After several residents at the Rialto Court apartments
on
Capitol Hill complained too loudly about a bedbug
infestation in
the building—circulating a letter advising tenants on how to file
a complaint with the city—they were told to shut up, or get out.
Phillips Real Estate, which owns the building, sent several tenants
“comply or quit” memos. One tenant was told she was “in direct
violation of your lease” because she “posted notices to tenants.” The
letter was titled: “10 Day Notice to Comply or Quit Premises.”
Amber—a 27-year-old Rialto resident who requested we not print
her last name—says she received a “bullying” letter, demanding
she take care of the bedbug infestation in her unit, or move out in 10
days.
When Amber moved from her third-floor Rialto apartment into a
second-floor studio in early August, she quickly found herself covered
in bug bites. “I had 37 bug bites on my body within two weeks,” she
says. When Amber complained to Rialto’s management, she says they told
her they’d had problems with bedbugs before, and that throwing away her
mattress and linens would get rid of the problem. Amber says she got
the feeling management didn’t believe her, so early one morning she
caught one of the small red bedbugs. “It was about the size of a
ladybug. The manager told me it was my responsibility to take care of
it.”
On September 11, after another tenant on the second floor of the
building started getting bitten, Amber’s neighbor Jennifer—who
also requested her last name not be used—circulated a note urging
Rialto residents to contact Phillips Real Estate. “I live next door to
these people; I really didn’t want [bedbugs] coming my way,” she says.
Six days later, Jennifer received a letter from Phillips, instructing
her to either quit sending out memos or move out
in 10 days.
According to Siobahn Ring, director of the Tenants Union of
Washington State, Phillips’s response to Jennifer’s call to action was
illegal. “The City of Seattle passed an ordinance that tenants have the
right to organize,” Ring says, citing Jennifer’s memo as a form of
tenant organization. “Violations of the right to organize are illegal
and could be prosecuted by the city attorney’s office.” However, she
says, “generally they’re not.”
In an e-mail to The Stranger, Phillips Real Estate says the
bedbug infestation was limited to one mattress, and that Amber and
Jennifer “were not evicted or threatened with eviction.” Phillips also
claims an exterminator found no signs of bedbugs after Amber moved
out.
Alan Justad, spokesman for the Department of Planning and
Development, says the city has contacted the building owners and
they’re preparing to send out a notice of violation, and the Rialto’s
owners will be responsible for fumigating the building. 
It is a good news to know that the tenants are allowed to organize to take action against the landlord for his fault. But the question here is who is responsible for the bedbugbite and who is to pay for the exterminator?
It would be feasible to get the building treated with bedbug infestation instead of calling the exterminators.I have asked for help from bedbugbureau.com to make the necessary treatment for the bugs in the building where we live in new Orleans. It was unnonimously decided by the residents of the building.
the personals from bedbugbureau.com are very helpful and calm. they not only treated the building but also ggave som eadvice of how to prevent the bugs from reappearing.