Bedbug Treatments for Apartments and Condominiums

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Bedbug Treatments
for Apartments and Condominiums

Apartments and condominiums are tremendous challenges, but we're up for it. The risk factors associated with apartments and condominiums virtually guarantee that sooner or later you will be faced with a bedbug infestation. Being prepared for the situation is not a matter of just having engaged a pest control contractor. You need to have an experienced, aggressive, Bedbug Specialist Pest Control Company that can prevent disaster. American Pest Control's staff are skilled and prepared professionals. The costs associated with this problem can take whole percentage points off of your profit margin.

The AMERICAN PEST CONTROL DIFFERENCE

We have prepared training materials, tenant notices for apartments and condos, and procedures for smoothly processing large or small numbers of units.
We're prepared to make the process as easy for you and your tenants as possible.
We can help you get the attention of your superiors.
We will assist you in guiding rental office and on-site staff.
We treat your apartment staff and your tenant with concern and propriety.
To put it simply-we make the problem go away.

Apartments and condominiums can present the worst-case scenario for bedbugs. In multi-family dwellings, shared common areas (hallways and laundry), frequent high occupancy for each unit, and shared wall voids provide ample opportunities for spreading bedbugs very quickly. One apartment with a moderate to severe infestation can infest whole floors and multiple levels over a period of months. From the point of origin, bedbugs usually spread out in a pyramid shape. For example, using apartment numbers:

4th floor	401	403	405	407	409	411	413	415	417
3rd floor	301	303	305	307	309	311	313	315	317
2nd floor	201	203	205	207	209	211	213	215	217
1st floor	101	103	105	107	109	111	113	115	117

With 109 being the start apartment; the infestation quickly moves horizontally and vertically from the point of origin. This can take weeks or months depending on how promptly it is reported and how intense the infestation is.

Treatment for bedbugs may not have been included in your annual budget, but the potential expense and extreme distress of a tenant are unlike any pest problems that you may have previously encountered. If you already have a pest control company performing maintenance services, bedbugs are probably not included. More importantly, they may not even be equipped to treat bedbugs or have personnel who can do a proper inspection and identification. If you have bedbugs, you need a pro - American Pest Control.

DISASTER CONTROL OR DAMAGE CONTROL.
If your problem is fast becoming a disaster, we can get it under control and help you implement the processes and procedures to maintain that control. If you've been lucky enough not to experience an infestation so far or have just started dealing with bedbugs, we can keep your damage to a minimum and avoid disaster.

The good news is that, if you act quickly, you can greatly minimize the number of units and buildings infested, thus reducing your expenses. Foot dragging, prolonged approval processes, ignorance of on-site staff, and failure to have processes and procedures in effect prevent property managers from taking action that can save tens of thousands of dollars.

This is what we recommend:

You need information, and your staff has to be trained. American Pest Control offers training for on-site staff to recognize the signs of bedbugs. When many people in different levels of a company in different locations need information, we are your source.
Put a procedure in effect that defines how you want the report of bedbugs from tenants to be handled. Your staff's attitude toward the tenant will make all the difference. It helps if they understand that bedbugs have nothing to do with cleanliness or sanitation. Tenants are less likely to become activists and give you a hard time if their complaint is received sympathetically. This is one of those problems most likely to get reported to the Board of Health or have tenants starting petitions.
The report of bedbugs or residents being bitten by bedbugs should be handled quickly with an evaluation by a qualified pest control company ASAP (ours are free).
Encourage reporting - You may be reluctant to do so, and it may not be necessary unless you already have some reported infestations, but reporting may contribute to an atmosphere of openness. Once there is a confirmed infestation, however, the units above, below, and to each side should be inspected and tenants interviewed (American Pest Control does this for you). The tenants least likely to report the problem are usually those who are heavily infested, those who have brought them with them, or those who are well aware of it. They may be terrified that they will be evicted (it's not legal, but it happens). It must be communicated that reporting will not get you in trouble. Members of the staff who see tenants every day need to convey this and are probably your best emissaries and communicators to tenants, especially if they live in the apartments.
POST on common message boards and dumpsters, if possible, that infested furniture or suspected infested furniture must be covered or wrapped before discarded. We believe it is a good investment of time for maintenance staff to supervise this in order to prevent spreading infestations. See instructions below for discarding a mattress or furniture believed to be infested ***
Amnesty for your employees - Not infrequently, employees whose homes are infested bring them to work. They may be fearful that they were the cause of the bedbug infestations in the apartments and believe that they might lose their job because of it. American Pest Control believes that the willingness of the management company to offer assistance and job protection is critical.

True story: The resident manager of an apartment building had bedbugs in his own apartment, which he was quietly trying to treat himself with very toxic chemicals. He did not report it. There began to be sporadic reports of bedbugs in the building (4 floors, 12 units each). The units were sometimes not adjacent and skipped floors, so without a pattern, all 48 units were treated at a considerable cost. At the time of treatment, his infestation (2nd floor) was discovered, as well as his sister at the other end of the hall and a good friend on the 4th floor who had children who spent the night with a tenant on the 1st floor, and so on. When they were all treated and charted, the infestation was tracked above and below and side to side of each infested apartment. But the common thread was the resident manager. Training, policy, and amnesty could have saved a bundle of money.

WHEN BEDBUGS ARE CONFIRMED IN A BUILDING

Let tenants know that they should not throw away any furniture or take it out of the apartment. If tenants insist that there are items they want to discard, the disposal should be handled by members of your staff.

*** DISPOSAL METHOD
The mattress or furniture should be covered or wrapped in the room where it is located. You can cut up big industrial trash bags and tape them together or take a roll of plastic wrap and wrap it around the item. If this is not done, bedbugs and eggs can drop off in the common halls and multipy your problem. Either before it is wrapped, or once it's in the dumpster, spray paint a big X on both sides or pour ketchup or jelly between the wrap and the mattress. People often take furniture out of the dumpster if is doesn't look ruined; so ruin it. A bedbug infested mattress or furniture could look like perfectly good furniture and infest another building.
If distressed tenants ask to move to another apartment or want to move out entirely, they must be advised that the bedbugs will move with them. Even if they leave with the only the barest necessities, the probability is still very high. Any movement should not occur until two months after treatment and no one has been bitten. If American Pest Control is treating them, we will assist you in assuring them that the biting will stop after the treatment and inform them of the risks of moving.
Post a notice in the affected building that bedbugs have been reported and volunteer inspections on the day of treatment. Better to know now than later.
In addition to assuring tenants who report problems that they won't be evicted, we suggest you be very firm if any tenant refuses recommended treatment, fails to prepare for the treatment, or refuses to leave (we cannot treat while they are there). Some management companies (at our suggestion) imposed a $50 penalty fee for failure to be prepared, and it was very effective. Non-compliance by a single tenant puts the rest of the building at risk and is ample grounds for threat of eviction. If the tenants in an apartment targeted for treatment move prior to treatment, we'll treat the empty apartment so hungry bedbugs don't start traveling the wall voids looking for a new meal ticket.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN - OUR BEST COMPLIMENT
One property manager had spoken with us off and on for several months. He had tried other companies-several companies, actually-with multiple treatments, and tenants were still getting bitten. He thought our treatment was too expensive, until he was paying for multiple visits on the same unit and then neighboring units. Then the tenants turned to a little activism. When they found community and government agencies to lean on the management company, the situation escalated. The folks controlling the purse strings allowed him a test of his toughest cases with our one-year guarantee in writing. We did the treatment, and he called in a few months to treat another apartment complex. When asked what he was hearing from the places we treated, he said, "I hear nothing, absolutely, positively, nothing. And that's the way I like it."

For more information about our bedbug treatment, please contact us.

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