Bedbugs in the West End? - Not New
Thursday, 20. March 2008, 00:23:35
It was on the news the last few days. I have to wonder how they didn't see that coming? There have been enormous outbreaks of infestation in the east end for at least a couple of years. I've blogged about it for at least two. The health department knew it, I spoke to them about it. The social worker (I am on disability) I spoke to about my fears of the infestation knew all about it. It was someone from the department of health who told me about lavender, also boric acid, but I knew about that already. I took the photo below in August 2006, when the problem as already being addressed in our building in east Vancouver.
I grew lavender on my balcony, it was sprinkled into my carpet on rinsed into the bed sheets. Now I understand why in the old country people, old people, did that. I was horrified at the thought of being infested. we looked into better housing but that is easier said than done on what disability allows for shelter.
I had read about bedbugs in vancouver dating back to 2004. They didn't see it coming? Example of previously know instances; http://bedbugregistry.com/location/BC/V5L/Vancouver/1855-E-Georgia-St/ , just run a Google search on "bedbugs vancouver 2004 2005 2006" and there is plenty. So why claim this is new to Vancouver? Why blame overseas travel? More like it's not a problem as long as it happens to the poor and destitute. Short sighted thinking. eventually if you don't deal with it from the beginning, it will spread. Just like tuberculosis is going to spread, and an assortment of other maladies. There will be roaches everywhere, bedbugs in the best hotels during the Olympics. Shameful. Where does the fault lie.
The commentators blame overseas travel as the source. well guaranteed on the pitiful disability and welfare allowances for shelter and food we are not traveling abroad and bringing them back with us. What utter crap. It just means no one wants to take responsibility for having turned a blind eye to a part of the population crying out for better circumstances and not being listened to, not a bit. The poor are being wished away and swept under the carpet.
Well, last summer we found one. I went berserk, I took it as a personal failing that it happened to me. Even though I knew the building manager had not, even with professionals on the job. managed to get it under control in the "red zone" units. As I mentioned I am disabled. I struggle to maintain an acceptable level of housekeeping. Eight years ago I was assessed by the health department as requiring daily help with my housekeeping and very briefly someone came in to help me, but then the government changed and all the services ended. I am not the only disabled or elderly person struggling just with the daily housekeeping, there are many. I spend so much of my day that it it leaves little to no time and energy for anything else, like enjoying my life, or seeing a friend now and then. It feels a lot like punishment, though I've done nothing wrong. I am fighting war against squalor and there is no government department who will help directly.
As I was saying we found one last summer, now it may have been a straggler brought in from the hallway or even elsewhere, but tat didn't matter, what mattered was it was here and we could not know how settled it had become. So we searched the Internet for solutions beyond the lavender and boric acid. We found a product called "Thwart" and ordered it, the testimonials seemed real enough and their claims supported. We spend a full and exhausting week cleaning everything inside out and spraying as directed. It isn't toxic to an or pets so we could stay in,and if it worked not one stick of furniture needed to be discarded. Within a couple of weeks no other had made an appearance and with the stuff active for six months we could relax a little. Just to be completely safe we also bought, at London Drugs, something called diatomaceous earth, (read about it here: http://www.tallmanscientific.com/bed-bug-control.php and here http://biopestcontrol.com/html/diatom_dust.html) basically dried sharp edge diatoms as found in seawater, so sharp it cuts into he bugs walking over it and dehydrates them from the outside in, whereas the boric acid works when licked off dehydrating them from the inside out. We did both. Our landlord (whatever the typical image of a landlord in the east side) refunded the outlay of the spray bought on-line and the manager delighted that it had worked. So there was hope.
The battle however is ongoing. As long as there is poverty and insufficient help for those who need it, whether it is better housing, more expendable income to take care of an infestation, or housekeeping for those too ill to it for themselves. For as long as there are the poor, the rest of the population will blame them, the poor here, and the poor abroad, even though, as mentioned before, we can't afford to travel. Poverty will keep infestations like this and others, communicable illnesses, addictions, mental illness and crime which uses the desperation of the poor to let them do the dirty work with promises of getting them out of the rut. The poor will use discarded items keep or resell items and not know they are infested and it starts again elsewhere. Bugs don't care if you are rich or poor, as long as your blood is warm.
It is hard not to smile a little when hearing t hit the other side of the city has the problem now too, but really i ant the problem and others like it to be addressed ad eliminated - for all of us. I once lived in the west End for 12 years, my kids went to school there and I worked there. Then I became ill with a progressive neurological illness and dependent on the safety net. The same one I had paid into for thirty years. Only to find out it had gaping holes that no one is/was interested in fixing. Disillusioned that I had been taken advantage of all the years I worked, and now had to skip meals to afford some bedbug diatomaceous dust.
You skip meals for every little added expense, or when the price of something like a loaf of bread goes up. My days are taken up with cleaning which hurts and exhausts me. To depersonalise and insult the disabled further we no longer have our own workers, we are numbers only. Find it insulting that disability has no distinction, our cheques are the same as welfare checks, I feel insults us, and we are given no system of our own, trained to help us specially.
When the hoops are just too hard to jump through, you make do, because there is no energy to fight for your rights and needs. Forced to live as we are, when we have no energy left for housekeeping at all, the bugs, the rats, and crime will take what little there is left. Reality is that many if not most of us cannot work, we get progressively weaker. The mayor's much applauded plan to have many disabled working during the Olympics disregards those of us who struggle for a breath, a day upright, and a future of worse days. The Mayor insults and ignores us, much like the province does. We live in fear, and listen to announcements of surplus, corporate bailouts, expensive studies into problems which are obvious and have obvious answers. Pardon me if I smile a little. You might want to think about he spread of old foes such as tuberculosis, because now is he time to do something, the bedbug is a warning.
The best way to deal with crime, mental illness and the spread of these plagues is to address poverty, not by studying it, but by making sure everyone has their basic needs - food, shelter, safety, belonging and acceptance (love), health - met and their dignity back. Until that is done, here will be plagues and outbreaks on your side of the city as well as mine, I was mugged a few months ago, and there have been robberies in Kerrisdale too. When it happens to the other side I cannot help smile,but it comes from my pain. Fix it and we can all smile for far better reasons.
At least I have housing,my own bathroom and I have my dog. Life is tenuous when you are poor, and most of the poor here are either disabled as a result of poverty or became this poor because of a disability. You live here in a daily sense of loss and a fear of future losses.
So pardon me if I smile a little that the other side has some bedbugs, at least they can afford it. If the other side wants to prevent this sort of thing they are going to have to address poverty. Instead of bailing out corporations perhaps they should work on a real safety net and rid this city of its poverty, now that, and not the Olympics would be a true achievement.
other articles I've written on the topic: http://my.opera.com/alettames/blog/show.dml/271571 http://my.opera.com/alettames/blog/tenancyuncertain?cid=3995978
I grew lavender on my balcony, it was sprinkled into my carpet on rinsed into the bed sheets. Now I understand why in the old country people, old people, did that. I was horrified at the thought of being infested. we looked into better housing but that is easier said than done on what disability allows for shelter.
I had read about bedbugs in vancouver dating back to 2004. They didn't see it coming? Example of previously know instances; http://bedbugregistry.com/location/BC/V5L/Vancouver/1855-E-Georgia-St/ , just run a Google search on "bedbugs vancouver 2004 2005 2006" and there is plenty. So why claim this is new to Vancouver? Why blame overseas travel? More like it's not a problem as long as it happens to the poor and destitute. Short sighted thinking. eventually if you don't deal with it from the beginning, it will spread. Just like tuberculosis is going to spread, and an assortment of other maladies. There will be roaches everywhere, bedbugs in the best hotels during the Olympics. Shameful. Where does the fault lie.
The commentators blame overseas travel as the source. well guaranteed on the pitiful disability and welfare allowances for shelter and food we are not traveling abroad and bringing them back with us. What utter crap. It just means no one wants to take responsibility for having turned a blind eye to a part of the population crying out for better circumstances and not being listened to, not a bit. The poor are being wished away and swept under the carpet.
Well, last summer we found one. I went berserk, I took it as a personal failing that it happened to me. Even though I knew the building manager had not, even with professionals on the job. managed to get it under control in the "red zone" units. As I mentioned I am disabled. I struggle to maintain an acceptable level of housekeeping. Eight years ago I was assessed by the health department as requiring daily help with my housekeeping and very briefly someone came in to help me, but then the government changed and all the services ended. I am not the only disabled or elderly person struggling just with the daily housekeeping, there are many. I spend so much of my day that it it leaves little to no time and energy for anything else, like enjoying my life, or seeing a friend now and then. It feels a lot like punishment, though I've done nothing wrong. I am fighting war against squalor and there is no government department who will help directly.
As I was saying we found one last summer, now it may have been a straggler brought in from the hallway or even elsewhere, but tat didn't matter, what mattered was it was here and we could not know how settled it had become. So we searched the Internet for solutions beyond the lavender and boric acid. We found a product called "Thwart" and ordered it, the testimonials seemed real enough and their claims supported. We spend a full and exhausting week cleaning everything inside out and spraying as directed. It isn't toxic to an or pets so we could stay in,and if it worked not one stick of furniture needed to be discarded. Within a couple of weeks no other had made an appearance and with the stuff active for six months we could relax a little. Just to be completely safe we also bought, at London Drugs, something called diatomaceous earth, (read about it here: http://www.tallmanscientific.com/bed-bug-control.php and here http://biopestcontrol.com/html/diatom_dust.html) basically dried sharp edge diatoms as found in seawater, so sharp it cuts into he bugs walking over it and dehydrates them from the outside in, whereas the boric acid works when licked off dehydrating them from the inside out. We did both. Our landlord (whatever the typical image of a landlord in the east side) refunded the outlay of the spray bought on-line and the manager delighted that it had worked. So there was hope.
The battle however is ongoing. As long as there is poverty and insufficient help for those who need it, whether it is better housing, more expendable income to take care of an infestation, or housekeeping for those too ill to it for themselves. For as long as there are the poor, the rest of the population will blame them, the poor here, and the poor abroad, even though, as mentioned before, we can't afford to travel. Poverty will keep infestations like this and others, communicable illnesses, addictions, mental illness and crime which uses the desperation of the poor to let them do the dirty work with promises of getting them out of the rut. The poor will use discarded items keep or resell items and not know they are infested and it starts again elsewhere. Bugs don't care if you are rich or poor, as long as your blood is warm.
It is hard not to smile a little when hearing t hit the other side of the city has the problem now too, but really i ant the problem and others like it to be addressed ad eliminated - for all of us. I once lived in the west End for 12 years, my kids went to school there and I worked there. Then I became ill with a progressive neurological illness and dependent on the safety net. The same one I had paid into for thirty years. Only to find out it had gaping holes that no one is/was interested in fixing. Disillusioned that I had been taken advantage of all the years I worked, and now had to skip meals to afford some bedbug diatomaceous dust.
You skip meals for every little added expense, or when the price of something like a loaf of bread goes up. My days are taken up with cleaning which hurts and exhausts me. To depersonalise and insult the disabled further we no longer have our own workers, we are numbers only. Find it insulting that disability has no distinction, our cheques are the same as welfare checks, I feel insults us, and we are given no system of our own, trained to help us specially.
When the hoops are just too hard to jump through, you make do, because there is no energy to fight for your rights and needs. Forced to live as we are, when we have no energy left for housekeeping at all, the bugs, the rats, and crime will take what little there is left. Reality is that many if not most of us cannot work, we get progressively weaker. The mayor's much applauded plan to have many disabled working during the Olympics disregards those of us who struggle for a breath, a day upright, and a future of worse days. The Mayor insults and ignores us, much like the province does. We live in fear, and listen to announcements of surplus, corporate bailouts, expensive studies into problems which are obvious and have obvious answers. Pardon me if I smile a little. You might want to think about he spread of old foes such as tuberculosis, because now is he time to do something, the bedbug is a warning.
The best way to deal with crime, mental illness and the spread of these plagues is to address poverty, not by studying it, but by making sure everyone has their basic needs - food, shelter, safety, belonging and acceptance (love), health - met and their dignity back. Until that is done, here will be plagues and outbreaks on your side of the city as well as mine, I was mugged a few months ago, and there have been robberies in Kerrisdale too. When it happens to the other side I cannot help smile,but it comes from my pain. Fix it and we can all smile for far better reasons.
At least I have housing,my own bathroom and I have my dog. Life is tenuous when you are poor, and most of the poor here are either disabled as a result of poverty or became this poor because of a disability. You live here in a daily sense of loss and a fear of future losses.
So pardon me if I smile a little that the other side has some bedbugs, at least they can afford it. If the other side wants to prevent this sort of thing they are going to have to address poverty. Instead of bailing out corporations perhaps they should work on a real safety net and rid this city of its poverty, now that, and not the Olympics would be a true achievement.
other articles I've written on the topic: http://my.opera.com/alettames/blog/show.dml/271571 http://my.opera.com/alettames/blog/tenancyuncertain?cid=3995978
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