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Thornton says her teenage son sleeps with a mosquito net over his bed to keep cockroaches out. (Jonathan Migneault\/CBC)<\/p>\nA tenant in Sudbury, Ont., says the cockroach infestation in her downtown apartment is so bad that she and her teenage son have started eating all their meals outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can’t really eat in our apartment,\u201d said Miranda Thornton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, right now I don’t have any food in the cupboards at all. It’s all packed in totes waiting for them to spray again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thornton said she has had issues with cockroaches since she moved into the apartment in 2020.<\/p>\n
Thornton says her teenage son sleeps with a mosquito net over his bed to keep cockroaches out. (Jonathan Migneault\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The building\u2019s owner, Whitehall Apartments, has paid to have her apartment fumigated on an annual basis. But Thornton said she believes the entire building needs to be treated to properly address the infestation.<\/p>\n
CBC News asked Whitehall Apartments if it intended to have the entire building treated.<\/p>\n
A legal representative for the company, headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., said it wouldn\u2019t be appropriate to comment because there\u2019s a pending legal matter with Thornton.<\/p>\n
In December, Thornton filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario on an unrelated issue. She said it\u2019s scheduled to go to mediation on Sept. 18.<\/p>\n
Tenant says fumigations aren\u2019t eliminating problem<\/p>\n
After a pest control technician sprayed her apartment in 2020, Thornton said, her father pulled out the fridge, where they found \u201chundreds\u201d of cockroaches that had come from the motor.<\/p>\n
Despite annual pest control visits, Thornton said, the problem has persisted for years, worsening this year.<\/p>\n
Her kitchen has around 20 sticky traps, with dozens of dead cockroaches attached to each.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thornton said having to deal with the infestation has taken a toll on her mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI puke when I find the traps covered with 30 or more roaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, it’s very stressful. It’s like this is taking out my whole life right now. My family members, some of them don’t want me coming to visit them because I’m bringing cockroaches to their apartment possibly.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A close-up of one of Thornton’s cockroach traps shows multiple dead insects. (Jonathan Migneault\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Cockroaches can also spread harmful bacteria, such as salmonella, through their feces.<\/p>\n
Thornton said each time her apartment is fumigated, including most recently, on July 16, the creatures eventually return.<\/p>\n
Because she relies on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), Thornton said, she can’t afford to move from her subsidized apartment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can’t find anything that’s as affordable as this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd also, if I move, I will be moving the problem with me. I’d have to leave all my belongings behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Property manager concerned over apartment clutter<\/p>\n
Thornton forwarded an Aug. 4 email from her building\u2019s property manager, Melissa Rantala, in which Rantala raised concerns that clutter throughout the unit could impede efforts to treat the apartment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technician’s service report notes that the amount of stored belongings, boxes and general clutter throughout the unit creates numerous potential harbourage areas for pests,\u201d the email says.<\/p>\n
In an email to CBC News, Thornton responded to the concerns by stating that she emptied the contents of her kitchen cabinets into boxes and totes in her living room so that pest control technicians could properly spray that area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have many inherited things and family heirlooms, photo albums, books, clothes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think it is unfair that I should have to throw out my belongings because I moved into a building with an active cockroach infestation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not have a cockroach issue at my last apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rhonda Lalonde, the manager at the Sudbury pest control company Enviro-Eco Solutions, which isn\u2019t involved with Thornton\u2019s building, said cockroach infestations are especially difficult to eliminate.<\/p>\n
The insects tend to congregate in the kitchen, the area that\u2019s most important to declutter before treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we’re seeing a cockroach during the day upon an inspection, then I’m going to go right off and I’m going to do our most aggressive approach. And that’s called a flush-out,\u201d Lalonde said.<\/p>\n
A machine hooked up to a compressor pumps an insecticide into all the voids and cracks in the affected area, which is usually the kitchen.<\/p>\n
After the apartment is treated, Lalonde said, her team will inspect neighbouring units to ensure they also don\u2019t have infestations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve done that with a few of our complexes where we’ve done floor by floor inspections.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some cases, they\u2019ve had to treat the entire building.<\/p>\n
Another tenant says cockroaches a recent issue<\/p>\n
In an attempt to convince her landlord to fumigate the whole building, Thornton created a petition that she handed out to her neighbours.<\/p>\n
Joan Mulcahy is among the dozen tenants \u2014 representing around a third of the building\u2019s units \u2014 who signed the petition.<\/p>\n
Mulcahy said she has lived in the building for more than 30 years and the cockroaches are a relatively recent problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was also treated for bedbugs about, oh I don’t know, maybe a decade ago. Bedbugs are far worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mulcahy said she has seen a few cockroaches in her apartment, but the problem isn\u2019t nearly as bad as in Thornton\u2019s unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went out and I bought an old-fashioned fly swatter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mulcahy noted that on Aug. 6, Whitehall Apartments paid for pest control technicians to inspect the apartments of all the tenants who signed Thornton\u2019s petition.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they are doing something about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Thornton says a pest control technician told her a layer of grease on top of her kitchen cabinets can attract pests like cockroaches. She tells CBC News she has been unable to clean it off. (Jonathan Migneault\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Thornton said technicians will return on Monday to spray her apartment again.<\/p>\n
During the visit, she said, a technician raised concerns about a layer of grease \u2014 which is an attractant for cockroaches \u2014 at the top of her kitchen cabinets.<\/p>\n
She said he was \u201ctelling us we don’t know how to clean, and he got up there and was demanding cleaning products.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thornton said the grease has been there since she moved in\u00a0and that she and her family members have tried to remove it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried with baking soda, we tried with vinegar, we tried with bleach, we tried with Lysol, we tried with steel wool, like Brillo pads, with SOS pads. Like, it just won’t come off.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zo\u00e9 St Pierre, a staff lawyer with the Sudbury Community Legal Clinic, said they hear from a lot of tenants who have issues with pests including cockroaches and bedbugs.<\/p>\n
St Pierre said the best course of action in situations that aren\u2019t resolved on their own is for tenants to file an application with Ontario\u2019s Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are multiple tenant applications that tenants can file,\u201d she said. \u201cThe one that’s specific to maintenance and repairs would be the one best suited to address a pest issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, she added, it can take a year or more for the LTB to hear tenant applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tenant in Sudbury, Ont., says the cockroach infestation in her downtown apartment is so bad that she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-853046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}