Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Bug blasters tackle infested high-rise
Dave Funk, pest control coordinator for Manitoba Housing, said a provincial team of veteran bug blasters will try and eradicate bed bugs at 260 Nassau St. once and for all by emptying the building of all 118 tenants and deploying new measures to annihilate the pests.
Between March 9 and 13, Funk said all tenants will be put up in hotels so pest control can spray every suite in the building. They will also push insecticide deep into wall crevices and behind walls, and kill all bugs and their eggs with hot steam treatments - methods never before used by the province against the pests.
Usually, Manitoba Housing only sprays the suite infested with bed bugs and all adjacent suites.
Critics have said this is a haphazard way to approach the problem, since the bed bugs manage to spread to other neighbouring apartments.
The Nassau Street building has been infested with the pesky bugs since early 2007, and the province has since spent about $130,000 to unsuccessfully get rid of them.
Funk said they will spend $65,000 -- this year's pest control budget for the building -- to try and zap them in one fell swoop.
If it works, he said the attack method could be used in other Manitoba Housing high-rises with recurring infestations. "You're talking about a pest that has only one food source -- they love warm bodies," Funk said, noting that's why the bugs love big apartment blocks.
"It's basically a bed-bug buffet."
Cities across North America have seen a surge in the nocturnal critters, and an increase in international travel and a ban on pesticides such as DDT have made it easier for bedbugs to spread and become resistant to some insecticides.
Funk said bed bugs are hard to kill because they can stay in crevices and hiding spots between a week and a year and hibernate to avoid residue from pesticide. He said anything above 40 C kills the bugs on contact.
jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 6, 2009 B2
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