By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/uncmp9bedbugs092209.html
UNITED NATIONS, September 22 -- As the UN now admits extensive infestation by bed bugs of its "swing space" Albano Building on 46th Street, on Tuesday it gave Inner City Press a new argument. On September 18, a week after exclusively reporting the UN bed bug infestation, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesperson Michele Montas to "please confirm or deny that bed bugs were found in the Albano Building swing space and fumigation done, and please state what was found, what steps are in place if the infestation continues or even spreads east of First Avenue."
By the noon briefing on September 22, still not response has been received. So Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas' colleague Jean-Victor Nkolo, the spokesperson for General Assembly President Ali Treki, if the General Assembly or member states had been informed of the infestation by bed bugs of the building offices of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management.
Mr. Nkolo said he is no specialist, that Inner City Press should ask "the management." Ms. Montas then handed Inner City Press a five paragraph "If Asked" statement, which quoted the first part of Inner City Press' September 18 question:
IF ASKED ABOUT BED BUGS
please confirm or deny that bed bugs were found in the Albano Building swing space and fumigation done,
Pest control contractors have confirmed an infestation of bed bugs on a number of floors in the Albano Building and staff have been informed.
Over the weekend of 19 and 20 September, extermination measures against bed bugs (fumigation) have been applied for the entire Albano Building by a specialized contractor in line with industry best practice. Follow up measure will be taken in two weeks.
Spot checks on... five floors of 380 Madison Avenue last week did not find a single incidence of bed bugs. Workstations, furniture, desks and chairs that were relocated from the Secretariat Building were also checked and no bed bugs were found.
The exterminator advises that the extend of the infestation detected in the Albano Building would take at least six months if not longer to develop. Since the UN moved into the building in mid-July it is most likely that the bed bugs were in the Albano Building before the UN moved in.
This is meant to rebut the idea that the UN's moving contractor introduced bed bugs into Albano, and therefore might have put them in Madison Avenue, Third Avenue and Second Avenue swing spaces. But if the bed bugs were in Albano before the UN moved in -- before the UN leased the property? -- what does it say about the UN's due diligence? And where might the bed bugs spread next, even during the General Assembly meetings the documents for which are prepared in the Albano Building? Watch this site.
