New Albany Housing Authority Initiates Bedbug Inspections

The New Albany Housing Authority (NAHA) recently decided to use bedbug-sniffing canines to inspect every public housing site in New Albany, IN. The canines searched through common areas and bedrooms in an attempt to detect bed bugs.

Public housing residents were notified through multiple newsletters about the pending inspections. According to Bob Lane, the executive director, there hasn’t been a major outbreak of bedbugs in the local public housing sector, but the NAHA board approved a pest control plan that entailed the dog inspections. “The whole process is an expensive thing to do, but it is something that we’ve taken on,” Lane said. “We’ve had some cases [of bedbugs]...it’s just something we’re trying to get a handle on, and it’s something that we’ll be doing the next several months to get them under control as best as we possibly can.”

Bedbugs are extremely hard to get rid of. The best advice is to take initial complaints seriously, and hire a competent, experienced pest control vendor to treat your site according to an aggressive plan, as NAHA is doing.

To help you stay on top of a potential bedbug outbreak, click here for a notice you can adapt and give to residents to inform them about how to prevent bedbugs and deal with a bedbug infestation. It has been adapted from the HUD Healthy Home Guide.

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