Hag's Blog by John Haggard

Behind the 8 Ball, OT8 Bed Bugs moving up the ranks, despite “old” news….

A quick check of King 5 News web site shows Seattle is communicating the OT8 Bed Bug story. Ranked #3 up from # 4 yesterday:

 

Interesting comments on the whole situation. Read them here: http://www.king5.com/news/local/Apartment-Bedbugs-111089689.html

One Thousand 8th Avenue Apartments (OT8) - The Right Thing To Do Re: Bed Bugs… Eradicate or Release (please)

First, Seattle is taking note of the news…. As of 8:30 this morning this story ranked #5 and #4 on most viewed and emailed  respectively…

 

The right thing for OT8 to do is eradicate the building or release residents from their leases. Once OT8 becomes aware of a problem it is their responsibility to notify other residents at risk. If a fire breaks out in an apartment, you sound the alarm and then you deal with it. Same thing here.

Bed bugs are not something that can be dealt with on an isolated basis. At the very least, OT8 should turn this over to a professional contractor for dealing with an infested apartment and all adjacent apartments, sides, up, and down. Letting Wally and others to fend for themselves is absolutely shameful. Clearly OT8 did not go out and negligently introduce bed bugs for Wally and others, but it is also clearly evident that no single resident can solve this problem by themselves. Every single apartment at the OT8 can be fumigated one at a time in an uncoordinated fashion and the result will remain the same – bed bugs at OT8. It is in OT8’s best interest to be as proactive as possible to get ahead of this while they can.

Offering assistance to residents while being open and honest earns goodwill and avoids the Wally’s getting hurt and all of Seattle finding out about it. Now that Seattle knows Wally’s story, OT8 has a choice – respond positively or negatively (which of course includes no response at all).

If eradication cannot or will not be done, then release residents from their lease and allow them to flee the building’s bugs. To enforce leases while simultaneously not disclosing hazards and taking corrective action is flat out immoral. Non-disclosure on OT8’s part is laughable because people who get chewed on are going to find out, you cannot sweep bed bugs under the rug.

Full disclosure is I have a family member who is Wally’s neighbor and who is also fighting the bed bug plague. As a father, I am not too keen on looking at welts all over my daughter’s body; I thought she was having an allergic reaction and requested her to seek medical care immediately (Nov. 13, 2010). OT8 did not tell her that Wally’s apartment was infested and being exterminated. The complex’s strategy seems to be to exterminate one apartment while leaving the neighbors in the dark. Guess where the bugs go when one apartment gets nuked? They flee to the next unsuspecting victim.

At the moment, she and Wally are wondering if they are playing ping-pong with bed bugs – her apartment just got nuked and Wally’s place is now open season again.

Today is the 1st of December and rent’s are due. OT8, whatcha going to do? Eradicate, release, or let us keep telling this story?