ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Staffers and residents at the Westside Homeless Shelter have a problem — bed bugs.
We have been contacted by a few people who use the shelter and on Wednesday the shelter manager confirmed that the bugs are a problem.
“I saw them crawling on the sheets, I keep my area clean, I have white sheets now because I can see them better,” MJ said.
MJ talks about bugs caught on video at the Westside Shelter.
Steve Decker is Heading Home’s CEO and operations supervisor. He confirmed the shelter has a bed bug infestation but says their hands are tied.
“The best we can do is make a request and the city has been very good at accommodating the request for pest control, but pest control is coming out and if we don’t completely empty the shelter, they can’t do the entire building at once.” treat,” he told Decker.
He also says that bed bugs are unfortunately very common in these types of accommodations.
“When there’s a congregation shelter, they face these problems, period,” Decker said.
The shelter says they have dryers that guests can use to kill the bed bugs. But the shelter says they can’t force guests to use them.
MJ says this is her second time here and hopes it will be her last.
“When I got here I went straight into it, I looked for you, you know, tried to get a job and I got that job. I passed my background check, my urine test, my driver’s license is fine. So there was nothing holding me back in terms of employment,” MJ said.
MJ has just gotten a new job and she’s worried about taking the bugs to work – lost time means lost money for them.
“I’m very paranoid, I don’t sleep well. I just keep thinking, you know, have you ever scratched yourself, you know, you’re always like, oh my god, what is that?
MJ says she hopes the shelter will be more hygienic in the future, but mostly she just wants a clean place to sleep.
“I can’t break the cycle because I can’t, you know, you can’t start, you can’t get paid,” she said.
The shelter says since this is an ongoing problem, there’s no real timeline for when the bugs will be fixed. But they said they had contacted the city’s pest control department when needed.
