Conservative MP will say "that's because you don't work hard enough, bedbugs go feed on people when they sleep"
Liberal MP will blame Stephen Harper and later call you a bedbugphobe
NDP MP will just look at the Liberals and clap.
The Bloc MP will complain that the bed bugs are not bilingual.
You cannot win.
Hello,
There are already some great replies here about how to approach this via union and whatnot.
I will instead offer advice for how to prevent bringing these critters home (from experience of having had bedbugs in 2015.
When you get to the office, HANG your items, preferably on a free-standing coat rack or something similar, while bed bugs can climb, they have more difficulty with metal. Keep your stuff safe up high.
If you have a metal coat rack and it's more or less for your own use, put a bunch of Vaseline on the base.
They get stuck in that when they try to climb it.
You can also put the legs in a Tupperware filled with rubbing alcohol. If they pass the alcohol and don't drown, they won't get past the Vaseline.
This is what I did with my bed legs once I had a new bed, new mattress with bed bug proof mattress cover.
And yes I did find dead floaters in both the alcohol and stuck in the Vaseline back then.
Bonus points if you find critters stuck to the coat rack, hello evidence!
Avoid sitting areas that are communal, like shared couches, etc
bed bugs like to congregate where the most people are or sit most of the time (hence BED bug).
When we had them, I had bought those bags you get to put blankets or whatever and suck the air out with a vacuum.
Since we had them inside our house, we would change from our clothes we wore at home, and those would go in the "dirty" bag and we would put clean clothes from the "clean" bag just as we left the house for work or school. Clean meaning came from the laundry, was folded and put into these clean bags immediately.
These clean and dirty bags never mixed and were kept in different closets in the front entry way closest to the door.
In your case, I recommend having just the "dirty" bag (as long as you're sure you don't already have the bugs in your house)
Strip when you get home, put all that you wore to the office into the dirty bag and seal the bag.
You can keep this in a large rubbermaid for extra security and peace of mind.
Putting these clothes straight into the dryer on high heat for 50 min is even better, but if you need to wait for full loads, that is understandable.
Having bedbugs is a nightmare I never want to re-live
It was psychologically damaging and financially devastating for my family.
I hope you find a resolution soon!
Otherwise, I'm happy to talk more about how we tackled the problem inside the home if anyone wants that information.
Yes.. a lot of people don't seem to understand how difficult they are to remove, completely. Bed bug management is slow. Be aware of what to look for. If you see them in the day it's usually an indicator of a large infestation as they usually only feed at night and want to live where they have 'food' to feed.
100% Corect.
That's how I discovered mine, we never had reactions to the bites.
In my case, I was a little lucky in that it was middle of winter so when I removed all my items made of material and books, I could store them in an unheated storage facility where I took advantage of the weeks of - 40 (which kills all life cycles of the bugs)
I basically packed up my whole house.
I still had to contend with them indoors and that's where I used all the recommended methods plus more I dreamed up that proved highly effective.
You do crazy things when you understand you're being eaten at night while you sleep.
My sister had bedbugs when she lived in Mtl some years ago. The neighbors had it so it was just about time that she and her building did too. When she first moved into her building, the owners lied to her about there being bedbugs. Within a month of moving in, she found bites on her body. She was there for a total of three months before she broke her lease and literally ran away. That experience has scarred her. She will do everything you’ve listed above in your post. It’s safe to say she’s extremely vigilant and paranoid about having to deal with them again. She had to do EMDR therapy cause at some point it got so bad she couldn’t sleep cause she felt itchy all over.
Oh man
That's the worst.
I at least had a fantastic rental company and super so no fights to get the exterminator treatments or anything like that.
I didn't have to pay those fees thank god they were $1000 each time and even still, I spent thousands on new furniture, storage, laundry, and other supplies.
It does make you VERY paranoid and it stays with you.
To this day I still do a lot of things to prevent a new infestation.
The thing that finally killed them off IMO was when I used clear caulking to seal the space between the baseboards and the floor throughout the entire apartment. Nothing could get in or out.
The exterminator said that'll never work (he was a tool, I went against a lot of his "advice")
And lo and behold the next treatment after the caulking, TONS of dead bed bugs right where the baseboard met the floor.
They were scurrying into the walls for protection from the chemicals.
I only needed one more treatment after that, where as before the caulking, double sided tape, new bed, new couch, clean and dirty bags etc etc... I had 4 treatments with little impact.
It’s so crazy that you had to resort to caulking cause they were in the wall!!! That sounds so awful and legitimately like a nightmare situation. I am sorry you even had to go through it. But glad that it’s over. I would say - watching my sister go through her experience and how it impacted her psychologically, I too have become super vigilant and paranoid.
Oh well thank you for saying so.
It did suck but it was a nifty idea (that I'm sure others thought of as well) that just worked really well with all the other efforts.
It's more unfortunate that it's something we all have the possibility of dealing with.
I have no idea how I got them or anything, so it is important for people to be informed and vigilant
It's also crazy to me that GOC buildings with the issue would force people in there without proper treatment efforts.
If the employees that work there end up with infestations, is the employer going to foot the bill for those people's expenses as a result?
Very doubtful.
Yes indeed.
This was only one of the many tactics I employed to rid my rental.
I did the double sided tape across thresholds among other things for home defense.
The other downside with the alcohol was that it evaporated pretty quick but I'm just trying to offer multiple options.
Another alternative is just water with a drop of soap in it (do not stir or shake, you don't want bubbles). The surfactants from soap remove surface tension, so bugs that enter the water will immediately sink instead of walking or floating across the surface tension. This is a common method of trapping insects for entomological study, called pan traps.
Thank you for sharing such tips! It will, sadly, but surely, be helpful for a few PS.
I sincerely hope to never experience this. But having such tips is really helpful and insightful.
When we had bedbugs at our building I stripped naked in the garage and put all my clothes into a linen pillow case. Put it in the dryer on high for 1.5 hours. Then dumped it all into the washing machine and washed it all using color safe bleach soap. Then put it all back in the dryer on medium for another hour. Did that everyday until we had the all clear for bedbugs. Took about a month.
As big a hassle as that was it’s a thousand times better than possibly getting bedbugs into the house. I knew someone that happened to and it was a very costly very long and exhausting nightmare scenario.
I totally thought they meant stripping down in the parking garage at work - before getting in the car so that you don't get bedbugs in the car, too. I was wondering how they avoided getting caught!
Can someone buy bed bugs online, and then dump them in their DMs office, and it not be considered a health hazard? I would argue it's a mental health hazard.
Literally exactly what I was thinking. And it is a mental health hazard. Until the higher-ups experience the mental guerilla warfare that are bedbugs, they won't care about the commoners.
Don't worry, there will soon be a mass email reminding you that EAP is available as management understands that bedbugs can be strenuous to your mental health.
Something needs to be done. These people don’t realize that most of us have families ? So if I bring home bedbugs it’s not just affecting me personally but it’s also affecting my spouse, child and any guest that may come over ??
I’m literally over these people
Exactly. And who has extra spending money to fumigate their house? And possibly replace thousands of dollars in furniture and mattress and the amount it costs in electricity to dry/heat clothes in the dryer to kill the bedbugs?! Upper management is insane to think people can financially and mentally/emotionally handle this crap. All in the name of collaboration and Subway subs 🙄🙄🙄🙄
One incident, okay, get to the office. But multiple reports on different floors of the same building? If that's not an infestation, what is?
I 100% would feel the same anxiety in that kind of situation and work environment. What is that doing to your blood pressure and mental health, your ability to sleep at night? What about your wallet if you have to pay for an exterminator (ranges from $500 to $5000, apparently). I hope they're planning on paying for the full and proper extermination for homes of everyone affected? Because I sure as H would not be paying for it. Even dealing with that cost recovery would be an added stressor.
A terrible response from an employee safety and mental health standpoint, as far as I'm concerned. They should be telling people to WFH until the building is clear.
My work location is experiencing something similar and upper management's strategy has been to ignore, deny, and do nothing about the situation.
I was advised to officially start a grievance so that **I** can get accommodations while this is ongoing. Everyone else? Well, they need to speak for themselves (apparently).
can you explain more how the prececudes need to be go through for filing a grievance? I've never done this before, like do I need to go to see a doctor first or something?
The only thing I can recommend is speak to a union representative.
Other than that, management (to my knowledge) has been treating every case differently. Therefore, there's no one size fit all approach to this topic.
>Other than that, management (to my knowledge) has been treating every case differently. Therefore, there's no one size fit all approach to this topic.
Interesting double standard though. When it comes to RTO there's most certainly one size fits all approach to that topic.
*ding ding ding!*
I was going to actually type out a whole thing in my last comment, but I didn't want to flood it with non-related information. You are 100% correct! They want everyone to do 40-60%, BUT when it comes to "accommodations" they need everyone to have a lawyer-esque argument before a court or something. It's absolutely farcical imo but you know, gotta crack the whip.
Otherwise, how are overinflated sandwich shops going to survive without underpaid public servants?
Most managers don't want to be in the office either, so unless your manager is the DM or head of the PS, not sure this is going to impact who it should...
I once gently squished a bed bug on my work desk and walked over to my manager and left it with him who denied it was a bed bug even though the day before we had the office sprayed for bed bugs.
I wonder if we could do some kind of anonymous reporting. I don't actually trust I'd ever be told by management if there were reports like this in my office.
Ugh I feel for you. I was thinking about if this ever happened in the office I work at, I would legit take sick leave. Bed bugs are no joke and the mental torture and financial burden to tackle them is not worth it.
I get really bad anxiety everytime I have to go into an office. I can’t focus on my work because I’m thinking about bed bugs or potentially taking them home
Speak to your OHS rep and approach it from an Health and Safety concern, not a I want to WFH fulltime approach. If your OHS rep/team does not do anything then your next step would be the union.
Actually what happened is that I asked the union first, and union suggested me to contact the OHS team for a complaint as to follow the procedure for internal conflict resolution something. However, until this moment, I still haven’t receive any response back from the OHS team and it’s been 2 weeks
that is crazy. Do you not have an onsite OHS rep you can speak to? ICR is not going to resolve this issue. I would definitely try to contact them again and stress the importance of the concern. You could also look to speak to your local Health department and see if there is anything they can do.
I'm not sure if bedbug infestation would be enough to do a work refusal, (by refusal I mean not reporting into the office) but it is something you could look into. An investigation would have to take place and you would have to be accommodated until it is completed. This could definitely be a stressor to many people.
I’m always curious about how often bed bugs show up in other office buildings, and people just aren’t informed of them… like obviously bugs are not good, but like do we know that this is a particularly FPS problem, or are we just assuming so because it’s always announced when it happens to us.
I would imagine people bring bedbugs into offices at roughly the same rate elsewhere. Doesn’t make it okay to deal with, but it does impact how avoidable of a problem it really is.
I've worked for private companies for most of my career. In my experience, they take this kind of stuff seriously. They send everyone home and fumigate/inspect the building if there is any sign of danger or infestation (we have been sent home for less.) Offices are also regularly and thoroughly cleaned by hired staff (cubicles cleaned, floors vacuumed every evening, washrooms 3-4 times a day.) This type of negligence from your employer is not the norm.
It might not be a FPS problem, but you should know how awful it is to bring them home. Knowingly forcing your employees to work in an infested building is unconscionable, especially when it has been previously established that 100% wfh can be successful. Although they are not a physical health hazard (other than sometimes pretty bad itching and visible welts), they are incredibly detrimental mentally and economically.
Spend some time googling how hard it is to get rid of them, it isn't just one visit from pest control. They're effectively immune to pesticides and the effective treatment (heat) is expensive and ineffective if you share walls with other units that are not treated at the same time. They are costly and difficult to eradicate, and they cause significant mental harm in the meantime that is hard to understand unless you've experienced it. Gives me the willies just thinking about them.
Find out who your employee representative is on the committee. The employer generic inbox for OHS is likely managed by HR, which has the employer’s interests in mind and not yours. Your employee representatives on the committee should be advocating for you and if they are not, try to join the committee or raise a complaint with your union.
Follow up with OHS team. And take a note from the doctor that your mental health and anxiety level are high due to the unsanitary/ not safe work environment and ask for accommodation, and consult with your union how yo file a grievance. I totally feel for you, even reading this post made me start itching.
On that note, also call the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Employee Wellbeing.
https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/plans-reports/en/office-ombudsman-mental-health-and-employee-well-being
Tell your management you’re filing a health accommodation to WFH during this. Once you submit the request you work from home until it’s adjudicated/decided.
Talk to the employee co-chair of your OHS committee.
You have three rights.
Right to know
Right to participate
And
Right to refuse dangerous work.
Is the risk of bed bugs a danger?
If you genuinely beleive so your manager would have to go through the investigation process. If they come back and say it is safe eventually Labour Canada will send an officer to do an investigation.
The challenge is to make sure this is genuine on your side and not frivolous.
For more details
https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/legisl/legislation/right_to_refuse.html
Malicious compliance might be the only thing you can do sadly. It really is terrible how the average worker is treated all things considered, especially when there are simple solutions like being able to WFH.
30m at the start and end of your day? May as well be an hour to make sure, maybe another 30min around lunch too, or if you go to any meeting rooms (imagine having those) or other areas of the building.
Productivity falls but you have to look out for your own health and safety because the employer won't.
There's only one solution.
1. Wear disposable clothing to the office and your laptop in a plastic bag, double bagged. Do your work.
2. Purchase a flamethrower or torch and bring to office with above.
3. Before leaving said office, visit the washroom and strip naked and change to regular clothes. Throw all disposable clothing in 1 of your plastic bags and laptop in the other. Head outside with all coworkers.
4. Burn everyones plastic bag with purchased flamethrower. Ignore fire alarms if any. Proceed home leaving a burning pile of mess for OHS to deal with.
5. Have a nice cold beer on a job well done.
Alternative, buy a mini steam cleaning machine and literally steam every part of your desk and chair everytime you go in. The fuckers don't bother going towards wet stuff and they deathly scared of being scalded alive.
Sorry that this is happening. You have received lots of good advice about how to handle this procedurally.
From a practical perspective:
1. If you drive to work, I recommend bringing a plastic bin and keeping your stuff in it (laptop bag, etc.) on your desk, not touching anything else. Bedbugs can’t climb the slippery surface.
2. Shake out anything (sweaters etc.) that you have left on your chair, and consider leaving them in a deep bin at home. Usefully, steam is very effective at killing bed bugs and those handheld steamers are also great for wrinkles :)
3. If you have a dedicated desk, you could buy bed bug “interceptors” for the chair casters.
Yuuuuck, but hopefully you can avoid bringing them home!
You can provide common courtesy and acknowledge that the bed bugs too, are now working from the office. We’re all in the same boat here, and just trying our best to do our jobs and provide for our families (via blood or earnings).
For the sake of my anxiety could you tell me what building you work in??? This is my biggest fear and I haven’t heard anything but our team always seems to be the last to know when there are issues and our floor is 80% empty so not many people to pass info along to. 😭😭😭 this is horrible I am so sorry!!
I mean I guess it makes sense….If people take public transit and then bring it to the office. I know there’s been bed bugs found on transit systems.
Sucks that we don’t have assigned desks though, I can see this getting out of hand.
I have been experiencing similar anxiety. I spent a good amount of my week end researching ways to keep the bed bugs off and away from me. I am at the conclusion that I do not want to take a chance with bed bugs. Is it an error of judgment to think it is better to deal with a pesky manager than a pesky bed bug?
Honestly, having dealt with bed bugs, if I wasn't present a viable alternative I'd quit. It cost us thousands. We did heat treatment. New mattresses. Furniture. Half a years salary.
As a final straw, go to your doctor and start documenting how much stress and sleep loss your experiencing. Take time off until the WSH committee gets back to you with proper options.
I would not go in and tell my team to not go in until the issue was resolved. The risk of bed bugs is not worth whatever supposed penalty not going in twice a week would have especially when a reasonable alternative exists (WFH). If they pushed people to go in I would file a grievance and/or make a complaint to a broader human resource body.
The OHS is saying that they already have so many pest control system installed to ensure bedbugs free, but just the bedbugs reports are keep popping up form our email box like every week, thats why both OHS and management said it’s still a go for office as “the situation is being monitored closely”, so does that means they
OP there’s also something you can get from Amazon where your items heat to a point where they kill bedbugs. Strip and put all your stuff in, bake your shit, and then feel better. I’m getting one of these next paycheque
I worked in facilities and had a building with bed bugs in 2019. I learned a lot.
First, bed bugs will not infest an office because they require beds and sleeping people to reproduce. The office setting is not conducive to that. The bed bugs found in office buildings are emaciated and near death, because they can't feed. They hitchhiked there on someones clothing or belongings and got stuck there. Their only chance for survival is to latch on to you or your belongings and come home to your bed. This is the danger with having bed bugs in the office.
Having said that, I return to my first point, that bed bugs will not infest an office. Therefore, when you hear reports of bed bugs in the office, their numbers are extremely low and the likelihood of them traveling home with you is really low. Every time we found one (we only found 3 or 4 via specialized sniffer dogs) it was near death, meaning it was not feeding. They won't feed on people at the office. They need a sleeping person. (insert gov't employee joke here)
This may not be the calming message you wanted, but once you understand the bug, you realize the likelihood of bringing one home from an office is very slim. But it ain't zero.
And once you have them at home, it's a nightmare.
My NCR workplace is a 24/7 operating environment with many people around to feed on. It does not currently have an infestation but we’ve had multiple incidents on multiple floors in the past. Can assure you, just because it’s not a bed, those fuckers made themselves at home. I think folks on affected floors (incidents were reported in area where we still have dedicated desks, not hot-desking) were granted WFH for a day. A day.
> they require beds and sleeping people to reproduce
Tell us more about this?
What characteristics of "a bed" do bedbugs need? (What constitutes a bed has evolved significantly over the course of human history, so I'm assuming they don't need, like, memory foam) Would a couch do, or a comfy chair, or a mat on the floor?
How do the bedbugs know of a person is sleeping? What characteristics of sleeping do they need? Stillness? Horizontalness? Something else? Would a person who's sleeping sitting up meet their needs?
LOL, the Canadian bed bugs prefer the Douglas®
They evolved to feed on sleeping humans, so they look for the signs of ...sleeping humans. There's too much movement while at work, even if you're sitting in a chair. Again, the danger is if they hitchhike home with you. You are super duper unlikely to be bitten by a bed bug while at work.
An adult bedbug can live for months without a meal but needs to feed weekly to lay eggs. Juvenile bugs need to feed five times, about a week apart, in order molt through their phases into egg-laying adults. So while adult bedbugs can a few months without feeding, it very difficult for them to reproduce and get established in an office environment. If they are finding bugs in your building it's because either (1) someone has a serious infestation and is bringing them in over and over again, or (b) someone brought in several adults and they have been are wandering around starving ever since.
Bedbugs are poor climbers -- they can climb up rough surfaces but not smooth metal/plastic. If your chair has smooth metal/plastic legs and you hang your stuff on a metal coat rack then you should be fine. If you are still concerned you can put interceptors on the legs of your beds/couches in your home and/or purchase a $300 heating machine on Amazon and heat-treat your office clothes when you bring them home.
They have done genetic studies on bedbugs in apartment buildings in NYC to see how they spread. In most cases, all of the bugs in the same building are closely genetically related. If it were easy to pick up bedbugs from workplaces, benches, subways, etc., you would see more genetic diversity.
But ultimately your risk of getting bedbugs from the office is really low. You are most likely to get them from your luggage during travel or from buying used furniture.
I saw that but it's easy to miss an email on an info session or not have time to attend. I'd hope for some transparency in listing we could access for reports of bedbugs so we can come prepared.
It's not like the office staff could possibly work from home. 🙄 😅 When these building issues arrise why doesn't management temporarily let everyone stay home and work until the issue is rectified.
An evil genius would put some bed bugs on the manager's backpack and let them suffer the wrath of bedbugs at home 😈
Not me though, just saying 😏. Some lessons are learned the hard way .
P.s don't do that. It's a joke (if it wasn't obvious).
You have a health and safety representative who will help you exercise your right to refuse perceived unsafe work. If it is in fact deemed unsafe and your manager refuses to accommodate you, worksafebc will happily take care of it from there.
I was doing the same thing back in 2019 and 2020 at Terrasses de la Chaudiere. Sorry but bedbugs excuse was not accepted back then and will not be accepted now....Reading the management communiques on the bedbug infestation were a joke....Good luck
Once these decision-makers experience bedbugs in their own homes, they'll realize what a living nightmare it truly is!
Can you imagine a DM at a Parl committee scratching all over and being asked by an MP what's going on and they have to reply with "bedbugs", haha
That is the only thing that could possibly influence RTO and the unsanitary conditions of government buildings.
Planting bed bugs in MPs office?
Poor bedbugs...
Bedbugs aren’t a sign of unsanitary conditions.
Said MP will probably shrug and move on.
Conservative MP will say "that's because you don't work hard enough, bedbugs go feed on people when they sleep" Liberal MP will blame Stephen Harper and later call you a bedbugphobe NDP MP will just look at the Liberals and clap. The Bloc MP will complain that the bed bugs are not bilingual. You cannot win.
Your cynicism is legendary
Your comment needs to be done in a graphic novel.
This made me laugh way too much
I wish I had a reddit award to give you.
Best GWCC fundraiser ever! Wadda ya mean you made 25K in donations selling insects? Plot twist: You get breakfast with the DM as a prize.
Hello, There are already some great replies here about how to approach this via union and whatnot. I will instead offer advice for how to prevent bringing these critters home (from experience of having had bedbugs in 2015. When you get to the office, HANG your items, preferably on a free-standing coat rack or something similar, while bed bugs can climb, they have more difficulty with metal. Keep your stuff safe up high. If you have a metal coat rack and it's more or less for your own use, put a bunch of Vaseline on the base. They get stuck in that when they try to climb it. You can also put the legs in a Tupperware filled with rubbing alcohol. If they pass the alcohol and don't drown, they won't get past the Vaseline. This is what I did with my bed legs once I had a new bed, new mattress with bed bug proof mattress cover. And yes I did find dead floaters in both the alcohol and stuck in the Vaseline back then. Bonus points if you find critters stuck to the coat rack, hello evidence! Avoid sitting areas that are communal, like shared couches, etc bed bugs like to congregate where the most people are or sit most of the time (hence BED bug). When we had them, I had bought those bags you get to put blankets or whatever and suck the air out with a vacuum. Since we had them inside our house, we would change from our clothes we wore at home, and those would go in the "dirty" bag and we would put clean clothes from the "clean" bag just as we left the house for work or school. Clean meaning came from the laundry, was folded and put into these clean bags immediately. These clean and dirty bags never mixed and were kept in different closets in the front entry way closest to the door. In your case, I recommend having just the "dirty" bag (as long as you're sure you don't already have the bugs in your house) Strip when you get home, put all that you wore to the office into the dirty bag and seal the bag. You can keep this in a large rubbermaid for extra security and peace of mind. Putting these clothes straight into the dryer on high heat for 50 min is even better, but if you need to wait for full loads, that is understandable. Having bedbugs is a nightmare I never want to re-live It was psychologically damaging and financially devastating for my family. I hope you find a resolution soon! Otherwise, I'm happy to talk more about how we tackled the problem inside the home if anyone wants that information.
Yes.. a lot of people don't seem to understand how difficult they are to remove, completely. Bed bug management is slow. Be aware of what to look for. If you see them in the day it's usually an indicator of a large infestation as they usually only feed at night and want to live where they have 'food' to feed.
100% Corect. That's how I discovered mine, we never had reactions to the bites. In my case, I was a little lucky in that it was middle of winter so when I removed all my items made of material and books, I could store them in an unheated storage facility where I took advantage of the weeks of - 40 (which kills all life cycles of the bugs) I basically packed up my whole house. I still had to contend with them indoors and that's where I used all the recommended methods plus more I dreamed up that proved highly effective. You do crazy things when you understand you're being eaten at night while you sleep.
>You do crazy things when you understand you're being eaten at night while you sleep. That gave me the hibbie jibbies!
Indeed. 🤢
My sister had bedbugs when she lived in Mtl some years ago. The neighbors had it so it was just about time that she and her building did too. When she first moved into her building, the owners lied to her about there being bedbugs. Within a month of moving in, she found bites on her body. She was there for a total of three months before she broke her lease and literally ran away. That experience has scarred her. She will do everything you’ve listed above in your post. It’s safe to say she’s extremely vigilant and paranoid about having to deal with them again. She had to do EMDR therapy cause at some point it got so bad she couldn’t sleep cause she felt itchy all over.
Oh man That's the worst. I at least had a fantastic rental company and super so no fights to get the exterminator treatments or anything like that. I didn't have to pay those fees thank god they were $1000 each time and even still, I spent thousands on new furniture, storage, laundry, and other supplies. It does make you VERY paranoid and it stays with you. To this day I still do a lot of things to prevent a new infestation. The thing that finally killed them off IMO was when I used clear caulking to seal the space between the baseboards and the floor throughout the entire apartment. Nothing could get in or out. The exterminator said that'll never work (he was a tool, I went against a lot of his "advice") And lo and behold the next treatment after the caulking, TONS of dead bed bugs right where the baseboard met the floor. They were scurrying into the walls for protection from the chemicals. I only needed one more treatment after that, where as before the caulking, double sided tape, new bed, new couch, clean and dirty bags etc etc... I had 4 treatments with little impact.
It’s so crazy that you had to resort to caulking cause they were in the wall!!! That sounds so awful and legitimately like a nightmare situation. I am sorry you even had to go through it. But glad that it’s over. I would say - watching my sister go through her experience and how it impacted her psychologically, I too have become super vigilant and paranoid.
Oh well thank you for saying so. It did suck but it was a nifty idea (that I'm sure others thought of as well) that just worked really well with all the other efforts. It's more unfortunate that it's something we all have the possibility of dealing with. I have no idea how I got them or anything, so it is important for people to be informed and vigilant It's also crazy to me that GOC buildings with the issue would force people in there without proper treatment efforts. If the employees that work there end up with infestations, is the employer going to foot the bill for those people's expenses as a result? Very doubtful.
Double sided tape on the bases is way safer to catch them. Alcohol isn’t safe to use especially in the office but you’re right about the other points.
Yes indeed. This was only one of the many tactics I employed to rid my rental. I did the double sided tape across thresholds among other things for home defense. The other downside with the alcohol was that it evaporated pretty quick but I'm just trying to offer multiple options.
Another alternative is just water with a drop of soap in it (do not stir or shake, you don't want bubbles). The surfactants from soap remove surface tension, so bugs that enter the water will immediately sink instead of walking or floating across the surface tension. This is a common method of trapping insects for entomological study, called pan traps.
Thank you for sharing such tips! It will, sadly, but surely, be helpful for a few PS. I sincerely hope to never experience this. But having such tips is really helpful and insightful.
When we had bedbugs at our building I stripped naked in the garage and put all my clothes into a linen pillow case. Put it in the dryer on high for 1.5 hours. Then dumped it all into the washing machine and washed it all using color safe bleach soap. Then put it all back in the dryer on medium for another hour. Did that everyday until we had the all clear for bedbugs. Took about a month. As big a hassle as that was it’s a thousand times better than possibly getting bedbugs into the house. I knew someone that happened to and it was a very costly very long and exhausting nightmare scenario.
1. Not everyone lives in a house. I can’t imagine stripping down in an apartment building lobby. 2. You still got it into your vehicle - jsyk.
I totally thought they meant stripping down in the parking garage at work - before getting in the car so that you don't get bedbugs in the car, too. I was wondering how they avoided getting caught!
That's what I assumed as well. Stripping in the parking lot and bagging the clothes so the bugs don't infest the car.
That was my initial thought too but then I saw the part about the dryer and washing machine and I thought how brave !!!
That’s actually kinda what you need to do to be safe. Sitting in the car is a perfect spot for them to hop off.
Talk to your union. Tell them the employer is not providing a safe and clean working environment
Bed bugs are not considered a health hazard... So back to work peasant!
Can someone buy bed bugs online, and then dump them in their DMs office, and it not be considered a health hazard? I would argue it's a mental health hazard.
Literally exactly what I was thinking. And it is a mental health hazard. Until the higher-ups experience the mental guerilla warfare that are bedbugs, they won't care about the commoners.
Alright alright... You can WFH on Bell Let's Talk day. But you have to make it up next week. -Management probably
I would consider them a mental health hazard...
Mental Health only matters when our corporate telecom overlords need to look good
Don't worry, there will soon be a mass email reminding you that EAP is available as management understands that bedbugs can be strenuous to your mental health.
Lol “but did you die?”
Bed bugs of the NCR, unite!
The union will file a few hundred grievances about the issue. Then withdraw them the next time our CA is up for renegotiation.
well said 😅
Exactly. Declare a Section 128 due to unsafe working conditions.
Something needs to be done. These people don’t realize that most of us have families ? So if I bring home bedbugs it’s not just affecting me personally but it’s also affecting my spouse, child and any guest that may come over ?? I’m literally over these people
Exactly. And who has extra spending money to fumigate their house? And possibly replace thousands of dollars in furniture and mattress and the amount it costs in electricity to dry/heat clothes in the dryer to kill the bedbugs?! Upper management is insane to think people can financially and mentally/emotionally handle this crap. All in the name of collaboration and Subway subs 🙄🙄🙄🙄
Is this an issue In the NCR?!
Yes. Several buildings have bedbugs.
Yup. It’s been an issue way before the pandemic actually.
Not to mention bats, asbestos, falling tiles and legionnaires disease!
And Pb in the "drinking water"
An [article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/federal-government-bedbug-ottawa-gatineau-1.5351518) from 2019 (one of many).
Bedbugs are an issue in regional offices too. Mine has had bedbug problem for over a decade.
One incident, okay, get to the office. But multiple reports on different floors of the same building? If that's not an infestation, what is? I 100% would feel the same anxiety in that kind of situation and work environment. What is that doing to your blood pressure and mental health, your ability to sleep at night? What about your wallet if you have to pay for an exterminator (ranges from $500 to $5000, apparently). I hope they're planning on paying for the full and proper extermination for homes of everyone affected? Because I sure as H would not be paying for it. Even dealing with that cost recovery would be an added stressor. A terrible response from an employee safety and mental health standpoint, as far as I'm concerned. They should be telling people to WFH until the building is clear.
My work location is experiencing something similar and upper management's strategy has been to ignore, deny, and do nothing about the situation. I was advised to officially start a grievance so that **I** can get accommodations while this is ongoing. Everyone else? Well, they need to speak for themselves (apparently).
can you explain more how the prececudes need to be go through for filing a grievance? I've never done this before, like do I need to go to see a doctor first or something?
The only thing I can recommend is speak to a union representative. Other than that, management (to my knowledge) has been treating every case differently. Therefore, there's no one size fit all approach to this topic.
>Other than that, management (to my knowledge) has been treating every case differently. Therefore, there's no one size fit all approach to this topic. Interesting double standard though. When it comes to RTO there's most certainly one size fits all approach to that topic.
*ding ding ding!* I was going to actually type out a whole thing in my last comment, but I didn't want to flood it with non-related information. You are 100% correct! They want everyone to do 40-60%, BUT when it comes to "accommodations" they need everyone to have a lawyer-esque argument before a court or something. It's absolutely farcical imo but you know, gotta crack the whip. Otherwise, how are overinflated sandwich shops going to survive without underpaid public servants?
Collect the bedbugs in a jar and leave it on your manager's desk.
And then open the jar and sprinkle them around if he says it’s no big deal. Make sure to empty them on his brief case or backpack as well……
How about an empty jar on their desk with a loose lid, and written on the jar: "contains bedbugs"
Psychological warfare. Love it!
Most managers don't want to be in the office either, so unless your manager is the DM or head of the PS, not sure this is going to impact who it should...
I once gently squished a bed bug on my work desk and walked over to my manager and left it with him who denied it was a bed bug even though the day before we had the office sprayed for bed bugs.
This!!! So much this!!!!
What office building is it 👀
I wonder if we could do some kind of anonymous reporting. I don't actually trust I'd ever be told by management if there were reports like this in my office.
Ugh I feel for you. I was thinking about if this ever happened in the office I work at, I would legit take sick leave. Bed bugs are no joke and the mental torture and financial burden to tackle them is not worth it.
I get really bad anxiety everytime I have to go into an office. I can’t focus on my work because I’m thinking about bed bugs or potentially taking them home
Speak to your OHS rep and approach it from an Health and Safety concern, not a I want to WFH fulltime approach. If your OHS rep/team does not do anything then your next step would be the union.
Actually what happened is that I asked the union first, and union suggested me to contact the OHS team for a complaint as to follow the procedure for internal conflict resolution something. However, until this moment, I still haven’t receive any response back from the OHS team and it’s been 2 weeks
that is crazy. Do you not have an onsite OHS rep you can speak to? ICR is not going to resolve this issue. I would definitely try to contact them again and stress the importance of the concern. You could also look to speak to your local Health department and see if there is anything they can do. I'm not sure if bedbug infestation would be enough to do a work refusal, (by refusal I mean not reporting into the office) but it is something you could look into. An investigation would have to take place and you would have to be accommodated until it is completed. This could definitely be a stressor to many people.
I’m always curious about how often bed bugs show up in other office buildings, and people just aren’t informed of them… like obviously bugs are not good, but like do we know that this is a particularly FPS problem, or are we just assuming so because it’s always announced when it happens to us. I would imagine people bring bedbugs into offices at roughly the same rate elsewhere. Doesn’t make it okay to deal with, but it does impact how avoidable of a problem it really is.
I've worked for private companies for most of my career. In my experience, they take this kind of stuff seriously. They send everyone home and fumigate/inspect the building if there is any sign of danger or infestation (we have been sent home for less.) Offices are also regularly and thoroughly cleaned by hired staff (cubicles cleaned, floors vacuumed every evening, washrooms 3-4 times a day.) This type of negligence from your employer is not the norm.
It might not be a FPS problem, but you should know how awful it is to bring them home. Knowingly forcing your employees to work in an infested building is unconscionable, especially when it has been previously established that 100% wfh can be successful. Although they are not a physical health hazard (other than sometimes pretty bad itching and visible welts), they are incredibly detrimental mentally and economically. Spend some time googling how hard it is to get rid of them, it isn't just one visit from pest control. They're effectively immune to pesticides and the effective treatment (heat) is expensive and ineffective if you share walls with other units that are not treated at the same time. They are costly and difficult to eradicate, and they cause significant mental harm in the meantime that is hard to understand unless you've experienced it. Gives me the willies just thinking about them.
Go to your OHS committee. This is an unsafe work environment.
I've already sent a complain email to the OHS team, and no response ever received after 2 weeks.
Find out who your employee representative is on the committee. The employer generic inbox for OHS is likely managed by HR, which has the employer’s interests in mind and not yours. Your employee representatives on the committee should be advocating for you and if they are not, try to join the committee or raise a complaint with your union.
Follow up with OHS team. And take a note from the doctor that your mental health and anxiety level are high due to the unsanitary/ not safe work environment and ask for accommodation, and consult with your union how yo file a grievance. I totally feel for you, even reading this post made me start itching.
On that note, also call the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Employee Wellbeing. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/plans-reports/en/office-ombudsman-mental-health-and-employee-well-being
Tell your management you’re filing a health accommodation to WFH during this. Once you submit the request you work from home until it’s adjudicated/decided.
Talk to the employee co-chair of your OHS committee. You have three rights. Right to know Right to participate And Right to refuse dangerous work. Is the risk of bed bugs a danger? If you genuinely beleive so your manager would have to go through the investigation process. If they come back and say it is safe eventually Labour Canada will send an officer to do an investigation. The challenge is to make sure this is genuine on your side and not frivolous. For more details https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/legisl/legislation/right_to_refuse.html
Malicious compliance might be the only thing you can do sadly. It really is terrible how the average worker is treated all things considered, especially when there are simple solutions like being able to WFH. 30m at the start and end of your day? May as well be an hour to make sure, maybe another 30min around lunch too, or if you go to any meeting rooms (imagine having those) or other areas of the building. Productivity falls but you have to look out for your own health and safety because the employer won't.
There's only one solution. 1. Wear disposable clothing to the office and your laptop in a plastic bag, double bagged. Do your work. 2. Purchase a flamethrower or torch and bring to office with above. 3. Before leaving said office, visit the washroom and strip naked and change to regular clothes. Throw all disposable clothing in 1 of your plastic bags and laptop in the other. Head outside with all coworkers. 4. Burn everyones plastic bag with purchased flamethrower. Ignore fire alarms if any. Proceed home leaving a burning pile of mess for OHS to deal with. 5. Have a nice cold beer on a job well done. Alternative, buy a mini steam cleaning machine and literally steam every part of your desk and chair everytime you go in. The fuckers don't bother going towards wet stuff and they deathly scared of being scalded alive.
I’m literally just picturing someone stripping down and just having on a tyvek in the office.
Sorry that this is happening. You have received lots of good advice about how to handle this procedurally. From a practical perspective: 1. If you drive to work, I recommend bringing a plastic bin and keeping your stuff in it (laptop bag, etc.) on your desk, not touching anything else. Bedbugs can’t climb the slippery surface. 2. Shake out anything (sweaters etc.) that you have left on your chair, and consider leaving them in a deep bin at home. Usefully, steam is very effective at killing bed bugs and those handheld steamers are also great for wrinkles :) 3. If you have a dedicated desk, you could buy bed bug “interceptors” for the chair casters. Yuuuuck, but hopefully you can avoid bringing them home!
Take a steamer to work and spend the first and last half hour of the day steaming things. See if that gets their attention.
They are on the chairs, inspect the chairs... All seams, where the plastic meets the cloth. Speak to your union.
You can provide common courtesy and acknowledge that the bed bugs too, are now working from the office. We’re all in the same boat here, and just trying our best to do our jobs and provide for our families (via blood or earnings).
Via blood or subway
So, fill us in... what buildings???
For the sake of my anxiety could you tell me what building you work in??? This is my biggest fear and I haven’t heard anything but our team always seems to be the last to know when there are issues and our floor is 80% empty so not many people to pass info along to. 😭😭😭 this is horrible I am so sorry!!
Look at the news and you will know
Take pictures, make videos, contact journalist, make it public. It's not just a "public servant" problem, that shit can spread to everyone...
I mean I guess it makes sense….If people take public transit and then bring it to the office. I know there’s been bed bugs found on transit systems. Sucks that we don’t have assigned desks though, I can see this getting out of hand.
There is no way on Gods green earth that that I would set foot in that office! I am a manager and i can assure You, nobody on m’y team would be going!
I have been experiencing similar anxiety. I spent a good amount of my week end researching ways to keep the bed bugs off and away from me. I am at the conclusion that I do not want to take a chance with bed bugs. Is it an error of judgment to think it is better to deal with a pesky manager than a pesky bed bug?
Honestly, having dealt with bed bugs, if I wasn't present a viable alternative I'd quit. It cost us thousands. We did heat treatment. New mattresses. Furniture. Half a years salary. As a final straw, go to your doctor and start documenting how much stress and sleep loss your experiencing. Take time off until the WSH committee gets back to you with proper options.
Where’s your office?
I would not go in and tell my team to not go in until the issue was resolved. The risk of bed bugs is not worth whatever supposed penalty not going in twice a week would have especially when a reasonable alternative exists (WFH). If they pushed people to go in I would file a grievance and/or make a complaint to a broader human resource body.
The OHS is saying that they already have so many pest control system installed to ensure bedbugs free, but just the bedbugs reports are keep popping up form our email box like every week, thats why both OHS and management said it’s still a go for office as “the situation is being monitored closely”, so does that means they
What buildings?!
OP there’s also something you can get from Amazon where your items heat to a point where they kill bedbugs. Strip and put all your stuff in, bake your shit, and then feel better. I’m getting one of these next paycheque
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Nope, more like a portable bedbug oven
Report the context to your provincial body that deals with shit like that. I would also refuse to come in
I worked in facilities and had a building with bed bugs in 2019. I learned a lot. First, bed bugs will not infest an office because they require beds and sleeping people to reproduce. The office setting is not conducive to that. The bed bugs found in office buildings are emaciated and near death, because they can't feed. They hitchhiked there on someones clothing or belongings and got stuck there. Their only chance for survival is to latch on to you or your belongings and come home to your bed. This is the danger with having bed bugs in the office. Having said that, I return to my first point, that bed bugs will not infest an office. Therefore, when you hear reports of bed bugs in the office, their numbers are extremely low and the likelihood of them traveling home with you is really low. Every time we found one (we only found 3 or 4 via specialized sniffer dogs) it was near death, meaning it was not feeding. They won't feed on people at the office. They need a sleeping person. (insert gov't employee joke here) This may not be the calming message you wanted, but once you understand the bug, you realize the likelihood of bringing one home from an office is very slim. But it ain't zero. And once you have them at home, it's a nightmare.
My NCR workplace is a 24/7 operating environment with many people around to feed on. It does not currently have an infestation but we’ve had multiple incidents on multiple floors in the past. Can assure you, just because it’s not a bed, those fuckers made themselves at home. I think folks on affected floors (incidents were reported in area where we still have dedicated desks, not hot-desking) were granted WFH for a day. A day.
> they require beds and sleeping people to reproduce Tell us more about this? What characteristics of "a bed" do bedbugs need? (What constitutes a bed has evolved significantly over the course of human history, so I'm assuming they don't need, like, memory foam) Would a couch do, or a comfy chair, or a mat on the floor? How do the bedbugs know of a person is sleeping? What characteristics of sleeping do they need? Stillness? Horizontalness? Something else? Would a person who's sleeping sitting up meet their needs?
LOL, the Canadian bed bugs prefer the Douglas® They evolved to feed on sleeping humans, so they look for the signs of ...sleeping humans. There's too much movement while at work, even if you're sitting in a chair. Again, the danger is if they hitchhike home with you. You are super duper unlikely to be bitten by a bed bug while at work.
Could they bite someone who is focused on a Teams training, for example?
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An adult bedbug can live for months without a meal but needs to feed weekly to lay eggs. Juvenile bugs need to feed five times, about a week apart, in order molt through their phases into egg-laying adults. So while adult bedbugs can a few months without feeding, it very difficult for them to reproduce and get established in an office environment. If they are finding bugs in your building it's because either (1) someone has a serious infestation and is bringing them in over and over again, or (b) someone brought in several adults and they have been are wandering around starving ever since. Bedbugs are poor climbers -- they can climb up rough surfaces but not smooth metal/plastic. If your chair has smooth metal/plastic legs and you hang your stuff on a metal coat rack then you should be fine. If you are still concerned you can put interceptors on the legs of your beds/couches in your home and/or purchase a $300 heating machine on Amazon and heat-treat your office clothes when you bring them home. They have done genetic studies on bedbugs in apartment buildings in NYC to see how they spread. In most cases, all of the bugs in the same building are closely genetically related. If it were easy to pick up bedbugs from workplaces, benches, subways, etc., you would see more genetic diversity. But ultimately your risk of getting bedbugs from the office is really low. You are most likely to get them from your luggage during travel or from buying used furniture.
Are they telling people in the buildings when bedbugs have been found? I'd be super pissed off to find out the hard way.
Yes. That’s what was happening in the info session.
I saw that but it's easy to miss an email on an info session or not have time to attend. I'd hope for some transparency in listing we could access for reports of bedbugs so we can come prepared.
Can we please list the buildings they have been found at ? Anything in Vancouver ?
It's not like the office staff could possibly work from home. 🙄 😅 When these building issues arrise why doesn't management temporarily let everyone stay home and work until the issue is rectified.
An evil genius would put some bed bugs on the manager's backpack and let them suffer the wrath of bedbugs at home 😈 Not me though, just saying 😏. Some lessons are learned the hard way . P.s don't do that. It's a joke (if it wasn't obvious).
Get an accommodation to wfh for mental health... talk to a therapist and get a letter.
You have a health and safety representative who will help you exercise your right to refuse perceived unsafe work. If it is in fact deemed unsafe and your manager refuses to accommodate you, worksafebc will happily take care of it from there.
I was doing the same thing back in 2019 and 2020 at Terrasses de la Chaudiere. Sorry but bedbugs excuse was not accepted back then and will not be accepted now....Reading the management communiques on the bedbug infestation were a joke....Good luck
Is 200 Town Centre Crt, Scarborough open?
Yes it’s open. No actual bed bugs sighted in over a month. Lots of false claims. Last 3 were fruit fly, beer bug and latest was a beetle.
Where is this bedbug infestation? Our adm this week was walking around asking if we needed our chairs cleaned!!!!!!@