In January of 2021, she left the apartment in Gardner where streams of water poured out of the ceiling for apartment 1R at 16 Windsor St. She left one leaky ceiling for another, but Lana, she said, promised her the leaking ceiling in Worcester would be repaired.

He said there was a ceiling leak and it has to be renovated, Rantala said. But he said Im not going to move you in until everything is all set.

At the end of December, Rantala walked through the apartment, which appeared to have a brand new dropped ceiling. She moved in on Jan. 1, 2021, the leak started the next day.

He changed the ceiling tile and got rid of the evidence of a ceiling tile, Rentala said. That was not fixed.

Northeast Properties owns 16 Windsor St. which tenants said is plagued with leaks, rodents, dilapidated exterior and problems with heat and hot water.

More than seven months later, the leak remains in the spare bedroom. The only solution Northeast provided her for the leak was removing the ceiling tile, which now exposes a large hole in the room, and a large blue bucket for the water to drip into.

Their solution was to give me a bucket for it, Rantala said. They werent answering my calls. I was calling from January to May. May was when I finally called the city.

The city, Rantala said, is in the process of bringing a suit against Lana related to the leaks.

Like others, shes also dealt with rodents. In the apartments above Rantala, the holes are so large that a bird once flew into Whynots apartments.

I woke up to a bird flying around my kitchen, Whynot said.

Whynot said its not a rarity. For the last six months, small critters have crawled into her top-floor apartment.

Whynot shared more than 70 text messages with MassLive that she sent to Northeast Properties. The texts addressed issues from the heat not working to rodents living in her apartment, including a possum stuck in her ceiling. Text messages show days passed before a response.

Texts from Whynot show she reported the issues on May 7 that a possum was stuck in her bathroom ceiling again. A month later, the texts continued with the animal problems persisting.

Northeast Properties often didnt respond to the message. When they did respond, no one came to help.

I have been sending them pictures of the ceiling tiles moving. I sent them pictures of the bird coming in and they did nothing, Whynot said.

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Texts show Northeast Properties ignored tenants

In February of 2021, Whynots renovated bathroom didnt have hot water. Lana responded and pointed the blame at her, she said. Lana told her to use the hot water, she had to also turn on the cold water.

The Greniers experienced a similar issue. At 82 Elm St., both the hot and cold water had to be turned on to receive warm water for a shower.

Inexplicably, the cold water would cease to work on random occasions.

The water would become scalding, Maggie said. It happened multiple times and there was one time in particular where it completely burned Daves back.

Plumbing problems extend beyond the anecdotal evidence provided by the tenants that spoke to MassLive. According to court records, since 2017, at least three properties have been cited for improper plumbing without permits by the city of Worcester.

On Oct. 3, 2017, the city responded to a complaint at 60 Chatham St. in Worcester, according to court records. The city said multiple water heaters were installed without permits. The inspector described the installation as unworkmanlike and leading to unsafe conditions.

Lana was given until Oct. 10 to fix the issues, but when the city returned on Oct. 11, nothing was done. The city eventually, dismissed its complaint after the problems were fixed and fines were paid.

But even when problems are fixed, others appear.

Headaches reemerged in Whynots bathroom last month. For the last week or so shes been without hot water and heat as she battles a cold.

Northeast Properties replaced the hot water heater last week, she said, but never activated it.

So for now, she has hot water, but shes hesitant to say for how long.

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What to Know

Governor Cuomo is demanding an investigation after allegations that bed bugs were found in a Bronx apartment building.

The government subsidized building is located on White Plains Road.

State health inspectors will look for bed bugs and other hazards, Cuomo's office said.

"The alleged conditions in this apartment building are horrifying and completely unacceptable," Governor Cuomo said. "The government's job is to protect the health and safety of all New Yorkers, and apartments in the rent regulation program have an obligation to maintain a decent environment for tenants to live.

The building's alleged issues of bugs, mice and reports of drug dealing were first reported by the New YorkDaily News.

The building's management company denied reports of drug dealing inside the building and blamed the bed bugs on a single resident, the Daily News reported.

Cuomo said there will also be an investigation into whether rent-regulated units in the building are being properly maintained.

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On September 14th I moved into the Gateway Motel on September 16th I woke up with 4 bites on my leg I didn't know what it was at that time on September 19th I had multiple marks on me I went to the fr...

Recommended tips after hotel check-in: 1. Pick up the mattresses in the rooms and look under it. Check around the edges of the box springs. 2. Check under the box spring. 3. Lift up each headboard an lie it on the bed. Carefully inspect the hole where the headboard was lifted out of. Also, inspect all niches and corners of the headboard. 4. If you decide to stay in the hotel, do not put any clothes in dressers. Keep them in your luggage and your dirty clothes in plastic bags.

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Bronx NY Bed bug Hotel and Apartment Reports

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