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In a previous post, I detailed my attempts to paint over some drywall repairs that my apartment developer did as part of their new home warranty obligations. I had to paint over repairs over three walls. As I reported in the last post, things did not go well. The paint I got from the store had a greater sheen than the paint already on my walls. The new paint coloured correctly but it was noticeably shinier than the rest of the wall. Thinking I could solve this by just getting the same paint colour in flat (as opposed to eggshell), I got more paint.

I painted the repaired areas again this weekend with the new flat paint. It didn’t take long after the first coat to realize I had failed again. The new paint is slightly more flat that my original paint, so there’s again a noticeable difference in sheen. What’s worse, the colour matching is now completely off. The paint is noticeably lighter than the rest of my walls. I later was told this is because the same colour of paint looks darker as the sheens get shinier. I wish I had known that beforehand.

There’s not a lot I can do going forward. With one wall, I’ve pretty much painted over the whole thing so it’s a no-brainer to just keep painting over just a few more spots and it’ll all be even. A second wall just had a small horizontal strip, so I think I can live with that. It’s the third wall that’s problematic. There were two medium-sized spots to paint but the third wall is the longest and largest wall in my apartment. It’d be a huge hassle to paint over it. There are multiple door frames and outlets to paint around. That wall also contains the fake fireplace I have (which I’ve always disliked). The wall also has the most furniture against it, including the two heaviest things I have in the apartment, my 50″ TV and the huge bookcase next to it which has all my movies, my Xbox 360, my Blu-ray player, my cable box, and whole bunch of other entertainment related gear. I’d have to move all that stuff to just paint the wall.

I’m sick of painting, maybe I should just put up wallpaper next time.

The date this Sunday will be September 11, 2011 and as many of you know, it will mark the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the US. That date has cemented itself in the history books as being significant. Long before that day, a decade ago, September 11th was always an important date to me, all my life. September 11 was the day my parents were married. As a kid, the second week of September went like clock-work: start school and then go out to dinner for my parents’ wedding anniversary. I admit, there were a few years during university that I forgot but I am sure my parents appreciated having dinner by themselves a few times.  Now that I’m a grown-up (sorta) I make it a requirement that I pay for their dinner every year. In fact, I remember their anniversary dinner ten years ago this Sunday. We went to dinner at a restaurant that’s been now torn down for new apartments but back then we had lobster; it was delicious. We’re going out for dinner this Sunday as my mother made the reservations tonight.

Though on Sunday, one news story will dominate the head lines, it’s interesting to note that many different things that happen on any given day. As I’ve noted, my parents got married on an 11th day of September but so did many other people across the globe. Thousands of people were born on a September 11th, in fact, there are many children who will turn ten years on Sunday. There are any number of milestones that will be marked on Sunday, some sad and obviously some happy.

Thanks Mom and Dad for staying together all these years and producing myself and my sister!

I wasn’t planning on writing about recycling tonight but I just went to put some bottles and plastic containers in my building’s recycling room. I’ve noticed for a while that some people put no effort into sorting their recyclables. It’s as if they treat recycling bins as another garbage bin where someone is going to throw out the stuff that doesn’t belong and sort the stuff that does. The bins are clearly marked with what is acceptable and what isn’t. There are even pictures so that if you can’t read English, you can understand the whole process.

Tonight I saw stuff in the wrong bins. I saw items that clearly weren’t recyclable in the recycle bins.  I saw a paper bag full of glass containers in the containers bin. It takes seconds to empty out the bag and then place the bag in the paper bin. Why can’t people just go the distance?  I also saw a plastic bag full of recyclable items like paper, bottles, and plastic containers just sitting in the paper bin. Sort your damn stuff!

As the days wore on into weeks, I settled into this bed bug war which reached a sort of equilibrium. The initial flurry of numerous bites stopped but I kept randomly getting one or two bites at odd intervals. Mike the pest control guy would come back and redo the treatments. It began to wear at my psychologically a bit. Just thinking about the reality of the situation gave me the shivers. There exists on this planet small tiny creatures that wait for you to sleep, when you are at your most vulnerable. When you are then completely defenseless, these creatures come out of their hiding spots and then crawl onto your body. Once on your body, they pierce your skin with an appendage, the goal being to suck blood out of your body so that they have a meal. After being engorged with your own blood, they make there way back to their hiding spots, sometimes stopping to defecate in your bedding, defecating your blood. I kept thinking that not only did these vile creatures exist, they were living in my bedroom. Such thoughts made it difficult to sleep at times.

I began thinking how little I respected bed bugs. They were parasites. They lived in your stuff, usually near where you slept.. They crapped in your stuff. They laid eggs in your stuff. There were so many more kinds of insects I had more respect for. People think cockroaches are disgusting but compare them to bed bugs. Cockroaches are just interested in food, the food you might have in your kitchen or pantry. You can understand that right? They want the cereal left out on the table. Hey, they like Captain Crunch as much as you do. Cockroaches most likely can be found in a kitchen. They’re not in you freaking bed and they sure aren’t wanting to suck your blood. Spiders can be freaky at times but they aren’t spinning their webs to catch you. They want to eat other bugs, hell even bed bugs perhaps. I respect that… me and Charlotte, we cool. Hell, let’s talk about mosquitoes. Skeeters, like bed bugs, want your blood but at least they’re a proper type of villain. First, they fly, they don’t crawl over you and your bedding. They also don’t live in your stuff. If they manage to get a meal outta you, they fly away and leave you alone. They don’t proceed to crawl back into your night stand and then take a dump there. Skeeters also have the decency to come at you when you’re awake, making it at least a fair fight. Even if they try biting you at night, they make enough noise that you can hear them. Skeeters are ok when compared to bed bugs. Out of all the species we have driven to extinction, why can’t bed bugs be next on the list?

All this thinking about bed bugs made me schedule an appointment with Alexis, the residence life manager. We met at her office and as we sat down I read her the UBC Housing mission statement which in part stated some desire to provide students with a safe and nurturing environment in which to study and live. I asked if she knew what I had just read. She did and I asked her if UBC Housing had fulfilled that mission in my case given that they had put me into an apartment that they knew contained creatures that were waiting for me to go to sleep so they could drink my blood. Alexis correctly answered that perhaps UBC Housing had not given me the best environment to live in. She was very understanding and I felt she wanted to help me but could not give me as much assistance as I perhaps wanted. She wasn’t in an administrative role unlike Mary. What Alexis did offer me was several days of free accommodations at UBC Conference housing. These were fully furnished small apartments, more like hotel rooms that were used for conference guests. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay there long term. I believe I was only able to stay there for two weekends. I basically used it to sleep. I’d study well into the night at my apartment and then packed up my PJs and headed across campus to sleep in conference housing. It was a bit of a hassle but at least it was worry free sleep.

In my next post, someone gets fired! Exciting!

You can find the other posts of this series here.

I know some of you are waiting for part six of my bed bug saga but I admit I just ran out of time tonight. Yes, I probably played too much Deus Ex but I also had domestic duties to attend to. I ironed some clothes. I took out the garbage. I washed my dishes. I did laundry. I had dinner with my parents.

Don’t worry, I will see the bed bug saga right to the end. I can’t stop now. If you type in “UBC Housing bed bugs” into Google, I’m the second result, so I can’t let those people down!

Editor’s note: If you’re looking for part one, you might want to click here.

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After Mike’s first full treatment of my apartment, he told me there was nothing he could do for about two weeks. We’d have to wait and see if the little bastards died. Unfortunately, the primary way of detecting this was to see if I continued to get bitten. Surprisingly, despite all this drama, my school work didn’t really suffer all that much. We have to keep in mind I was in the last few months of my graduate degree here. From a psychological standpoint, I was only worried about these bed bugs when I was asleep. Sure, I certainly did have some trouble sleeping and I’ll touch on that later but while I was in class and even sitting at my desk, I wasn’t being bitten by bed bugs.

Once I started those serious infectious disease protocols, I again felt like I could visit other people’s homes and even go home to my parents’ place on the weekends. I kept my parents in the dark about the whole thing because my parents love worrying so much that’s its one of their hobbies. There wasn’t really anything they could do about the bed bugs, so I decided not to tell them. As for my friends, I initially felt a bit of shame about having bed bugs but then I realized it wasn’t my fault I had them. Unlike cockroaches, having bed bugs isn’t an indication of the cleanliness of a home. So I made it known to anyone who was interested that I bed bugs in my apartment. Some people wanted to know if it was safe for me to be in their home but re-assured them I had instituted security protocols. Others made it clear they were never ever going to visit me in that apartment, which of course, was completely understandable. As a side note, I believe only four of my friends ever stepped into my apartment and they all stayed downstairs.

I then received some disturbing information. I forget exactly how I came to know this bit of info but that’s not important. What is important is that I discovered that UBC Housing was well-aware that my apartment had previously been infested with bed bugs. I was livid when I found out. It was completely unacceptable how this had all played out given what they knew. First, they were completely wrong in not informing me that I was moving into an apartment that had a serious pest problem. They should have warned me that there was previous infestation and that I could choose to cancel my residency or at the very least be on the lookout for any indications the bed bugs had returned. They failed to communicate this to me and instead, kept me in the dark. What if I had gotten bed bugs in my clothes and then visited other UBC residences or other people’s homes and infested those places? I then understood why I couldn’t move in at the beginning of September and why there was a notice on the front door. They had treated my apartment, quite unsuccessfully mind you, and had left it to wallow in its own bed bug misery for nearly a month. The bed bugs didn’t die and were only super hungry by the time I moved in. This brings me to UBC Housing’s second and most ghastly failure. Despite knowing my apartment had bed bugs, they committed the most utter failure in not verifying that the bed bug problem had been dealt with completely before letting me move in. It took all of ten minutes for the Mike to do the initial inspection to see there were bed bugs in the bedroom. Yet UBC Housing couldn’t even devote that much time nor effort before I moved in. Instead, they didn’t even care if the bed bugs were still there, they just let me move in without any warning at all.

As I mentioned, I was livid at this revelation. I called up Mary, the housekeeping manager at UBC Housing and I made it very clear I was angry at UBC Housing for keeping this information from me and for not doing due diligence. I outlined every single failure I saw and how UBC Housing could easily have avoided each one but instead chose to do nothing. I forget if she even apologized to me but it didn’t matter because all the damage had been done, blood had literally been already shed. Knowing this bit of info though however, gave me leverage dealing with UBC Housing. I’m not sure it had anything to do with it but UBC Housing then offered to dry clean all my clothes and bedding for free. I hadn’t decontaminated all my clothing yet so this was appreciated. Keep in mind, I gave them nearly all the clothing and bedding I had brought to UBC. It must have been very expensive for them to do this because I gave them even small items like socks and underwear to dry clean. They also were able to get me back my clothes in 48 hours which was somewhat impressive given the number of items to be cleaned.

In the next part, I detail more fallout from UBC Housing huge fail.

You can find the other posts of this series here.

Before I get to part five, I mentioned in previous parts about some photos I wanted to dig up. I have finally found them. The following photos show what my belongings looked like while they were all bagged up and quarantined. Some bags contained items I wanted to keep clean and safe (mostly clothes). Other bags contained items of an unsure status, so the bag was meant to prevent those bastards from getting out (if they were actually in there).

General gathering area in the safe zone (living room)

Clean “outside” clothes

Bagged mattress in the hot zone

You can find the other posts of this series here.

Bagged notes and binders (with pest strip visible)

I have several more photos but I’ll show them when the relevant parts are written.

 

In my previous post, I reported that the results of my painting endeavours was less than ideal. I couldn’t understand why the new paint was shinier that my old paint. I figured it out pretty quick. I had been fooled by the finish schedule that was provided to me by the developer. When I bought my apartment, I was given a manual for it. In it, it contained what’s a called a finish schedule which tells you what materials were used in decorating your home. That includes what kind of paint was used. In the finish schedule, it clearly stated the sheen was eggshell latex out of the many sheens you can choose from.

Eggshell is the second to last shiniest of sheens. I just assumed that’s what actually was on my walls because they don’t reflect much light at all. It turns out what they most likely used on my walls, despite what the finish schedule says, was a flat or matte sheen. A flat sheen is the least shiny of sheens and doesn’t reflect a lot of light at all. Had I known a bit more about painting, I would have been more diligent about matching the sheen as well as the colour, which was the only thing I was concerned about when I bought the paint. I just went with what the finish schedule told me. It was wrong of me to trust a piece of paper when I should have done a reality check on my own walls.

I called the paint store to figure out my options. Obviously, I’ll need to buy more paint but this time in a matte or flat finish. The good news is I was told that I don’t have to remove the old paint. I can just paint right over it without any primer. It might be helpful to sand some of the existing paint down to remove the sheen so that the new paint might not require more than one coat.

It does suck I have to redo the paint again but it’s been a learning experience for sure. I’ll also go much faster this time around since I’ve already done it once before. Let this be a painting lesson to you!

As I wrote in a previous post, I intended to finally paint over the drywall repairs in my apartment. This weekend that actually happened. Though I’ve never painted any home that I’ve lived in, the whole process went relatively smooth. I started a bit later than I had wanted on Saturday but I was still able to apply the primer coat and a single coat of paint before the end of the day. Beforehand, I envisioned several accidents, including me falling off a step ladder, spilling paint onto my carpet, having paint bleed onto the trim, kicking over a paint tray, and forgetting the ice cream on the counter. None of those things happened which surprised the hell out of me since I don’t really fancy myself as a home repair type of dude.

The one thing that did go wrong was something that I was warned about. Since I was trying to match paint with existing painted walls, there was a danger it wouldn’t exactly match. I had the best information with me as I knew that Benjamin Moore made the paint and I knew what kind it was. I even brought a small paint chip with me to the paint store so they could do spectrometer analysis to do the colour matching. By the time the third coat dried on Sunday evening, I knew I had a slight problem. The colour itself was almost perfect, no complaints there. The problem is that the new paint is shinier that the old paint. I’m not sure what happened with the sheens but I’m wondering what my options are. I know using a fine sandpaper can help remove a bit of the sheen but I’m not sure that’ll do the trick.

*sigh*

It still boggles my mind I was able to sleep that first night, knowing that Mike, the pest control guy, had confirmed I had bed bugs in the apartment. I suppose the situation was helped somewhat knowing he was able to kill (or attempted to kill) the bed bugs he saw in his initial inspection. I was eagerly awaiting the next day because he’d be back for a full on treatment.

Before he left, Mike gave me instructions on how to prepare. I was told move as much furniture away from the walls as possible. He cautioned me about moving anything from the upstairs to the downstairs part of the apartment. Clothes would need to be washed to ensure decontamination. Other items like books, papers, electronics, and so forth would need a different method.

Mike showed up the next day ready to do full on battle with my infestation. He also brought with him some gifts. He gave me a ton of clear garbage bags. Mike also brought some “No Pest Strips” with him. These things would help reclaim some of my property back. Mike explained that I couldn’t assume anything was bed bug free upstairs. Anything could be a home for bed bugs. As evidence, these bastards shacked up in my night stand. Unfortunately, I had boxes of notes, textbooks, binders and various other things upstairs in my closet. Clothes can be washed but you can’t wash a book or a clock radio. Mike told me to put these boxes into a single clear plastic garbage bag. I then needed to toss in a single “No Pest Strip” into the bag and then seal the bag. According to Mike, keeping the bag sealed with the pesticide strip inside for two weeks would ensure anything inside that bag would be dead.

I think I prepared three or four boxes this way. It was tough knowing I would be able to get at this stuff for two weeks but it was better to safe than sorry. Mike also brought something special for my mattress. He gave me a mattress bag, which is just a giant plastic bag shaped for a mattress. Usually they’re used for protecting mattresses during transport but he told me to put my mattress in the bag and then chuck in two of those strip things. I paused briefly at the thought of sleeping on a bag containing so much pesticide but as long as the bag was kept sealed I’d be ok. Plus, the additional thought of knowing any of those bed bug fuckers would be dying inside that bag made me feel somewhat better.

Having prepared the boxes of my possessions and my mattress, Mike asked me to leave so he could begin pumping nerve gas into my apartment. The truth is, he really wanted to use some powerful stuff to kill the bed bugs but he explained to me those chemicals aren’t available to him anymore because of government regulation. He said that back in the day, they’d just DDT the place and be done with it. We now know DDT is too dangerous to use. I told Mike I’d trade six months off my lifespan if it meant we could DDT these bastards back into hell.

In any case, I had to leave the apartment for a few hours while Mike did his thing. After the requisite amount of time, I returned to my apartment and started a protocol that I would follow for months. By this second day or so, I had already cleaned one valuable bag of clothes. These clothes had been washed and then dried on hot, guaranteeing their bed bug free status. They immediately went into a garbage bag from the dryer which I then sealed. Upon entering my apartment the bag was left downstairs where there were no signs of bed bugs. These would be my outside, clean clothes that I could wear to class, other people’s homes, and on transit without fear of spreading the bed bugs. As soon as I entered my apartment, I would strip down naked by the door and put the clean clothes into garbage bag and then re-sealed it. The goal was to have the clean clothes exposed to my apartment as little as possible. I would then dress myself in downstairs clothes, these were items of indeterminate status since the downstairs was probably safe but not guaranteed. If I had to go upstairs, I’d get naked again and then go upstairs and put on my upstairs clothing, which usually just consisted my of PJs and a t-shirt. I slept in these items so the upstairs clothes were highly suspect and under no circumstances could they be brought downstairs. Washing upstairs clothing meant putting them in a sealed bag and taking them to the laundry room.

It was weird having different sets of clothing depending on where I was but I just got used to it; sad but necessary. In my next post, I discover some interesting information.

You can find the other posts of this series here.