Bedbugs prompt lawsuit, new potential law aimed at Omaha Housing Authority

OMAHA — Advocates are hoping that back-to-back punches — a class action lawsuit filed Monday and another push for a change in state law — will provide relief to Omaha public housing residents suffering from bedbugs.

The complaint filed in Douglas County District Court seeks good riddance, at the expense of the Omaha Housing Authority, to the blood-sucking “hitchhiker” parasites, as well as refund on rent for as many as 1,700 low-income residents of OHA apartment towers.

The state legislation Sen. Terrell McKinney plans to introduce this month would put the weight of Nebraska law behind the bug eradication effort that targets the state’s largest public housing authority.

“We’ve got to hit them from all sides,” said McKinney. 

Welts, sleeplessness, fear

His bill, among other things, would mandate disclosure of bedbugs to potential residents and notify other tenants of infestations. McKinney said previous state legislation has strengthened some public housing tenant protections, but not pertaining to bedbugs.

The North Omaha lawmaker was among several area elected officials, including outgoing State Sen. Justin Wayne and newly elected Ashlei Spivey, who attended the Monday news conference that also drew community leaders and OHA residents.

Wayne, also a lawyer, is representing the OHA plaintiffs, along with Iowa attorneys Steve Wandro and Jeffrey Lipman, who have handled bedbug class action cases involving high rise structures elsewhere across the nation.

Their 38-page lawsuit, which includes photos of bedbugs and scabby tenant arms, alleges the infestation dates back to  2016. It claims residents of multiple OHA towers suffered physical and emotional injuries including painful welts, sleeplessness, fear and isolation due to ”sustained “intense, insidious infestation.”

Few insects are more difficult to abide than bedbugs that travel through walls, pose health hazards and prefer to latch on to sleeping persons, leaving nasty bites, said Lipman, who described the OHA as having the worst case of bedbugs he has seen.

He said eradication will take millions of dollars. Keeping them away, he said, likely will require permanent on-site crews.

Attorney Steven Wandro said that good riddance is possible with proven treatment protocols and that “in this day and age there is no reason,” for people to suffer from bedbugs.

OHA heat treatment rooms

OHA chief executive officer Joanie Balk said she had not reviewed the legal complaint. But she said the housing authority takes treatment of all pests, including bedbugs, seriously. OHA employs its own pest control team, which has recently expanded, and also contracts with outside services.

The OHA — whose board members are appointed by Omaha’s mayor and confirmed by the City Council — uses practices endorsed by the Douglas County Health Department and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, which is a major funding source to the public housing agency and rent subsidy programs.

Overall, OHA helps provide housing and other services to more than 20,000 people whose income makes them eligible for government assistance. Balk said the agency also has started to install heat treatment rooms.

“The opportunity to heat treat belongings in an environment where pests cannot further spread, in collaboration with unit preparation and chemical treatments, will further enhance the ability to combat the presence of bedbugs,” Balk said.

Many factors affect the presence of bedbugs, she said, and any response must be “multi-faceted.

OHA plaintiffs are seeking monetary compensation as well as aggressive remediation. The lawyers, who are asking for a jury trial, said that public housing plaintiffs in similar cases have been awarded a full rent return for a designated time period, even though the rent was subsidized by the federal government.

Bugs ‘falling on my head’

Jane Bailey is among 17 tenants identified in the lawsuit who assert they were not told their future residential building had bedbugs and that their complaints were ignored. Lipman said that up to 1,700 people could be represented.

Bailey moved into the OHA Underwood Tower in 2016 and said she was “blessed” five years later to have been able to find a different living arrangement with a neighboring housing authority. She remains a plaintiff, saying she has ongoing ill effects.

“They were falling on my head,” Bailey said of bedbugs in her OHA apartment. She said that during the holidays, she’d have to meet family at a casino or restaurant out of fear that if they came to her apartment they’d leave with an unwanted guest.

Bailey said she had to enlist help from a social worker to help with phobias. She said she remains anxious to hang her coat next to other coats, fearing that a bug might crawl out.

“We helped everybody, and that meant we ended up with bedbugs on us,” said Bailey’s friend, Deana Beedle, who is an OHA tenant.

He said he noticed the pests and complained, and that OHA has sprayed “periodically.”

Coleman said that while he’s afraid to sleep, he won’t move. 

“It’s the only place I can afford,” he said.