An Orkin affiliate in Green Bay has been hired to do the job, particularly because the company has a 100% guarantee that if any rooms they treat still have bed bugs within a 30-day window, they will return at no additional cost.

Harbor Tower management earlier had tried local pest control and heat treatments to eradicate the bed bugs. “We have no comment as to why a particular treatment method is or was insufficient. We are using Orkin because their work is guaranteed,” the housing commission stated.

According to Paul Adcock, executive director of the Escanaba Housing Commission, Harbor Tower isn’t the only site dealing with a bed bug infestation.

“It is exploding everywhere in the U.P. I talked to people at the training I went to at Mackinac Island — five or six directors did not have (bed bugs). (I) talked to them in Negaunee two and a half months later and they all had (bed bugs),” Adcock said.

Bedbugs in a container from the lab at the National Pest Management Association, during the National Bed Bug Summit in February 2011 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)

Orkin will treat each infested apartment, as well as the adjacent apartments on either side of that unit. The pest control company charges $650 for each main infested apartment, as well as $450 for each adjacent apartment.

“By pretreating the outside apartments, when they treat in the main apartment – even if they move to the outside apartments — they still die,” Adcock said.

He noted that after Orkin completes its work, management will heat-treat the affected rooms as a further measure to kill any eggs.

“Orkin says that is not necessary. We tend to disagree,” Adcock said.

The company will also provide an instructional sheet – or prep sheet – with details on what to do leading up to treatment, which Adcock described as “much more in depth than any of the other previous prep sheets we’ve had.”

That prep is “basically tearing the apartment all the way apart, right down to floorboards and walls,” Adcock said.

According to the housing commission via their attorney, five of Harbor Tower’s 175 rental units are known to be affected as of now.

“Our understanding is the bed bug issue has been ongoing for about one year. While privacy laws prohibit the city’s housing commission from giving further specifics, our best knowledge is that the bed bug problem began in a rental unit where a tenant was engaged in hoarding behavior, and the related mess brought about bed bugs,”

That particular tenant has since been evicted, after refusing multiple attempts to have the unit treated for bed bugs, according to the city’s housing commission.

“Please note that public housing evictions are notoriously slow and complicated with many procedural boxes to check,” the housing commission stated. “Months of groundwork is required before notices to quit and of lease termination are issued. Then, at least a month is required before litigation can begin, and then litigation takes months in and of itself.”

In talking with other housing directors, Adcock noted other housing complexes can evict tenants if they do not comply with the bed bug prep and treatment. However, Harbor Tower must take tenants they want to evict in front of the 94th District Court Judge Steve Parks, who decides if and when a person might be forced to leave.

“It’s just reality,” Adcock said when discussing the problem at a recent meeting.

Before management of the housing complex enters an apartment for treatment, they give tenants 48 hours’ notice unless it’s an emergency, according to Adcock.

If tenants do not prep their apartments properly and Orkin refuses to treat that unit, Harbor Tower management can then cite the failure to prep as a lease violation.

“If there’s enough (lease violations), (we) take them in front of the judge,” he said.

Adcock assured commission members that regular inspections will continue even after rooms have been treated.

“We are still inspecting every apartment, every month, until we have zero bed bugs in the building,” he said.

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Sophie Vogelmann can be reached at 906-786-2021 or svogelmann@dailypress.net.