Bedbugs, cockroaches and other vermin continue to torment Hamilton residents, and exact a big budgetary bite as well.

More than 1,000 bedbug and cockroach treatments have been administered to five CityHousing Hamilton (CHH) buildings alone so far this year.

Meanwhile, the city has received more than 300 rat complaints — already a 150 per cent increase over total rat calls recorded three years ago, coming on the heels of a record 349 complaints last year.

A board of health report tabled this week says the majority of "health hazard" calls from residents, totalling 838 in the first half of 2017, are related to pests and have been increasing each year.

The city's war on vermin is a costly one. At CHH, the city's social housing agency, the budget for pest control was $300,000 eight years ago; that budget for 2017 is $1.3 million, or 11 per cent of its maintenance budget.

"It comes out of the pot of money that we need for windows, furnaces, roof repairs," said Coun. Chad Collins, who serves on the CHH board as president, adding that many of the buildings were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

One of the buildings receiving bedbug treatments is at 555 Queenston Rd., a large L-shaped apartment complex.

A tenant, Avril Goldie, phoned the Spectator to voice her pest concerns, and has contacted Collins repeatedly about the issue.

She goes so far as to suggest that tenants in the building are ostracized; for example, she says a delivery person from a local store refused to bring a new mattress to her unit for fear of bedbugs, and instead left it outside.

Goldie is critical of the city's response, but her building this year has received 42 bedbug treatments and 115 for cockroaches. Collins said in the context of other CHH-managed buildings, that places it in the middle of the pack.

He added that the city replaced all common area carpets in the building last year at a cost of $200,000 and the bigger issue with the building, where his grandmother and great grandparents lived, is window replacement.

Part of what frustrates Goldie, who has lived in her building four years, is that she keeps her apartment spotless.

"But it doesn't matter if I'm a clean freak, that doesn't stop the bugs … I had never seen a bedbug in my life, I only heard about them in nursery rhymes; 'sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite.' I had only been here a year when I saw something crawling across my body and I jumped and saw the thing."

Bedbugs are arguably the most serious pest issue in the city, given how they torment those afflicted.

They can surface anywhere, which belies the stereotype that they impact only those living in poverty or unkempt conditions.

Part of the city's three-year strategy on bedbugs, launched in 2016, is to reduce that stigma; a campaign slogan is "bedbugs love everyone."

Bedbugs go back thousands of years, research suggests they originally fed off bats and then humans living in caves. They experienced a renaissance about 15 years ago; prior to that they were kept at bay through pesticides like DDT, but developed a mutation making them immune.

The increase in affordable air travel has also contributed to their comeback; bedbugs can hide in tiny crevices and cracks and travel long distances in luggage, clothing, and vehicles. A female bedbug can lay about 300 eggs.

Collins said any place where people gather is at risk: movie theatres, libraries, buses, and even city hall, which has been sprayed multiple times.

"Wherever people are, they can carry (the bugs) with them, that's how they spread, they don't discriminate between people who have money or don't … I know people who have gone on really nice vacations and come home with them."

Tenants at a privately-owned building on Wentworth Street South recently held a rally to protest living conditions there, including bedbugs and cockroaches and mice, and what they loudly proclaimed was the landlord's indifferent response.

Some residents showed a Spec reporter red marks dotting their arms and legs they said were bites. (That same morning, as they carried signs and chanted slogans, a van from a pest control company contacted by the landlord showed up.)

Most bedbug and cockroach complaints the city receives are from residents who say landlords are not responding to their concerns.

A property standards bylaw requires all property owners to keep their buildings free of pest infestations. According to the city, a public health officer will investigate complaints, and if evidence of an infestation is found will order the owner to take measures that may include hiring a pest control operator.

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A tenant in a place on Forest Avenue said he was so exasperated at delays in having his unit cleaned of bedbugs that he phoned the police.

And Bill Pearson, who rents a unit in a house on Holton Street, says he has to wear long johns to bed to avoid bedbug bites.

"I swaddle myself in blankets, the bedbugs are really bad," said Pearson. "This has been going on three years now. (The landlord) keeps saying that he sprayed it last year."

Pearson, 58, who lives on disability payments to cover his $490/month rent, says he keeps his apartment clean but also has cockroaches, and dreads winter arriving because the mice will return.

Rebecca Allan, who rents in a building owned by the Kiwanis community service organization on Barton Street East, said she is plagued by the bugs and roaches.

She believes her concerns about pests are met with deaf ears because of the building's location in the east end.

But a Kiwanis official said that while there have been "isolated" cases of bedbugs in that building, Kiwanis has a comprehensive treatment strategy to react to bedbug complaints with cleaning treatments.

"We take our responsibility seriously, and are proud of our record on this," said Mike Elliott, treasurer on the Kiwanis board of directors. "But it is a two-way partnership with tenants."

The cleaning preparation stage, which is time-consuming and requires patience, can be daunting to tenants, particularly to those with busy or challenging day-to-day lives.

It involves cleaning all laundry and bagging the clothes, and living out of those bags a couple of weeks, before spraying is done.

"You want to snap your fingers and have the treatment done, but the prep work is critical," said Elliott.

Moreover, after that whole cleaning process is complete, a second treatment, and preparation cycle, is usually necessary.