Metropolitan Tenants Organization, in partnership with Region 5 HUD, Georgia HAP, Shriver Center, Community Investment Corporation, and several other agencies and community organizations, is happy to announce the completion of our guidelines memo on the best practices of bed bug control. Region 5 HUD distributed this memo to all Region 5 HUD property owners and agents in March 2011. Members of this partnership conducted much research on the best practices of bed bug control and on already existing HUD policy on general pest control to create this document.
This guidelines memo was written largely in part in response to the bad practices that have been employed by both landlords and tenants in efforts to rid their properties of infestations. Due to the dramatic spike in the frequency of calls to the Metropolitan Tenants Organization’s Tenants Rights’ Hotline regarding bed bugs, it came to the attention of MTO that there is not much awareness nor are there many protections available to renters who deal with bed bug infestations in Chicago. Since then, MTO has worked diligently to ensure that there will be more education around the issue and more protections available to renters.
MTO convened this roundtable of partners in response to these bad practices in efforts to inform renters, landlords, and private homeowners on how to eradicate bed bugs in the most safe, effective, and economical ways. Many initiatives were discussed, including an educational campaign for both renters and landlords on how to effectively deal with bed bugs and an initiative to prevent the spread of infestations by properly marking or destroying infested mattresses and other pieces of furniture that have been disposed of in alleys, in addition to the memo/policy on the use of best practices in bed bug control.
The initial goal of the roundtable was to create a Region 5 HUD bed bug policy to be distributed to all HUD property owners and agents in the region. As it turned out, federal agencies do not have the jurisdiction to write and enforce policy at the regional level. As an alternative, the roundtable decided to go ahead with writing the document as a guidance memo to Region 5 HUD owners and agents. Click here to read the document in full. The roundtable will next work on getting national HUD to create and enforce a bed bug policy on the national level.
I have just read the memo from HUD, and it is terrific!
I was able to download the PDF version, but not the text version. Can someone check on this?
The HUD memo is and should be REQUIRED READING for all landlords and tenants and MTO should assist with the providing of such information to all concerned.
I would strongly urge MTO and other community-based organizations, to create and hold our own conference to determine:
A. What are the scientific facts?
B. What are the “best practices” to eradicate bed-bugs?
C. Who should bear the costs of proper eradication and loss of tenant property?
D. Has anyone looked into whether or not a landlord’s basic insurance coverages might cover necessary procedures?
E. I applaud efforts with HUD and hope for a prompt and more detailed directives and guidelines, but people in Chicago are suffering now and need solutions now.
Paul Bernstein
I tried to find the full report, but I could not find the place to “click” to get the full report. Did I miss the “click here” link?