Cooperation and Collaboration
In a world that finds mankind more closely confined to one another and where his own personal space gradually becomes smaller and less well defined, shouldn't we make the extra effort it takes to cooperate with one another?
Case in point: I live in an apartment building that was built in the 1900s. In fact, it was a livery stable before it was subdivided into apartments. This means that when one of the six units has a bedbug problem, they all do, because these sort of household pests simply move next door or upstairs, when faced with elimination from one of the units. The walls are so porous between them that they can easily migrate from unit to unit, so when trying to eliminate them, it requires the combined and concentrated efforts of all the tenants. It requires the tenants to collaborate between themselves an effective strategy, a concentrated plan of attack in order to insure that these pests are eradicated. If one of the tenants fails to follow the plan, to the letter, the problem will return! It may take a year, it may take a month, but they will return!
Last summer, I thought that fleas had invaded my unit, as I would be awoken between 3:00 and 6:00 a.m. by a terrible itching from their bites. However, upon closely inspecting my bedding and carpeting, I was horrified to find the cause of my scratching, bedbugs.
After googling them and learning about their life cycles and various ways to eliminate them (chemically or high heat), I asked each of my neighbors if they had also been invaded by bedbugs. The family above my unit were experiencing similar nightly invasions during likewise hours, which is their preferred time to go on feeding soirees.
Knowing that eliminating them would require all of the tenants cooperation and concentrated efforts, I felt it best to inform the property manager of our dilemma and I was pleased with his handling of the matter. First, he mailed each tenant a document identifying the problem, followed by his personal assurance that he would spend the time, the money, and provide the necessary personnel to insure their eradication.
To begin, he assigned a particular day for all the tenants to remove any furniture that showed signs of being infested with bedbugs. He also provided each tenant with heavy duty .4 mil plastic bags to which he could put his clothes, linens and towels inside, until they could be laundered with hot water or dried with high heat. After his men had gathered the infested furniture and deposited it at the city dump, they returned and began spraying our units with a chemical solution.
At the end of the day, one of the tenants was returning from work and when we asked him why he hadn't had any infected furniture set outside as the mailed notice had requested, he smugly said that he didn't have any bedbugs.
Fortunately, I've known this man for a few years and I knew it would be best to humor him with a few beers, rather than disagreeing with him.
Within half an hour he invited me to inspect his unit myself. With flashlight and spray bottle in hand, I overturned a Lazy Boy and pointed out to him that he too, had been infested. Although, he hadn't been bitten, I was able to point out to him why it was so important for him to follow the plan that the property manager had asked us to follow.
BTW: there was some small print in the document that cited various municipal codes that could lead to his being evicted if he chose to ignore them.