Uninvited guests on Lowell Street in Vandergrift have some residents complaining to borough officials.
Mattresses left outside at the steps of an empty apartment building at 502 Lowell St. on Tuesday morning were marked with signs saying they are infested with bedbugs.
In a social media post Wednesday, resident Tiffany Bucci, who lives next door to the building, complained of the building being infested with “a million eggs” and wrote bedbugs are “crawling up the walls.”
The three-unit apartment building is unoccupied after the previous tenants were evicted because they were hoarders, according to Alexis Pollock, public relations representative for EBG Properties of Wexford, which manages the property.
“We hired a third-party contractor and they are on scene, and we expect them to take care of things by the end of today,” Pollock said Thursday. “We don’t take that (bedbugs) lightly.”
Pollock declined to provide the property owner’s name but said the property will be properly fumigated and cleaned up.
Vandergrift Councilwoman Christine Wilson said she instructed borough sanitation crews to leave the mattresses and couch, instead of removing them, after hearing of the bedbug infestation.
“The property owner is responsible for removing — not the borough,” Wilson said. “We’ve done all we can do.”
Bucci posted several handwritten signs warning area residents to avoid the area because of the bedbugs.
Her main concern, she said, was the spread of bedbugs onto other properties. She said she called the borough office about three weeks ago to complain of a strong odor coming from the residence.
