Bed Bugs Infestation, Bed Bugs Info, Kill Bed Bugs, Bed Bug Pictures, Bed Bug Treatment

Bed Bug Infestation NY Campaign (NYC is Ground Zero for Bed Bug Infestations)

Officials in New York City are looking to stem the recent infestation of bed bugs that has affected one out of every fifteen people within the city this year.

Bed bugs tend to carry a stigma related to poverty or uncleanliness, but as the current infestation is teaching New Yorkers, it can happen anywhere. Office building, upscale apartment, housing projects and even retail clothing stores have all reported a problem with the pesky critters.

Though not dangerous, those who have these parasites will report a great deal of frustration and depression, suffering common welts and an overall feeling of helplessness when trying to get rid of them.

They have been reportedly spreading more rapidly this year than in any other past, and not just in New York. A great deal of U.S cities say the blood-sucking bugs are a common problem.

Many people who have bed bugs will throw out all the items affected, which is an expensive endeavor. Because people of lower incomes cannot afford to replace what they throw out, they often think they have no recourse.

But you can actually get rid of them by vacuuming floors, rugs, and mattresses, then disposing of the bags, or cleaning the canister well. Your clothing, towels, blankets and linens must be washed in hot water, and hiding places like cracks in walls can be cleaned out using a hairdryer.

Once this is done, it is recommended that an exterminator is called to spray for any remaining, and to prevent them from coming back.

NY Bed Bugs Scare in Clothing Store

NY Hollister store reopens after bed bug scare

(AP) – 1 day ago

NEW YORK — Abercrombie & Fitch Co. has reopened a Hollister store in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan that had to be shut down Thursday because of a bed bug infestation.

An Abercrombie location at South Street Seaport remains closed to the public. It was not clear why the store hasn’t reopened. Messages left with the company were not immediately returned.

The New Albany, Ohio-based chain has requested guidance from city authorities on how to get rid of the pests.

It has said the flagship Abercrombie store on Fifth Avenue is bed bug free.

Ambercrombe & Fitch Bed Bug Infestation

NEW YORK — Abercrombie & Fitch Co. said it closed a second store in New York due to a bed bug infestation. The preppy teen clothing seller said it closed a Hollister store on Thursday in the SoHo neighborhood of New York.

It closed a second location, an Abercrombie & Fitch store in the South Street Seaport, on Friday for the same reason. Abercrombie says it asked New York City’s Mayor’s office how it should deal with the problem.

“It appears to be a localized, downtown issue,” said Iska Hain, a spokeswoman for the chain in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. She said it’s unlikely that the source of bedbugs was a supplier.

The city’s health department said it offered guidance to the company and that it is proactively treating the store. While the department said it knew of no other instances of bed bugs at city stores, it is the responsibility of companies to treat bed bug problems.

Hain said as soon as it learned of the problem at the SoHo store on Wednesday, the company began testing all of its distribution centers and all stores nationwide.

source: http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com

Fiorito: Army on the frontlines of the bedbug war – Toronto Star

“We got our first shipment a month ago. They went quickly. We got more.”

Ron Farr is a Salvation Army captain. He works at the Warehouse Mission in Cabbagetown.

The shipment?

Mattresses and box springs, donated after having been used, however briefly, by the athletes of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Ron said, as he loaded a small van, “We’re going to deliver five today. We’re taking three to 55 Bleecker.”

That’s public housing, a seniors’ building; bedbugs all over that place; old people being eaten alive in there.

I do not exaggerate.

Ron said, “Any time someone asks for a mattress, we ask how many times they’ve been sprayed . . . we make sure people have been sprayed at least twice . . . I’d love to get some bug-proof covers.” That’s because plastic shipping bags are not exactly bug-proof.

With mattresses in the van, there was no room for me. I walked to 55 Bleecker with Ron’s wife, Linda Farr. She, too, is an Army captain. She said, “When people throw their old mattresses out, they sleep on the floor.”

Seniors, sleeping on their floors.

When we got to 55 Bleecker, the van had already arrived. Ron was unloading his cargo along with Andrew, the volunteer driver. A social worker was also pitching in. I asked the social worker if that was in her job description. “Ha, ha,” she said without a smile.

There was a problem: 55 Bleecker is a big building, but only one of the elevators was working.

A seniors’ highrise.

One elevator.

Not everyone was happy to wait while the mattresses were being jammed in. Not everyone was happy that it stopped on every floor on the way up — and we stopped because tenants were getting on to go down, even though we were going up; that’s how it works with one elevator — you get on, no matter what.

A tenant muttered, “People have appointments. They have to go out.” Then a man with long white hair and a happy red shirt squeezed in. He had a plastic bag filled with kaisers. “Got room for me and my buns?”

Everyone thought that was funny. It’s a good thing because, if not for the levity, some people might have been at other people’s throats.

The last of the mattresses was delivered to the apartment of a man named John, who said, “They sprayed in here last week. I was sprayed last year eight times, maybe more. They spray, and the bugs come back. I got this armchair for my birthday and Christmas. They sprayed it. I’m betting next week they’ll be back.”

He meant the bugs. In his chair.

“I’m 75. I got a bad heart. I want them to come in and spray. I got these little marks. My feet, my ankles.”

Linda looked at John’s old mattress closely. She said, “This is infested.” Ron said, “I’ll put it on the balcony.”

John said, “I was an apartment super for 40 years. I never came across this. We never had this. They started three or four years ago, around the time I had my first heart attack; all of a sudden I was itching and scratching. Everybody in here has them but some people aren’t saying.

“That’s the problem. You got to clean the whole building. I got them coming up from the floor, which means the guy underneath me has got them.”

Listen closely:

If you thought Toronto was getting the bedbug problem under control, you’re wrong.

The solution?

Ron said, “I don’t know the solution. We do what we can.” Good for the Army. We need them to do what they can. But we need more than that.

Help, dammit.

Bed Bugs: Pest Control Company Sprayed a Baby Crib with Banned Chemicals

The Boston Globe reported that a Brazilian national who operated an extermination company in Everett was arrested on charges of using chemicals banned indoors and for operating without certification. Citizens of New York City and New Jersey and elsewhere need to make sure they hire a quality pest control company for bed bug treatments.

His company used the agricultural pesticides malathion and carbaryl, which have been banned from indoor use for eradicating bed bugs in Everett and other cities. One of the tenants claimed that the company sprayed the harsh chemicals throughout her apartment including on her eight month old daughters crib.

The tenant reported she had to hire a cleaning company to clean the place and after all the spraying she still had bed bugs. She moved out of her apartment. No mention if her landlord reimbursed her for the cleaning cost.

The maximum penalty for violating the EPA regulation includes one year in jail and/or a $25,000 fine. Perhaps the fine should be higher.

New York Bed Bugs: Consumer Protection Bill To Battle Bed Bugs

New York State PRESS RELEASES – For Immediate Release: June 16, 2010

Consumer Protection Bill To Battle Bed Bugs Passes Senate

Peralta Legislation Requires Sanitization of Used Mattresses and Bedding Materials

(Albany, N.Y.) The State Senate Democratic Majority has passed legislation sponsored by State Senator Jose Peralta (D-Queens), Chair of the Consumer Protection Committee, requiring retailers to sanitize every used mattress or bedding material transported, stored or sold in the state. The bill addresses the growing concerns regarding infestations of bedbugs by focusing on retail practices and the co-mingling of new and used bedding during transportation and storage.

Bedbugs have become more prevalent. According to the National Pest Management Association, bed bug complaints have increased 50 fold over the last five years, appearing in apartments, houses, hotels, dormitories and even office spaces in nearly every comer of the country. At one point this pest was virtually eliminated, however, it has made a comeback.

Peralta said, “Bed bugs have become an insidious nuisance costing consumers, homeowners, landlords and government an enormous amount of money to combat the epidemic. This legislation will go a long way in ensuring that measures are put into place to contain the spread of bedbugs. People should be able to buy a mattress or furniture without the fear of bringing an uninvited guest into their homes.”

S7316B requires that all used bedding up for resale must be sanitized using a method approved by the department of health that is intended to kill bedbugs, dust mites, other insects, molds, fungi, germs or other hazards.
The bill will also eliminate the prior definition of a new mattress which was any bedding purchased and returned to the retailer within 30 days. Peralta’s bill will now define all mattresses that are purchased and returned as used and will require them to be properly cleaned and clearly identified as a used product.

Cross contamination between contaminated used and new furniture has contributed to the spread of bedbugs. Peralta’s legislation addresses the need for sanitizing second-hand bedding, and preventing used bedding that has not been sanitized from being transported, stored or sold with new bedding.

The bill would require full disclosure of the manner of sanitization and chemicals used for cleaning. It will also require annual inspections of bedding manufacturers.

Additional Senate news available at http://nysenate.gov
New York State Senate | MajorityConference.News@senate.state.ny.us | 518-455-2415

Generic Bed Bug Recommendations

I would recommend:

* Natural remedies don’t’ work. Don’t even bother researching neem or lavender. If there were a natural remedy that really worked, it would be easy to get and well advertised.
* Steaming is a lot of work and doesn’t get bugs that hide in the walls, so steaming the mattress once a week will help but it won’t take care of the whole problem. If you get bugs, you WILL need to use chemicals.
* Don’t hire a pco who wants to spray your entire floor boards. It doesn’t work anyway, and you and your pets will be exposed to unnecessary chemicals.
* Phantom is the chemical of choice these days. The PCO should spray it around the baseboards and maybe on the walls where they meet the ceiling.
* Your animals will need to be boarded during the treatment for usually about 5 hours, but ask your PCO what they think.
* I was instructed to mop up any excess before bringing the animals back in.
* My cat, upon returning from the catsitter’s, immediately ran and hid—right on top of a poison-treated area. For hours. And he was fine. No illness whatsoever. Not even any skin or eye irritation.
* I used UMG Pest Control and they were very good. I didn’t let them spray my mattress. I steamed it myself once a week and the chemicals did the rest.
* Go to bedbugger.com for more information about preparation, washing, bagging, etc.

Bed Bugs New York State: Law Landlords must disclose bed bug infestations

Two bills under consideration would provide renters protection and compensation

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” is easier said than done for many New Yorkers.

One state Assembly member is pushing legislation that would require landlords to divulge any history of bedbug infestation to potential renters and another that would offer compensation for expenses accrued from dealing with infestations.

Linda B. Rosenthal, who represents the Upper West Side and parts of Hell’s Kitchen, introduced the two-bill legislation in mid-March as an effort to combat New York’s growing bedbug problem.

“As the scourge of bedbugs continues in New York, I am committed to giving my constituents the tools to protect themselves both epidemiologically and financially from this plague,” Rosenthal said in a statement.

The first bill would require the disclosure of any instance of bedbug infestation dating back five years. A memo in the bill states that the justification for the legislation is that “prospective tenants have a right to access relevant documentation regarding the history of bedbugs within their new living spaces” because the information is essential to making an informed decision.

“People who have gone through the plague of bedbugs are happy that I’m trying to address some the issues they’ve had to deal with — people who are long-time tenets who somehow get bedbugs or new tenets who move in to discover an infestation and have to deal with it,” Rosenthal told NBCNewYork.

After the bill was referred to the housing committee, it was amended and recommitted on April 20. The bill originally included the more complicated issue of apartment sales as well, so was amended to make the bill easier to pass. Rosenthal does support the protection of homebuyers and seeks to advance it in the future.

“Bedbugs are an enormous expense, and there is no mechanism right now to get that money back,” Rosenthal said. “I thought the state has responsibility to try and deal with it in some way.”

The second bill provides a tax credit of up to $750 to help with the cost of replacing property lost due to bedbug infestations. This property includes furniture, bedding, clothing, and any other belonging discarded during the extermination process. Since most renters or homeowners insurance does not cover bedbug infestation, the bill seeks to assist affected New Yorkers by offering a “modest tax credit.”

“If the state were in better economic condition perhaps the tax credit could be higher,” said Rosenthal. “But we’re in a precarious economic state, so offering high tax credit was impossible. We think what we came up with is more feasible.”

However, it is not clear when the two bills will be voted on in Albany.

Bed Bugs NYC: Bed Bug Epidemic Attacks New York City.

A bedbug epidemic has exploded in every corner of New York City – striking even upper East Side luxury apartments owned by Gov. Spitzer’s father, the Daily News has learned.

The blood-sucking nocturnal creatures have infested a Park Ave. penthouse, an artist’s colony in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a $25 million Central Park West duplex and a theater on Broadway, according to victims, exterminators and elected officials.

Once linked to flophouses and fleabags, bedbug outbreaks victimize the rich and poor alike and are spreading panic in some of the city’s hottest neighborhoods.

One exterminator writes: “In the last six months, I’ve treated maternity wards, five-star hotels, movie theaters, taxi garages, investment banks, private schools, white-shoe law firms, Brooklyn apartments in Greenpoint, DUMBO and Cobble Hill, even the chambers of a federal judge,”

The numbers are off the charts: In 2004, New Yorkers placed 537 calls to 311 about bedbugs in their homes; the city slapped 82 landlords with bedbug violations, data show.

In the fiscal year that ended in June, 6, more than 889 infestation complaints were logged and 2,008 building owners were hit with summonses.

They must get rid of the pests within 30 days or face possible action in Housing Court, the city Department of Housing, Preservation & Development says.

The scourge has left no section of the city untouched: Complaints and enforcement actions soared in 57 of the 59 community boards.

In the most bedbug-riddled district, Bushwick in Brooklyn, HPD issued 172 violations this year, up from four in 2004; it responded to 476 complaints, up from 47.

Central Harlem chalked up 269 complaints, up from nine. Williamsburg and Greenpoint, home to the city’s hippest galleries, racked up 148, up from 11 in 2004. Astoria and Long Island City saw the tally climb to 345 from 41.

Bedbugs come out of the woodwork at night to feed on human blood, biting people in their sleep and leaving large, itchy skin welts that can be painful. They are not believed to carry or transmit diseases.

A surge in global travel and mobility in all socioeconomic classes, combined with less toxic urban pesticides and the banning of DDT created a perfect storm for reviving the critters, which had been virtually dormant since World War II, experts say.

Prolific reproducers and hardy survivors, they can thrive in penthouses, flophouses or any environment where they can locate warm-blooded hosts, said Louis Sorkin, an entomologist at the Museum of Natural History who keeps a colony of 1,000 bedbugs in his office and lets them feed on his arm.

“The female hatches as many as 500 eggs a year, and they can survive for a year and a half without a blood meal,” he said. “They’re at home in every neighborhood in the city, including Park Ave. and Fifth Ave.”

The small, wingless, rust-colored insects hitch rides on clothing, luggage, furniture, bedding, book bags, even shoelaces. They’ve been spotted in cabs and limos, as well as on buses and subways.

Those travel patterns account for the 1,708 verified bedbug cases in 277 public housing projects this year, the city Housing Authority says. The Department of Education has documented another 74 cases, spread across 50 schools.

They even contaminated five or six apartments in the swanky rental tower at 220 E. 72nd St. owned by Bernard Spitzer, the governor’s 83-year-old father.

Several tenants described a persistent, if intermittent, infestation on the 15th, 16th and 17th floors.

One resident had to throw away rugs, bedding, curtains, 20 cashmere sweaters, an Armani suit, a couch, a headboard, a night table, a bedframe and an exercise bike. During extermination, he stayed at the Carlyle Hotel.

Spitzer, a prominent developer, said he was unaware of contamination problems in any of his buildings. He referred calls to the managing agent, Rose Associates.

“The company has worked aggressively and proactively to address this issue through ongoing extermination and apartment inspections,” a spokesman said.

Spitzer’s 28-story building sits atop the six-story home of Marymount Manhattan College, which discovered seven infestations in two residence halls. The problem was under control by October, a spokeswoman said.

City officials say HPD inspectors are increasing enforcement as complaints mushroom and the Health Department is handling education and prevention efforts. It’s not more actively involved because its focus is on disease-spreading pests, officials said.

“That’s not good enough,” said City Councilman Gale Brewer (D-upper West Side.) “It’s great that we’re not smoking as much, and great that we’re not eating trans fats, but we need to focus on bedbugs in the same aggressive manner.”

Brewer wants to create a Bedbug Task Force and bar the sale of reconditioned mattresses, which the Bloomberg administration opposes because it “would adversely impact lower-income New Yorkers,” a mayoral spokesman said.

I was getting up to 20 bites a night

Tiny bedbugs can take a huge psychological toll on their victims, like Caitlin Heller, a Queens College student whose Jackson Heights apartment was twice infested.

“I was getting 15 to 20 bites a night, and it was driving me crazy,” said Heller, who runs Yahoo’s Bedbug Support Group where sufferers commiserate. “I suffered mentally. I couldn’t sleep at night, and I couldn’t focus during the day because I had itchy, painful welts all over my body.”

For therapy, Heller (photo inset) started her online support group in January 2006. In eight months, she had 70 members; today there are 555, almost all New Yorkers.

Bedbugs also take a steep financial toll – and can even keep families apart for the holidays, like the Delgados of Woodside in Queens.

Joyce Delgado, an office manager at a midtown firm, and her husband Joseph, who works in the back office of a brokerage house, always went upstate for Thanksgiving to see family in Wappingers Falls. Not this year. They used up all their vacation time battling an infestation in their apartment of 35 years and didn’t want to risk contaminating the homes of loved ones.

It all began in September when Joyce Delgado saw a single bedbug on her husband’s pillow at 2 a.m. “We threw out everything – a rug, couch, two upholstered chairs, wall-to-wall carpeting, drapes, towels, curtains, bedding – because we thought everything we owned was contaminated,” she said. “We checked into the Grand Motor Inn in Maspeth during extermination. All told, we must have spent $2,000, and we still won’t go back into our bedroom. We’re living on a makeshift bed in the living room.”

Bed Bugs Attacking the Poor: Meghan Loves to Color

Meghan Lloyd-Winstanley walks to her school PS 332, slated to close. (Photo by Mary Plummer)

Six-year old Meghan Lloyd-Winstanley sits in a plastic chair, looking down at her hands, as her mother, Teasha, stands above her recounting a laundry list of problems.

There are mice and bedbugs and roaches in their building, the 31-year-old mother said one February evening.

A window that won’t close all the way in their tiny living space.

No work for Meghan’s dad, James, 40, who’s applied to more than 300 jobs in his search for desktop support IT work.

“I don’t know whether to cry or scream or what,” Teasha said. Teasha is tall and skinny, her angled arms look like taut tree branches.

The problems are unmistakably overwhelming, but Meghan remains calm and quiet – her composure is oddly serene next to her mother’s frantic monologue. She looks up from time to time between the messy brown waves of her pixie cut. She’s used to hearing her mother’s troubles.

In fact, she lives them everyday. The Lloyd-Winstanley family is homeless – they began living in various city homeless shelters in 2006. Meghan shares one room at the Junius Street homeless shelter in Brownsville, Brooklyn with her parents and two younger brothers, 2-year-old Dylan, and 4-year-old Brendan. Adding to Meghan’s troubled fate, the city announced in January that her beloved school is scheduled to close down too.

Meghan and Brendan are two of about 100 homeless students who attend Public School 332, which has about 550 students total. The school is located a few blocks from the shelter on the corner of Christopher and Liberty Avenues in one of the poorest sections of New York. PS 332 was one of the 19 schools labeled as a failure by the Department of Education in January and scheduled for closure. The school experienced more than a 100 percent increase in homeless students last year. With few resources, teachers have been left on their own to help educate the homeless students who often need extra attention, according to science teacher Vanecia Wilson.

Parents have argued that the school needs to remain intact because it’s a positive force in the tough neighborhood. Julia Escalera has lived in the projects across the street since she was eight months old. Now her daughter and niece go to the school. She doesn’t go outdoors with them after 10 p.m. because she’s afraid of the drug dealers and sex offenders.

“This neighborhood is 50/50, it’s like you always got to look behind your back,” she said, adding that losing the school is losing the “peaceful” place.

PS 332 provides stability and stimulation in Meghan’s complicated life. Born in 2003 at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in lower Manhattan, she’s lived in poverty ever since. Her father James has been unemployed since April of last year. He’s had trouble holding a job since Meghan was born. The family of five has bounced around from Texas to Louisiana to Arkansas living mostly in hotels and shelters. They even spent two painful nights on the streets of Dallas in 2006, where Meghan and Brendan slept on top of each other in a one-child stroller. In 2008, the family of five moved more than 13 times.

For James, who grew up in a middle-class family in New Jersey, raising his family as a homeless person was unimaginable. He always thought he’d be an actor, owning one or two nice homes. He said every time he finishes a move it feels like he’s just ran a marathon – but the exhaustion never fades because one thought is always with him, “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

“You never see it coming until it hits,” he said, adding that he used to think homeless people were lazy and shiftless. “It’s one of the most terrifying things you can go through.”

PTA president Reina Foster said she’s still shocked that the school’s closing – she thinks it will cause particular hardships for all the homeless children who crave a steady schedule.

“The school is more stability than the actual home itself,” said Foster, who has four of her children at the school and also went there herself. “PS 332 isn’t just a school, it’s a safe house for them – it’s a home.”

Meghan enjoys school. “Sometimes I miss school,” she said one day from her home at the shelter. Her favorite subject is art, and she likes making paper airplanes.

Her love of school is one of the first details that come to mind when you ask anyone about her.

“She’s a hard worker, she’s patient,” said Wilson, Meghan’s science teacher. “She goes above and beyond to show you that she’s following directions and that she’s a good listener.”

Meghan, who’s performing on grade level, talks a lot about her family when she’s at school. But she doesn’t talk about her home. Last month, Wilson was teaching a lesson on environments and community. The kids were telling stories about where they live.

“She doesn’t discuss that,” Wilson said. Wilson teaches about 20 homeless students and said they often have trust issues and feel as if they don’t belong. “They are kind of like outsiders of the group. I think that affects their self esteem.”

Wilson said unlike many homeless students, Meghan has good attendance. When Meghan recently missed a string of days because she had to get checked for lice, Wilson was worried. “I thought they were gone,” she said. At PS 332, homeless students often transfer shelters and disappear without even a goodbye.

Currently, Meghan is one of four homeless students in her class. For Meghan’s classmates, problems at home lead to poor attendance. During the month of February, Meghan’s class of 17 had an average of five students absent every day. It’s an issue Meghan’s teacher Mona Prince said the school can’t tackle on its own. Prince talks to students’ parents when kids fall behind because of absences and tardies, but she said it doesn’t make a difference.

“I think a lot of parents have a lot of problems themselves,” she said. “They live in a situation that’s not ideal. They’re in survival mode.”

Meghan has lots of friends – but can only see them when she’s at school. The shelter doesn’t allow guests past a small, square visitors room. Meghan is one of about 500 kids who live at the shelter, which houses about 215 families.

“Everyone thinks it’s a bad thing. They don’t think having visitors are nice,” Meghan explained. She imagines living somewhere else and having a big birthday party. “When we move I’ll have all my friends over.”

At school Meghan enjoys a treasured commodity in her life: space. She runs around and plays games at gym time. She goes outside during lunch.

At the shelter, James said his biggest wish for Meghan is that she could have her own room, “a place to retreat.” Meghan and her brothers can only play in the middle of the room they all share, which can become a minefield of sorts with toys spread out across the small space. Teasha said Meghan gets frustrated and will sometimes hit herself on the arms.

“Our house is too small. The closet’s too small,” Meghan explained. She calls their home at the shelter, “one little house.”

Being homeless has taken a toll on the family. Both James and Teasha admit to battling depression the past few years. It comes in waves, and leads to more fighting. When it hits, James and Teasha become reclusive. But the pair depend on one another and have been able to maintain, never down for more than a week.

“We lean on each other,” James said, but “The sooner we get out of here, the happier we’re going to be.”

Both parents are upset about the school closing. James spoke in protest at a December school meeting. He was frustrated that the school closure could mean that students who live at the shelter will need to bused somewhere to attend a new school. “Why further handicap those that have a handicap in the first place?” he said at the meeting.

The closure means the school will gradually be phased out. Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, second, third and sixth grades will be eliminated next year, as a public school and a charter school move in to take PS 332’s place. The following year fourth and seventh grades will be eliminated, and PS 332 will officially close in June 2012. In the near future, Meghan will keep her routines, but the closure added to the family’s sense of insecurity and a general feeling that wherever they go services are disappearing.

“I think the school’s been given up on,” James said. If Meghan and Brendan stay in the neighborhood they will eventually have to attend different schools.

The Department of Education says that since the phase-out is gradual the closure will not displace homeless students, and that education quality generally improves as schools are phased out and better able to give fewer students the attention they need.

But for the Winstanley family there isn’t much time to worry about the school.

“Right now the school is not really at the top of my mind,” Teasha said. “I’m trying to get out of here.”

Meghan’s parents walk her to and from school each day; the path takes them by shuttered businesses covered in graffiti and many empty lots lined in barbed wire. It’s a neighborhood that looks long forgotten, and Meghan’s parents say they don’t trust it. Teasha, who said she was physically abused when she was a teenager and ran away from home at about 14 years old, talks a lot about protecting Meghan.

“You’ve got to be careful,” Teasha said. “Pedophiles, rapists, you name it they live here.”

Back in the fluorescent-lit visitors’ room Teasha told a story about gangs and their street clothes. At PS 332, some kids as young as sixth graders are gang members and family rivalries often are carried inside the school, where gunshots on the street are sometimes heard from the classrooms.

“Stay away from bad people,” Teasha told Meghan.

“I know that,” Meghan answered back, with a roll of her eyes. It’s hard to imagine at age six how Meghan could mix with a bad crowd. In her pink flowered dress she’s shy and respectful. But the smell of the room and the piles of trash that line the streets outside the shelter suggest that Meghan’s already experienced her fair share of trouble.

“I’m trying to keep my kids from seeing the ghetto,” Teasha said. “It’s frustrating, because what do you tell a six year old about their living situation?”

Source: Huffington Post