Byline: Doug Hempstead
Publication: Ottawa Sun
Date: Friday July 30th, 2010
Source: http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa/2010/07/30/14881451.html
Summary
Good night, sleep tight — don’t let the bedbugs bite… or the earwigs, or the carpenter ants.
Ottawa is in the heart of bedbug country, according to Carleton biology professor Dr. Jeff Dawson, who described this as a “peak year” for the pests, brought about by weather and an increase in international travel.
“They’re an ambush insect, nasty critters.”
Dawson said it’s the female bed bugs who come after you while you sleep — sucking blood meal to feed their eggs. You don’t notice they’re doing it because they actually inject you with a sort of anesthetic first. When you wake up, you’ve got red, extremely itchy welts.
Getting rid of them can be difficult, the only thing they don’t like is cold — and can go years without eating. One solution is the expertise of someone like Paramount Pest Control owner David Saunders, who said trouble is brewing.
“I suggest people put $1,000 aside in a dresser right now because you’re going to need it,” said Saunders. “Ottawa has a problem.”
That problem, he said, is primarily bedbugs.
“I’ve done 18 calls so far today,” said Saunders at noon Friday. “I do about 100 calls a week. I’d say every third house in the city either has bedbugs or they know someone who does.”
One would surmise, then, it would be easy to get one of the infestees to talk to — not so, said Saunders.
“It’s Ottawa’s dirty little secret,” he said.
He’s called 11 clients, asking them to — even anonymously — talk to the media about the problem. No dice.
He’s even tried to persuade them with offers of free or discounted services, which can cost between $700 to $1,500.
Instead, Saunders said people demand he go to great lengths to be discreet. Even though he drives an unmarked vehicle, he said people ask him to drive right into their garage so they can close the door behind him. He’s also been asked to park down the street and carry his tank of spray in a garbage bag.
“One couple asked me to come at midnight and they’d stay in a hotel,” said Saunders, who believes this type of secrecy is adding to the problem — which effects everybody, no matter their income or hygiene.
“I’ve done embassies, homes in Rockcliffe,” he said, adding a recent client brought bed bugs back from Hawaii after a stay at a five-star hotel, another who came back from Vancouver’s Olympic Village.
Jean-Guy Albert, a program manager at Ottawa Public Health said the city only gets involved when a mediator is needed between landlord and tenants.
He said the city usually is asked to help in 60 to 70 cases per year.
doug.hempstead@sunmedia.ca
– with files from Justin Sadler
Also Appeared In
Ottawa Sun — Fri, Jul 30th 2010