My LTE Never Published

Re: Getting the Bedbugs Out

Dear Editors:

Thank you for your continuing coverage of the bedbug epidemic.

I agree with your list of items our city officials must press for to fight bedbugs. I'd like to add one more: owners and superintendents must be open and honest with tenants about bedbug treatments.

After living in our Manhattan studio for a year, I began having a severe allergic skin reaction. Six weeks and many dermatologist visits later, I discovered bedbugs were the culprit, despite my husband not being affected. Mystery solved, the excruciating extermination process began.

We have discovered at least one apartment on our floor and several others in the building received bedbug treatment before us. Tenants are not notified of others' treatment, which drive bugs into other parts of the building. My six-week skin mystery was a direct result of management keeping the bedbug secret.

We shouldn't have to fight bureaucracy in addition to the bedbugs.

~Marilyn Walker