Denise, aged 88, normally lives in a residence for the elderly in Orsay, in Essonne. But it has now been more than two months since she has dared to sleep in her bed. The cause of his fear? Bedbugs, like many French people. “I noticed it last May. I started having itches on my body, without understanding why. One day, my cat lay down under the sheets. She started meowing strangely. It was when I looked closer that I saw three, she told Parisian on Wednesday November 1, 2023. “I don’t even know how they got to my house. Honestly, I’m only surviving because I have my cat and I don’t want to leave her alone.” Of the 140 housing units in the residence, six were affected by bedbugs. And the situation is not improving.
One of the residents committed suicide
“We treated four homes. In three of them, there is no more. The last one, we don’t understand why, despite five treatments, there is still some left. For the other two, the residents refuse to open the door for us so that we can intervene. We are in the process of seeing with their families and the department what can be done.” explained David Ros, the mayor of the town, to our colleagues. In total, there are eight tenants who are getting impatient and for whom daily life has become hell. Exhausted, one of them killed himself in October 2023. “Every day, we saw him go to the laundromat to wash his sheets. He couldn’t take it anymore, said Élisabeth, the president of the social life council of the residence. He was undermined and ashamed of what was happening to him.” If for the residents it was the bedbugs and the unlivable situation that led to the man to commit the irreparablethe mayor wants to be more cautious. “His apartment had been treated, and there were no more bedbugs,” he assured. Today, the residents only think of one thing: leaving, as the situation has become so unbearable.