Q&A: How the city is addressing chronic pest infestations at public housing buildings
Roughly one-third of LMCH buildings are infested with pests, the agency says
Roughly one-third of buildings operated by London and Middlesex Community Housing are infested with bedbugs, cockroaches and other pests, according to the agency's own figures.
London city staff say they've now brought a new pest control company to deal with the issues.
The local anti-poverty group LifeSpin has been calling on London city hall to do more to address the persistent infestations in the city's public housing buildings by funding a program to help vulnerable tenants prepare their units for spraying, enhance protocols for bug spraying and explore the possibility of a municipally-run bug extermination program.
LifeSpin's requests were debated at a city council meeting on Tuesday, where Councillors voted 8-7 to refer LifeSpin's Extreme Clean funding request for consideration in the upcoming budget update, but shot down the idea of a city-run extermination program.
There Ward 4 Coun. Susan Stevenson said a new pest treatment company had been brought in to 202 McNay St., which a resident said made a notable difference.
To talk about the issue, and to share what LMCH has been doing to address it, LMCH CEO Paul Chisholm joined London Morning guest host Travis Dolynny on Thursday for a conversation.
The agency, which is owned and funded by the city, is London's largest provider of rent-geared-to-income-housing, with nearly 3,300 units in 32 properties.
LISTEN | LMCH CEO on what the agency is doing about pest infestations
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Travis Dolynny: Councillor Stevenson said that a new pest control company has been hired? Tell us more about that.
Paul Chisholm: We've been working for the last 18 months to improve how we manage pest control. We've brought in a manager with increased capacity to manage that. We've gone out and brought in a new pest control provider, and we've been really trying to get a better understanding of what's happening in our buildings.
Up until the beginning of this year, we knew when pest control complaints came in, but we weren't able to track how many treatments it took, how long it took to clear, what those challenges in clearing the units are.
What we see at a building like McNay is we're improving how we actively treat the units, but it's taking longer to clear. We brought in a new provider for five of our buildings, and we're also using different products because the bedbugs and cockroaches are becoming resistant to some of the traditional treatments.
TD: There are tenants who say they don't want to let the pest control companies into their units to spray. How does that impact this challenge of trying to eradicate these pests?
PC: It is a challenge. At the end of September, we had about 72 units where we're struggling to get in and do treatment. We've really reduced that through the course of the last year by actively talking to tenants. The challenge is some of these units are what we call source units, where the level of infestation is so high they're impacting the units around them.
We don't want to move through the process of evicting these tenants, because if they lose housing with us, they're likely not to be housed for a while, so we try to work with them. If tenants aren't letting us in, we've got to do a little bit of a carrot and stick, go through the Landlord and Tenant Board process, but also provide supports.
TD: The Extreme Clean Program helped seniors and people with mobility issues prepare for extermination. That's set to end in December because the city stopped funding it. Some groups like Neighbourhood Legal Services and LifeSpin say it was essential. How did it work from your perspective?
PC: I think it is a really great program. They do great work, and they really work with complex households. For us, it's a really small percentage of the households that we're dealing with. I think there should be funding for that program to do that type of work in our communities, and not just in LMCH, but across all rental apartments.
What we're seeing is the need for lighter supports for seniors aging in place, some other folks with disabilities, and some general housekeeping issues that isn't at the level of extreme clean, but that is really impacting the effectiveness of our pest control program.
TD: We talked to a woman named Sandra Keith who's been sleeping in her car to get away from a bedbug infestation. What do you say to tenants like Sandra who have had to endure the pests in their units?
PC: I know what we're hearing through the course of the last six months was tenants are frustrated in how long it's taken to clear units. And I think that would probably be an example of someone who's just, 'This is going on too long. I prepped my unit, I did what you asked. You came in to do treatment, why isn't it being cleared?'
That's the questions we're asking with our provider, with our staff internally: how do we get it so we're able to clear this in a two-month cycle or a three-treatment cycle versus some of these are going on for four or five months.
With files from Matthew Trevithick and Andrew Lupton