Cincinnati local news recently wrote an article about the City Council saying that Policemen and Firefighters should get financial help for the removal of bed bugs because often times they unwillingly bring them from their job scene to their own home. All members from the council agreed and are currently seeking out a pest control company to provide them with a discount. The motion also tells the administration to keep bug spray in every police and fire vehicle.
It’s hard to say just how many are bringing home bed bugs, but the situation is getting progressively worse. Especially for Firefighters as they often work at more than one station per shift and therefore are bringing the bed bugs from one location to the next. Hiring a new pest control contractor has helped keep bed bugs under control at the firehouses.
Officers come into contact with the bugs when arresting someone with the bugs in their clothes, Harrell said. The bugs sometimes get into the gear officers keep in their cruisers and then get transferred into the officer’s home when he or she takes their equipment home. When Firefighters are forced to go into homes that have bed bugs they enviably take them home.
Please share your questions and comments with us below!
By the way, fire fighters and police officers BY FAR don’t make enough money compared to anyone else. Starting yearly pay for a firefighter is 24k a year (based on the city). Not that I’m saying it’s fair to pay for one public servant than the other, but don’t make an assumption that fire fighters and police officers make “enough” to pay for extermination, when we barely make enough to feed our family.
I work for the housing authority, and I brought home bedbugs, yet no one is helping me pay for it! and I got it as a result of public service. If one public servent gets it, then so should every public servent. And what about nurses or other hospital staff? do they count? If you open the door to pay for one group, you better be prepared to open for others, too.
One night I found a bug crawling across my pillow as I lay on the couch in the living room. I grabbed it and ran to the kitchen so I could identify it and sure enough, it was a bedbug! A search of the couch pillows and folds found more! I did what a friend did when she had bedbugs years ago. I immediately threw out the couch, and began a laundry campaign and stored all the clean blankets, pillows, clothes, etc. in large garbage bags to keep them from re-contamination.
In the meantime, I got three large bottles of 91% rubbing alcohol from Walmart and sprayed everything that didn’t move! I didn’t see any bugs in the bathroom or bedroom mattress, but I washed and sprayed everything anyway. My floors, beside being sprayed, got a cleaning from my carpet steam cleaner. I have not seen a bug since that night and continue to spray, anyway.
Not fair! why should they get financial help while i am going in debt to pay an exterminator? They make enough to pay for it themselves, I am a single mom who gets no help from anyone & we live off crackers mostly, yet i had to pay $350 for pest control myself three times!
How about helping poor single mothers & their kids not get sucked by bed bugs all night?
b.t.w. my exterminator says they stay on you 45 minutes to feed at a time. i have not slept all month.