Tenant warns of brutal experience with bedbugs

One student back for the fall semester is warning others that long-term bedbug infestations can go unchecked in Halifax, even as unwitting new tenants move in.

After losing about $5,000 worth of belongings, Sara Lampinen says too much is at stake to allow lax pest control.

At the beginning of August, Lampinen arrived from Edmonton to sublet an apartment for seven months in Ocean Towers on Brunswick Street.

Just days after she moved in, she started getting bites.

The infestation was so bad that Lampinen, 23, could see bedbugs crawling around on her bed. She talked to building management and offered to show them her bites.

They said, No, no, we already know what they look like, she said.

They said they did have bedbug problems before, but they werent in the unit that I was in. So they obviously knew that there were bedbug infestations within the apartment building.

She only lasted three weeks in the apartment before giving up and moving out Friday. She said she threw out thousands of dollars worth of furniture and bedding, and her clothes needed to be specially laundered.

Managers at the building, which is owned by Toronto company CAPREIT, first arranged for Lampinens apartment to be sprayed, but she said the one-time treatment didnt clear up the problem.

Bedbugs can live in walls and easily travel between apartments, and pest control experts often recommend treating a whole building or a whole section of a building rather than a single unit.

More:
Tenant warns of brutal experience with bedbugs