Submitted by "imdone" on 07/01/2008

Todays Date is 07/01/2008
540 East 138th street
Bronx, NY 10454
Every day and night, i am suffering with bed bug bites. This building is ridiculously infested with bed bugs. I have tried everything to live more comfortably. I have washed all my clothes in hot water. I have wiped my apartment down with bleach and lysol. I have vaccumed all of my furniture and sprayed lysol on them. I dont what else to do besides call 311 or report the building owner to someone that can help. I have atleast 20 bites on both legs below the knee. My leags looks as though I have been fighting the war in iraq alone with no help. I have some very beautiful legs and it really hurts my feeling to wake up and have another bite on them. I'm tired of bying itch cream from riteaid. I'm ready to get the hell out of here. Noone should have to live like this. I am a human not an animal.

Submitted by "bedbugstories" on 07/01/2008

Clearly this extermination process was not done properly. You MUST:

Have an exterminator in that knows how to deal with bedbugs and does a THOROUGH investigation before exterminating. If the guy shows up and isn't wearing a freakin' WET SUIT, demand a new exterminator - the guy doesn't know what he's doing! They should be spraying 2 chemicals - one to dehydrate the bugs, and one to hinder their reproduction - and they should be dusting with diatomaceous earth (ground glass and particles that cut the bugs). If he's not doing this - demand a new extemrinator!!

Secondly, you must have all the apartments surrounding yours exterminated! This includes the apartments on either side of you, above and below you. Getting one apartment doesn't solve the problem because these bugs live in the walls and the floors. They crawl through cracks and outlets. If the landlord isn't doing this - you won't get rid of the bugs!

Thirdly, you must be very diligent about getting rid of these bugs yourself. You need to go through every one of your belongings, including every piece of paper, book, furniture - EVERYTHING - to make sure there are no bugs on it to start with. Then, even if you don't SEE a bug, realize that there could be a tiny egg attached to the item. YOU MUST PUT ALL OF YOUR THINGS INTO SEALED PLASTIC BINS AND BAGS AND STORE THEM FOR 18 MONTHS!! An extermination can't get to every nook and cranny when you have a building-wide infestation like this! Don't open the bag in 2 months for a pair of shoes, or in 6 months for a favorite book. Put these things into storage and don't open them for 18 months. You need to starve anything that survived, or the problem will come right back. (Bedbugs can live for over a year without feeding.)

Fourthly, you must launder EVERY single piece of fabric in your apartment in HOT (120-140 degree) water and HIGH HEAT dryer.

Fifthly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, you must have a minimum of 3 extermination rounds, although 4-5 are much better. **There is no known pesticide that can kill a bed bug egg!** Eggs hatch in 7-10 days, so you must have weekly exterminations that are thorough if you are to prevent a re-infestation.

If the landlord or your neighbors are not helping you with this process, consider moving, and when you do so, STILL KEEP ALL YOUR THINGS IN STORAGE or you may inadvertently start another infestation at your new home.

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 05/01/2008

call 311 and report it!!!! then send a registered letter via usps to the landlord/office. keep and paper trail and don't pay your rent until it gets fixed or put it in and escrow account with hdp!! tell everyone in the building to do the same!!

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 05/01/2008

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=58123348&blogID=309296816

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 04/14/2008

MANAGEMENT DOES NOT CARE!

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 10/23/2007

I have bed bugs. I moved into an apartment and woke up one morning with bugs on my futon bed. I got rid of the bed and have been trying to treat it ever since. I contacted my landlord immediately and she said no reports were ever made. Could I have brought them from my old apartment? I lived in Brooklyn for 6 years and never had any bed bugs.... Could my cat carry them? I am perplexed. I really dont know what to do. I saw a bed bug this morning on my new covered matress - a protective anti-bug cover. I killed it yet don't know where they are hiding yet... I sleep with the lights in a sleeping bag. I really don't have any significant bites... yet the bed bug was fed! gross me out. help!! I need a good experminator to help me get to the bottom of the problem. My landlord has an exterminator company yet they only spray. I really need a referral.

Submitted by "Victor" on 10/14/2007

340 Webster ave.The building is infected. All neighbours have bed bugs

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 09/19/2007

The management is trying to cover up this issue, and the statement above is mostly false information. We have bed bugs, again, for the second time since June. Bed bugs leave a trail of bites, which are distinct from mosquito bites. I have also saved the bed bugs in ziploc bags, so you can\'t deny their existence. For the managment to say this isn\'t a problem is a blatant denial of a major infestation that is occurring in their building. In the past we have had an appt. with the exterminator, who never showed. There are several apts in this building awaiting extermination today.

We have NEVER been offered a follow up appointment, contrary to what they say.

No one is making this up. You can sit in the cafe downstairs and hear one person after another talking about having this very problem. This is a very serious problem and must be taken care of immediately.

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 09/18/2007

A MESSAGE FROM BUILDING MANAGEMENT

We would like to assure everyone that each and every complaint that was received by our office was dealt with immediately and appropriately. We had an exterminator visit and inspect every apartment that called our office suspecting bed bugs and some turned out to be mosquitoes, etc; but as a precaution we had also these apartments exterminated. It’s not a building wide problem it was limited to several apartments. There isn’t anyone that was ignored and every complaint was dealt with immediately. After the exterminate visit in fact any tenant that had a problem was called by us to verify that the problem was resolved.

Please note that it might take several visits by the exterminator to completely clean an apartment. If your space was exterminated and you still have a problem please advise us immediately as we had arranged with the exterminator to come back as many times needed to get rid of the problem. If anyone else has a problem which was not reported to us please call our office and be assured that we will take care of the problem immediately.

Also, we would like to ask you to be careful with bringing in any old furniture, mattresses, etc. to the building to prevent the bed bugs from initial entry; because that is where the problem usually starts. Please note that the bed bug problem initially started by a new tenant transferring their property with the bugs from their previous location. This in addition to tenants bringing good looking furniture, mattresses, etc. from the garbage, being oblivious to the fact that it is full of bed bugs. There is no way for us to control what every tenant transports in from the street, garbage, or from any other building that is already infested.

On September 12, 2007 people started posting here about this problem. Until these posts started there wasn’t any outstanding unresolved complaint. We have documented every call received from tenants and every visit by our exterminator. Looking back on all the posts there isn’t anyone complaining to state “I currently have a bed bug problem”. They’re talking about history or just suggesting what to do if there is a problem. In fact current tenants’ posts are that they don’t have any problems. Some of these posters don’t even live in the building and seem to have an agenda other than curing the problem. One previous tenant is actually using these posts for reasons of their own, namely to try to clean their credit record ruined by their eviction for non- payment, as well as trying to get company in their misery. And as some bloggers suggested; there are here wild accusations some with mosquito bites etc.

Submitted by "Laura" on 09/17/2007

Roommates notice bites, find bugs. We exterminate successfully the fist time. They crop up again in April 2007. One roommate experiences bites far more than the rest of us. She leaves to travel Europe for a month, and they move on to my room. We exterminate professionally, and clean everything. I go on vacation. Apparently the bugs move next door. I come back from vacation, and am still getting bitten. We exterminate AGAIN, wash everything we have, spray pesticides all over, tape over cracks and holes, but it does nothing.

I move out.

The entire building is infested. Check the myspace blog of the building here: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=58123348&blogID=309296816

Submitted by "Anonymous" on 09/17/2007

175 Stockholm St. 1st floor. I fought them for 5 months, thew out almost everything I own, slept on a bare camping mattress in an empty room. The fight isn\'t worth it. I should have ran the first day I learned what a bedbug is.

Bed bug extermination is a careful expensive science your landlord must take care of. Just spraying isn\'t enough.

The landlord kept trying to bill US for the extermination! Then I talked to a public lawyer in downtown Brooklyn and she said billing the tenet is insane.

Document everything. Put bugs under glass. Take pictures of bugs and bites with a newspaper in the shot to verify the date. E-mail the photo\'s to your landlord and set your own terms for extermination or moving out. Just, for the love of god, don\'t bring them with you. I still have most of my stuff sealed in bags in trashcans in a friend\'s backyard.

Submitted by "a.o." on 09/13/2007

I moved in May 1st. By May 3rd I was getting bit. I'm subletting (all 4 of us are) so we contacted our guy, and he was good about having exterminators come in. Too bad the mgt company is lazy and hires crappy exterminators. they would leave for a day or two, then come back.
I've been here for 5 months, and for the first 3 I was the only one getting bit. When i left for vacation in August, my other roomates started getting bit and seeing the bugs. The apt was sprayed twice in August and once in Sept.
I don't sleep in my room. all my belongings are tied up in plastic bags. I keep a bag of clothes at work that i wash weekly so i don't worry about transporting them on my clothes. I sleep on a futon in the living room, and I don't get bit there, so at least they only live in the bedrooms.
in the past month no one has had troubles, but our neighbors still do, which means we just shifted the problem a room over.
i had two matress covers on my matress (a very expensive memory foam matress that i had to throw out), and took my bedding out of my room every day. i have spent hundreds washing my clothes and fabrics, and buying bug spray (which works for about 15 minutes). i've sprinkled diatimacious earth and covered things in petroleum jelly, and every other trick i can think of.
until the mgt company takes this seriously, there will always be a problem.
but i am leaving. i can't wait for them to fix things anymore.

Submitted by "Jay" on 09/12/2007

I lived in Apartment M of 248 McKibben St. We told the landlord several times there were bedbugs. Some people that slept there were bitten dozens of times. They seemed to come in through the ceiling on the Bushwick St. side of the building towards the karate studio. The landlord sometimes sent in some amatuer exterminator and it did nothing and we informed him the bugs were still there. Nothing was done. They got worse and worse. We would fumigate all the time, threw out all mattresses, half our belongings, covered bedposts in vaseline, the list goes on. THE LANDLORD HAS KNOWN FOR ALMOST A YEAR THAT THERE ARE BEDBUGS IN THE BUILDING. The cost of getting them out is extraordinary, yes, but obviously a must. THEY DID NOT CARE. I would say I was bitten everyday for half a year and it took me about another half a year to be able to sleep straight through the night without waking up and looking for them on my body. I would be willing to do anything to have justice served in this situation. I lost some petty things, but for a family with children to have bedbugs because of ignorance is horrid.

Submitted by "j" on 09/12/2007

They crawl at night and suck our blood, they are everywhere in this building. We remove them with diatomaceous earth and spraying and all that stuff but they still come through once in awhile from neighbors apartments. The whole building needs to be sprayed at once.

Submitted by "AngryNYC" on 07/17/2007

Bed bugs at THE Hotel in Madalay Bay comples

Submitted by "jsm" on 07/02/2007

248 McKibben Street is KNOWN by real estate brokers for having Bed Bugs- STAY AWAY from that Building!
Young people find fuerniture in the streets that is infested with bed bugs and bring the furniture back into the building - and because there is such a denial at the management as well as with some tenants - these lofts are infested

Submitted by "YURI" on 06/22/2007

AT FIRST I SAW ONE AND THOUGHT IT WAS OK BUT WHEN I WOKE UP INTHE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT I TURNED ONTHE LIGHT AND SAW A SWARM OF THEM IN MY BED AND THEN I WOKE MY KIDS UP AND SAW THAT THEY TO HAD ALOT IN THEIR BED

Submitted by "YURI" on 06/22/2007

AT FIRST I SAW ONE AND THOUGHT IT WAS OK BUT WHEN I WOKE UP INTHE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT I TURNED ONTHE LIGHT AND SAW A SWARM OF THEM IN MY BED AND THEN I WOKE MY KIDS UP AND SAW THAT THEY TO HAD ALOT IN THEIR BED

Submitted by "bill" on 06/04/2007

As a tenant living in the building for a couple of years, I was surprised to see the building posted on this site for having bed bugs. And the best of it all is to read people claiming that this has gone on for years! As far as I know, there was one tenant that moved in recently and had brought along the bed bugs from their previous location. The management had an exterminator come down to the building to take care of that incident. In fact, I asked some of my neighbors if they had seen any bed bugs in their apartment and they confirmed that they haven't. After meeting the exterminator in the building, I inquired about this and was told that the bed bugs are all gone and that only one or two apartments actually had them. It seems to me that the original tenant who brought in the bed bugs got evicted, and so they are taking revenge this way.

Submitted by "na" on 05/30/2007

my next door neighbor has been putting furniture in the hallway for the last week. i thought they were remodeling, but find that she has bed bugs.
she reported them last friday. the city was supposed to come within 72 hours. they didn't show up. the building manager of my building has been placing me on hold and never returning to the phone all morning. i finally learn from the receptionist that an exterminator is supposed to come on Wednesday June 6. The management company is unwilling to take preventative measures; i have to wait for an infestation of my apartment before they'll take any action.

Submitted by "melissa" on 05/17/2007

There have been several apartments throughout our building that have had bed bugs during the four years that I have lived there. Well we finally get them although the management denies responsibility. They tell us we brought them in and refuse to treat it. Eventually they do ,but it doesn't work we try several things on our own to get rid of them, but to no avail . They spray again , well the stuffthey uses I think makes me and my kids sick! Now I have no furniture and have gotten rid of almost all clothing and many stuffed animals and new toys . today i come home to find an amendum to the lease on my dooor stating that bed bugs do not migrate from apartment to apartment and we will be financially responsible. A Terminex representative signs it as well. Funnny thing is I go online to the terminex website to read their bed bugs info and low and behold contradictory to the amendum signed by a terminex rep , they have it posted that they do migrate from apartment to apartment.

Submitted by "friend" on 05/07/2007

They are annoying. There are some things to do that don't involve spraying posion, which hurts the people in the long term as the bugs are smart enough to leave, then come back.

food grade diatomaceous earth (not the stuff they use in pools.

vaccum everyday, empty vaccum immediately. They will crawl right out if you don't...

use plastic coverings on mattresses

Cover bed frame legs with petoleum jelly. This will trap bugs that try to migrate to your bed from other areas in the apartment.

Submitted by "Jason \"bedbug\" Destroyer" on 05/01/2007

They don't ever seem to disappear. You spray foggers, poison, etc etc etc etc and they don't disappear, theres 60 apartments, they just flee from the dangers and when its all settled they come back. Its a never ending battle and it makes me want to move out of nyc because they are everywhere. In pretty much every apartment I have ever lived in, I don't complain because it never gets me anywhere, but these are my observations. They serve no purpose in life, I wish they did because then I would welcome them with open arms.

Submitted by "KW" on 04/26/2007

I have noticed bedbugs over several months. We have constantly fought with the landlord, and they say they will send an exterminator, but they often lie and don't. If you move here, you will get bedbugs, because the management doesn't care, as all the tenants are young and have no money to fight them. I personally have 3 welts that have not dissapeared in 3 months. My roomate doesn't even sleep in our apartment anymore.

Submitted by "CC" on 04/18/2007

Moved in March 1. April 8, girlfriend notices welts. They increase over the next couple of days. We see a bug in our bed. Research online and discover photos of bed bugs which matches the bug we saw. Exterminator inspects the place and says it's infested - that the whole building may be infested. Eggs are found in various places in the apartment. Stay away!!!!