Cleveland nursing home fends off bed bug infestation

CLEVELAND - Experts called bed bugs an epidemic in Northeast Ohio, and one place that was affected was a local assisted living facility on Cleveland's east side.

"They told me they were looking for bed bugs," said tenant Edward Jones.

Jones lives in the ManorCare Nursing and Rehab, Euclid Beach facility along with 140 other people. Staff members changing sheets first noticed the tiny blood suckers a few weeks ago and called in a dog trained to sniff them out.

"He looked around in my room and took off," said Jones.

Five rooms had the bugs and were treated, but that didn't get rid of them.

"It's a really hard thing to get out of the way," said Alonzo Winston, whose wife lives inside. "You've got people coming in here all of the time. If you had one group of people that stayed here for the year, you probably wouldn't have bed bugs."

Exterminators didn't find any bugs in his wife's room. But on their second sweep through the building two weeks ago, they found bugs in three additional rooms and had to treat them too.

On a third visit from the exterminator last week, the building was clean.

"There's only so much you can do," said Winston. "That's all I can say. I think they're doing the best they can."

In a statement, ManorCare executives said they "followed the company's infection control plan that includes precautionary measures with follow up inspections and ongoing employee education."

ManorCare workers told NewsChannel5 no one was bitten but they plan to evaluate a routine bed bug check in the future.