A few bed bugs have conquered the control tower at the 71st/Continental Ave Station

NY Daily News 

A pesky bed bug infestation at a key subway control tower in Queens isn’t going away — and the bloodsuckers could chew up service for the second time in less than week.

More bed bugs were discovered at the facility Monday, five days after the space was shut down during rush hour to be fumigated — a move that caused major delays for thousands of riders across nine different subway lines.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tim Minton said “one bug” was spotted at the Continental Master Control Tower in Forest Hills on Monday — and that exterminators would again be brought in to fumigate the facility after the evening rush.

“It is conceivable that this bug originated somewhere other than these premises,” said Minton. “We cannot conclude and we do not conclude that the source was internal.”

But transit workers at the tower have complained for weeks about bed bugs in the facility. Union officials and employees with knowledge of the situation charged bosses didn’t take the problem seriously.

An MTA employee with direct knowledge of the situation accused transit officials of a coverup, and said a general superintendent was to blame for the ongoing infestation.

Frank Jezycki, NYC Transit’s chief operating officer for subways, admitted to the Daily News that an exterminator verified the presence of bed bugs at the tower on Jan. 8 and treated the facility.

Jezycki said a manager then identified more bed bugs on Jan. 22 — but the MTA’s exterminator showed up quicker than usual.

Jezycki said said the agency’s exterminator, Abalon Pest Control, has a 24-hour window to respond to complaints, but the company’s worker arrived at the tower just before rush hour, which ended up causing serious headaches for riders.

“There was a truck down the block, a guy says he’s here to treat,” said Jezycki. “We had folks there that put together a contingency plan for service.”

That contingency plan was a nightmare.

Operators who work in the infested control tower direct train traffic through a key relay switch on the E, F, M and R lines.

Crews were unable to direct trains through a crucial interlocking while the building was fumigated last Wednesday, and the lapse caused 236 trains to be delayed and another 117 to be canceled, according to an MTA incident report obtained by The News.

Eric Loegel, vice president of rapid transit operations at Transport Workers Union Local 100, said gripes that the bed bugs may have been living in a set of cloth chairs at the facility went ignored by a tower manager.

There was also this little tidbit closing the Gothamist post on this latest transit disgrace:

Following last week's outbreak, NYC Transit President Andy Byford issued a statement apologizing to customers affected by the delays and assuring employees that they were working to ensure their safety. A few hours later, he announced his resignation.

I mentioned on the Twitter a few times that this was the final straw that caused Byford to snap and say goodbye to all that. Among the myriad other things I point out on Impunity City.

LIC hotel alleged to have bedbugs

From the Queens Tribune:

The Ramada Hotel in Long Island City has bed bugs in Room 303, at least two guests who stayed there said.

On Sept. 19, a couple experienced exactly this when staying at Ramada Hotel in Long Island City. Gym teacher Steven McCarthy of Jamaica and his girlfriend were savagely bitten more than 40 times in room 303 by the tiny insects.

“We were horrified,” McCarthy said. “We immediately went to complain.”

He said he called 311 to report the problem and was even more shocked at the response he got.

“They told me I had to schedule an appointment to investigate the hotel room,” McCarthy explained with a laugh. “I told them I wasn’t there anymore. I didn’t live there.”

The couple reached out to the Department of Housing and Preservation inspectors, they responded, but the hotel refused inspectors to be allowed to enter the premises after four attempts to do so.

“Are they still renting out that room?” McCarthy wondered aloud. “I just think people should know about this.”

- See more at: http://queenstribune.com/bed-bugs-attack-couple-in-lic-hotel-room/#sthash.MYxEqP7n.dpuf

Avella calls for shut down of Pan Am homeless shelter

From the Queens Courier:

State Sen. Tony Avella has joined the opposition to the planned conversion of an emergency homeless shelter at the former Pan American Hotel into a permanent facility due to what he called “horrendous” conditions at the site.

Avella, who is chairman of the Senate’s Social Services Committee, joined residents and local leaders to speak out against the proposal to convert the shelter at 7900 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst to a permanent facility under a $42 million contract with the city.

“It is an outrage to take an abandoned hotel, warehouse homeless families inside it, ignore shocking City Code and HPD violations, waste an exorbitant amount of taxpayer dollars in the process, and then award a $42 million contract to a questionable-at-best organization, making the entire situation permanent,” Avella said.

According to the senator, the shelter houses over 700 residents, made up of families of which many have small children. Each unit at the shelter holds four to five people.

Because the shelter uses former hotel rooms, they are not equipped with cooking facilities. The senator and organizations such as Elmhurst United claim this goes against a NYC Administrative Code requiring that each unit at a family shelter have a kitchen, and in order to do this, there would need to be major renovations at the site.

The shelter has also had a large number of violations such as failure to provide hot water or heat for days, reports of bed bugs, peeling of lead paint in one unit, and garbage left sitting in front of the entrance to the children’s play area, according to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Due to all these conditions, Avella said he calls on the city to reject the contract that would covert the former hotel into a permanent homeless shelter because he believes it is “not fit for long-term housing for the homeless.”

Pan Am shelter brings additional crime to Elmhurst

COMET has published stats from the 110 Pct, which include the crimes committed at the Pan Am homeless shelter:

Gee, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. In addition, the residents have complained about bedbugs, which are certainly being distributed to local area schools.

(But if you take the press seriously, then the real problem is Asians with signs about hobos.)

Bedbugs now aboard the 7 train...

From WPIX:

Bedbugs are now apparently taking advantage of the free subway transfer.

The MTA is investigating a report that bedbugs were spotted on the No. 7 train Tuesday morning, according to Business Insider.

A rider told the website he spotted the bugs coming out from under a seat on a Manhattan bound train.

If true, it will be the third line to become infected with bedbugs in the past week.

Oh what fun it is to ride the lines!

From the Daily News:

Bedbugs were discovered on at least three subway trains on the N line this week, authorities said.

Two trains were taken out of service Sunday after the unwanted riders were found onboard some cars, officials said. And on Tuesday, a third N train was also sent to the Coney Island yard in Brooklyn for fumigation. Some of the bugs were found in seat cushions in train cabs, which are used by conductors and motormen, sources said.

“When we found them, we exterminated them,” said Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Adam Lisberg.

LIC's DOH building infested with bedbugs

From the Daily News:

New York City Department of Health employees are biting mad about a bed bug infestation at the department's Long Island City office building.

After frantic reports of sightings over the past several weeks, higher-ups notified employees in an email late Tuesday night that live bug colonies had been found on the tower's 11th floor.

"Although in the past we have found individual bed bugs, we have for the first time in the past week found a group of bed bugs living in one area of the 11th floor of the building," the message read.

It was the first official acknowledgement to staff of the scourge, which has been going on for "several weeks" and includes bug sightings on at least three floors, sources complained.

Bedbugs at DOH HQ

From the NY Post:

The Health Department is trying to sweep a bedbug problem at its shimmering Long Island City headquarters under the rug, sources told The Post.

“We’re the Health Department, and they don’t let us know, they don’t keep us informed. I was told they don’t want mass hysteria — but people have a right to know,” a source told The Post.

At least five floors have so far been affected by the six-legged scourge, sources said, but agency higher ups are not being up front about the problem.

The agency confirmed a “small number” of bedbugs were found, but said the building was inspected and there was no evidence of infestation, so therefore the bedbugs were likely “hitchhikers.”

Nasty living in Greenpoint

From the Daily News:

The rent is so damn low in a Greenpoint flophouse that residents - many who pay under $300 a month - refuse to leave despite an infestation of rats, bedbugs, and even silverfish.

Nearly three dozens tenants of the Greenpoint Hotel on Manhattan Ave. are suing landlord Jay Deutchman citing disgusting living conditions such as vermin, collapsing ceilings, and shared flooded hallway bathrooms replete with a nauseating odor.

“It’s the only thing I got,” said Anthony Mirabal, 45, who pays nothing to live in the single-room-occupancy (SRO) building in squalor.

Mirabel, a retired U.S. customs agent, said he won a case against the building’s previous owner receiving a six-year rent credit and is now taking Deutchman to court because the place has become inhabitable.

Department of Housing Preservation and Development records showed 514 open violations connected to the various addresses of the Greenpoint Hotel - 66 Clay St. and 1109 - 113 Manhattan Ave.

And things are so bad that the agency is also suing Deutchman.

Tenants’ advocates said Deutchman - who took over the building in 2009 - is purposely letting the place rot hoping to push out the poor occupants and hike up the rents.

This slumlord has quite a rep in Rockaway as well.

Kids are snug as bedbugs in rugs

From DNA Info:

Bed bugs have been found in 15 classrooms at P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights since September, according to the Department of Education.

The school, which is located at 77-02 37th Ave., has a history of bed bugs, according to parents and reports. At the end of the 2012 school year, for example, an outbreak cost parent Shirley Encarnacion more than $2,000 in extermination fees.

"I ended up getting bed bugs in my house," Encarnacion, 32, said. "It was horrendous. I'm scarred by it. I still get up in the middle of the night and check."

District 30 schools, including P.S. 69, have been receiving complaints of bed bugs since as early as 2006, according to a 2007 report in the Queens Gazette.

A woman at P.S. 69 who identified herself as an assistant principal declined to comment on the situation, except to say that she believed instances of bed bugs were common in city schools.
Education Department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said though the specimens have been found at the school, there has been no infestation.

Dirty goods, sold dirt cheap

I've been reading your blog for some time and I wanted to reach out to you about some 'Queens Crap' in my neighborhood.

The Attic Hour Children Thrift shop at 35-53 Crescent Street (between 35&36 ave) is just plain VILE. Constant filth and trash on the sidewalk, clear fire hazard inside the shop, chronic double parking by patrons and their work truck, then to top it off, nasty attitudes when you'd like them to move their vehicles. Sometimes, they even place their trash on the street to 'reserve' parking, cones/chairs etc. People drop their trash off after hours, then the homeless dig through it spewing the left overs all over the sidewalk. I've lived on this street for years, and love it until this nasty place came in. The turning point for me to complain to the city was the FILTHY mattress that looked like it was laced with bedbugs. After I called 311 to complain it seemed to get better. So I let it go. Now they hired a crew to come and CRUSH left over furniture, console TV's and garbage between 3-5am!!!!! EVERY weeknight.

To try and keep this email brief, I have started a blog detailing the shop's misbehavings. (35block.com) You clearly have a very well defined and read blog and I was wondering if you could cover this place.

Also, any pointers on where to turn for help with this I would appreciate.

Cheers

- Sandra Soroka

Bedbugs found at high school

Reading, writing and bedbugs

Don't let bedbugs bite you twice!

From the Queens Gazette:

The city Department of Sanitation (DOS) inspectors have handed out more than 4,500 violations so far this year involving new rules regulating disposal of bedding within the five boroughs, DOS officials said.

Under the regulations that went into effect on January 5, all bedding, including mattresses, box springs, sofa beds, sheets, blankets, pillows are required to be wrapped in sealed plastic when left curbside for collection by DOS workers.
The new rule calls for all bedding to be wrapped whether or not it is infested with bed bugs.

A recent agency report shows that DOS inspectors have issued 4,345 violations, including 701 in Queens, to homeowners, superintendents and landlords who placed unwrapped bedding curbside for collection in the first three months of 2011. Violators get a $100 fine for ignoring the rules.

Astoria full of bedbugs

From the Queens Tribune:

A man wearing a white Tyvek suit entered an apartment on Steinway Street looking like a space explorer. Safely cloaked in high-density polyethylene plastic, he sat a bag on the floor and began extracting aerosol cans with cryptic names like CB-80, Phantom, and Bedlam.

Keeping her distance, a concerned woman watched from the bedroom doorway as he heaved her mattresses and furniture back and forth, making sure each crevice was soaked with hissing spray. Her 4-year-old son clung to her leg, mesmerized by the scene – the result of a single bedbug that his mother discovered clinging to his shirt.

According to Jody L. Gangloff-Kaufmann, Ph.D., an urban entomologist with the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University, landlords have been known to spend up to $80,000 to get large buildings bedbug free.

Adding to landlords’ bedbug woes is the “Bedbug Disclosure Act,” a new citywide law that took effect Aug. 30. The measure requires landlords to notify prospective tenants about any infestations in the building within the previous year. The legislation’s stated goal is to suppress the bedbug epidemic by giving “landlords an incentive to comply with their legal obligations to eradicate” infestations. Oddly, the disclosure act fails to include any legal or financial penalties for landlords who do not comply.

“It might scare people away,” said Jonathan Cedeno, the superintendent of a 54-unit apartment complex in Astoria that was treated for two bedbug outbreaks earlier this year. “But if they ask me, I can’t lie to them. I have to let them know.”

The high cost of extermination has caused some landlords to resort to cheaper, less reliable pest control methods, while others are avoiding the problem altogether.

“It’s hard to get landlords to take care of things here,” said Marnie Schulenburg, a 26-year-old actress whose Astoria apartment building was recently infested with bedbugs. She said residents had to call the landlord repeatedly before an assistant finally showed up and contacted an exterminator.

Marvin Orellana, 25, came face-to-face with one after boarding the subway train on Astoria Boulevard last Thursday.

“Out of the corner of my eye, I see something moving on this girl’s book bag. Immediately, I look at it and I realize it’s a bedbug. I felt horrible because it was crowded and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want anyone to panic,” recounted Orellana, who had his own bedbug infestation a few years ago.

“It’s just so easy for that bug to walk onto some other person.”

Council authorizes money for bedbug problem

From Crains:

City Council in $500K counter-attack on bedbugs The pleas of bedbug-plagued businesses across New York City have been answered. On Wednesday, the City Council announced it would make available $500,000 for a new website and specialized staff dedicated to helping Big Apple residents and businesses manage the bedbug epidemic. These resources came as a result of a recent report commissioned by the city.

Last year, the city formed a bedbug advisory board, comprised of entomologists, industry experts and representatives from city agencies, to examine the issue. Their findings, as reported on Wednesday, have led to the Bed Bug Portal, a website where the public can access instructions on preventing, confirming and dealing with an infestation. Property owners can also contact enforcement teams from the Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene and Housing Preservation, though it is still up to the businesses and landlords, not the city, to pay for extermination.

Don't let the bedbugs bite...

From Times Online:

The cockroach has scuttled in retreat. Bedbugs have become New York, indeed America’s, latest bug noire. These tiny, yellowish creatures (which grow to 4-5mm long), fiendishly difficult to eradicate and understand, have become an obsession for landlords, renters, pest-control experts and scientists. Why do they feed so hungrily on human blood? Why have they proliferated? Why are they so hardy? How can you eradicate them?

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” now has a particularly hollow ring to it: we are almost powerless to stop them. There has been a 71 per cent increase in bedbug infestations since 2001, according to the US National Pest Management Association. In 2004, there were a reported 537 complaints and 82 “violations” (verified infestations) for bedbugs in New York; in 2009, there were 10,985 complaints and 4,084 verified infestations. “That’s just the reported cases,” says Jeremy Ecker, of Bed Bug Inspectors, a firm that uses two specially trained dogs to sniff out the bugs in apartments before advising occupants and pest exterminators on the best action. “The problem is everywhere, it’s growing and it’s mostly invisible because of people’s embarrassment. People are too ashamed to say anything. If they admit to having bedbugs they’re frightened of losing their apartment, of being asked not to go into work, of getting rid of their possessions. We see people in extreme distress.”

A female bedbug (official name Cimex lectularius) can reproduce 400 offspring ...to eradicate bedbugs requires ruthless planning, “even before the exterminators come in”, May says.

It seems laughable that the hokey-sounding bedbug could cause such havoc — and indeed, a spokeswoman for New York City’s Health Department says: “Anyone who has had an infestation knows that it can stressful and unpleasant but while bedbugs are a nuisance, they do not present a health risk or spread disease.”

But they are far from dismissable creatures, according to those who have suffered them and the scientists researching them. “It’s a plague, an epidemic,” says a National Pest Management Association spokeswoman — and although her organisation represents pest exterminators this is not a fear-generating marketing campaign.

“It would not be extreme or hysterical to call this a pandemic,” says Tim McCoy, a bedbug research scientist at Virginia Tech University. “We haven’t reached the halfway point in bedbug numbers, they’re still on the rise.”

They show no respect, says Ecker, of class or creed: “We’ve inspected the fanciest apartments on the Upper East Side and one-room studios downtown. Doesn’t matter how big or clean or small or dirty your place is, bedbugs will make themselves at home.”

Sheepshead Bay Hell House burns

From the Courier-Life:

The Sheepshead Bay “Hell House” earned its moniker Friday morning after a smoky fire forced panicked residents out into the two-day blizzard.

Firefighters responded at about 8:30 a.m. after the blaze broke out on the second floor of the three-story, single-room-occupancy building at 1811 Voorhies Avenue.

It took upwards of 60 smoke-eaters nearly a half-hour to beat the fire down.

No injuries to either firefighters or civilians were reported.

The cause of the blaze, which erupted on the second floor, was still unknown by Friday afternoon, but fire sources listed it as suspicious. Fire marshals were investigating.

FDNY sources said that there was “a good amount” of fire and water damage because it took so long to put the blaze out.

Vladimir Parsol, the owner of the building, could not be reached at press time.

Access-A-Ride office is bedbugging out

From the Daily News:

The Queens office of a contractor for NYC Transit is still infested with bedbugs less than three months after the agency tried to exterminate the tiny pests, workers say.

NYC Transit hired exterminators in November to steam clean parts of the facility, remove cubicle panels and office chairs that bug-sniffing dogs found to be overrun with the insects, and fumigated the furniture off site.

But some experts said the extermination effort was inadequate.

Waiting a week to begin killing the bedbugs after canines tracked their location was a major flaw, said Timothy Wong, a pest control technical director at M&M Environmental.

"It must be treated 24 to 48 hours after the dogs come in," he said, "especially with a commercial premises like this where there's heavy traffic, a lot of electrical equipment and no control of the environment."

The combination of steam cleaning, fumigation and the use of Cryonite - a gas that freezes the pests to death - can make for a hefty bill as well, Wong said.

"Something like this can be taken care of," he said. "But it can't be shoehorned into a budget."

Brooklyn Hell House

From Sheepshead Bites:

We received a number of e-mails and photos about this building at East 18th Street and Voorhies Avenue. Apparently, unhappy tenants got tired of airing their grievances to the landlord about the bed bugs, and now they’ve made it public. I’ve seen “Welcome to Hell” painted on the building several times over the years.

Does anyone know what the deal with this house is? I’ve heard it was a halfway house or some other sort of institutional housing, while others have told me it’s a boardinghouse for illegal immigrants. That’s a “For Rent” sign on the column, so that may nix the first idea, and – awful as it sounds – the grammar is a little too good to be done by ESL residents.

A follow-up post reveals the lovely home it once was.