Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

July 09, 2008 20:57 +0000 | Cities 5

A good friend of mine has been going through hell lately with a bedbug infestation in her Church & Wellsley apartment. For my part, I'd only heard of the little bastards when I returned to Vancouver this year and my brother recounted his own horrible experience with them. My understanding though is that they are beyond horrible.

With that in mind, I thought that I might direct you to an interesting site Lara posted on her own blog called The Bed Bug Registry. They have interactive maps of known infestations in various cities including Vancouver and Toronto as well as a reporting system you can (and should) use to help out other apartment seekers.

Comments

Robin Badr
10 Jul 2008, 1:48 p.m. |

Remember your/our old building at 40 Gerrard st. E in TO? Four floors (mine included) were fumigated for bedbugs AND roaches a month before I moved out. Didn't see any bedbugs myself, but I did flick the kitchen light on one night and saw at least five roaches scurry away from my cat's food dish. And even after the the fumigation the bugs were still around. Needless to say, I'm glad to be out of there.

Daniel
10 Jul 2008, 3:08 p.m. |

No kidding! Where are you now?

Lara
10 Jul 2008, 4:54 p.m. |

The Vancouver map actually looks scarier to me than the Toronto one .. maybe I'm not so clear on Vancouver geography but it looks like you pretty much have to be in the suburbs or outskirts of the city to not have a serious risk of infestation, whereas in Toronto it's really clustered around that one part of the downtown core.

Thanks for posting this. People need to spread the word about bedbugs in the city so they are better informed about how to protect themselves.

As for the people who live in supposedly infested buildings but never have any problems, bedbugs seem to favour certain people over others (which is why Ryan can sleep in the same bed as me and wake up unscathed when I am covered in welts). So anyone who lives in an apartment with a reported problem who isn't experiencing any issues themselves still needs to be extra careful when they're moving or visiting people (bedbugs can travel in clothing and bags as well as furniture and even electronics), to avoid infesting anyone else.

I hope big cities start taking serious measures to eliminate bedbugs. After they were eradicated in the 40s or 50s they were almost nonexistent in North America until recently .. and now no one uses proper pest control methods for them because they were thought to've been eliminated. WELL THEY'RE BACK.

Robin
10 Jul 2008, 11:58 p.m. |

I'm in Roncesvalles Village now, just east of High Park. It's a basement suite with way more character than the box I was living in before. Free laundry and even a backyard! What this means to you is you have a place to crash next time you visit. Yay for friends with perks!

Daniel
11 Jul 2008, 4:30 a.m. |

Oh that's a beautiful neighbourhood! Have you been to Krack yet? (At least, I think that that's the name). It's a restaurant on Roncesvalles between Queen and Bloor... somewhere on the east side (sorry I don't remember more). Stephen and I went there once and the soup was lovely.