Apartment dwellers decry bug infestation

Residents of a low-rise apartment building run by Ottawa Community Housing in the west end are up in arms over what they say is an insect infestation.

Last week, four-year-old Arsh Woshiar had to go to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, in Ottawa, to get treatment for bug bites all over his body.

Jaff Woshiar, the boy's father, said he has tried everything to get rid of the insects.

"Every night before we go to sleep I have I put a powder — it's a bugs killer — inside and between all the windows because all of the bugs come in from the window, the door, from everywhere," said Woshiar.

Down the hall from the Woshiars, neighbour Lisa Wright is also spraying her kitchen floor with disinfectant to fight off earwigs, centipedes and silverfish.

"You open your cupboards, you open your rice and there [they are]. And it's like, I can't eat this now," said Wright. "I don't know if [they] laid eggs in there. I'm not going to eat this and die."

She said her four-year-old son Malachi wakes up each morning with new bites.

Woshiar said he has called OCH, which provides subsidized housing for about 32,000 Ottawa residents, including his building on Shillington Avenue, to ask for assistance.

Inspection found no bed bugs

Woshiar said earwigs and other bugs were crawling everywhere during a visit from an inspector sent by OCH. But he said the inspector told him that since the home didn't have bed bugs, the building didn't have a serious problem.

Jo-Anne Poirier, chief executive of OCH, said the housing provider is concerned about the reports from tenants and it has since sprayed the Shillington Avenue building.

She said bed bugs have been a priority for OCH because there has been a rise in the number of community housing units requiring insecticide treatments. But she said the insect problems facing Woshiar's apartment building are unique to that building,

"In terms of the other kinds of pests, we haven't noted an increase," said Poirier.

Bed bugs have become a focus for housing officials across North America in the last year, with cities like Toronto, Ottawa and New York City all reporting spikes in complaints in the last five years.