That really sounds like huge amount to treat a school for bedbugs. To top it off they used a liquid instead of gas. It left many teachers without supplies for their classrooms.
It appears the company was working without a contract.
The $350,000 bug biteIt could cost the city $250,000 to clean up a mess left by a bedbug exterminator whose shoddy work has forced PS 197 and two other schools to quarantine seven classrooms where dangerous pesticides lurk.
A school source said the workers for the exterminator, Joe’s Pest Control, which was operating without a contract at the behest of the Department of Education, left behind a malodorous, oily substance inside classrooms at the school on E. 22nd Street between Kings Highway and Avenue O. The substance has since soaked into books and school equipment, which now need to be replaced.
Also affected was one classroom in IS 381, which shares space with PS 197, and two rooms at PS 217 on Newkirk Avenue at Westminster Road.
Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said the city has stopped using the exterminator, and is demanding it pay for decontamination — which could cost $250,000, according to the teacher’s union.
More from WABC NY:
Bed bug ridding chemicals contaminate schoolThe cost to decontaminate what was contaminated is estimated to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars on top of the $100,000 already paid for the extermination. Parents picking up their kids at P.S. 197 in Midwood, Brooklyn have recently not been sure that bed bugs won't be going home with them.
..."But, the effort to get rid of the little creatures has created bigger problems.
"Exterminating fluid was found in the rooms, on the teachers' desks, on the children's desks, on their books, on the floor, and it had an odor to it," said Lucille Mauro, a teacher.
Eyewitness News' cameras were not allowed inside the building, but a teacher provided a photo of one of five classrooms that were soaked with a liquid bed bug killing chemical.
"Who ever exterminated it was negligently exterminating the room and all the materials that I have are now in the garbage," said Ellie Salman, a teacher.
The school board at first denied infestations since as one person put it...there are no beds there.
Bedbugs invading classrooms at alarming rate, but Education Dept. says there's no epidemicEducation Department officials would not provide a list of all schools affected by bedbugs, stressing that a confirmed case can be the discovery of a single bug. They insist there isn't an epidemic since schools have few beds and, therefore, have not become breeding grounds.
"We do not have infestations," spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said, noting the numbers reflect schools following reporting procedures. "Schools are required to report specimens."
Still, the number of cases in schools has been ballooning for years. A 2010 report by the New York City Bed Bug Advisory Board said there were 426 cases during the 2008-2009 school year, double the number of the previous year.
The number more than doubled again to 1,019 in the 2009-2010 school year.
I can so sympathize with the teachers who are trying to teach under the circumstances. When I was teaching we did not have bedbugs, but head lice outbreaks were common. It was awful. First they would recommend one product, sending home pamphlets with those who were diagnosed.
Then we would find that the product had harmful side effects.
Once our principal decided that if she refused to acknowledge the head lice, that there would not be any. Guess how well that worked. We were not permitted to send them home as it made the parents angry. We were not permitted to use our "training" at finding head lice to see if a child had any.
Once I had two tables of students in the back of the room scratching their heads frantically. One of the parents asked me what to do, I told her to contact the county...that our principal said to ignore the situation.
She did and it brought the area superintendent to my class one day. He asked what all the fuss was about, and I asked if he thought we could pretend head lice away. He laughed right out loud, and he took over the situation.
Another interesting thing about this bedbug crisis, and trust me it is a real problem when you can't teach for any kind of infestation. These teachers were not given money to replace their supplies...at least not right away.
So they held car washes.
A $350,000 fiasco, and the teachers have to wash cars to get their supplies. Speaks loudly about respect for public education.
Bedbug-stricken school raises money to replace lost suppliesTeachers at a school where four classrooms were damaged by a bedbug fumigation are are holding a fundraiser this weekend to replace the supplies they lost.
Seven teachers at P.S. 197 lost thousands of dollars worth of books and other supplies when four of the school’s classrooms were treated for bedbugs earlier this year with liquid instead of air-based fumigation, said Lucille Mauro, the school’s teachers union chapter leader. To help replace the supplies, a group of teachers at the Midwood, Brooklyn school is throwing a car wash at the school tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“We’re just happy to get anything back,” Mauro said.
The Department of Education is waiting for the results of a state Department of Environmental Conservation investigation before it decides whether to replace the supplies, said spokeswoman Marge Feinberg. The city has also banned the vendor it used to fumigate the school, she said.
Mauro said staff at the school expect to eventually be reimbursed for at least some of the damaged supplies. But in the meantime, the teachers must teach.
There are so many odd things about this story, but the worst is the city's willingness to pay a company not under contract almost $100,000 to exterminate bedbugs. That is a huge amount, and someone was not being accountable.
The teachers should have been reimbursed immediately. If there was 100,000 for the company, there should be enough to buy supplies for the teachers.
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