A resident of a high rise in Scotland has been horrified and scared to sleep at night due to discovering a huge infestation of bed bugs, silverfish, and beetles. Andrew Breslin has been forced to sleep on the sofa due to being too petrified to face the bugs in his bedroom. He has told the Glasgow Live that he does not know how much more he can take.
As a result of this, Mr Breslin suffers continuous sleepless nights and OCD attacks as he has no other option but to live alone in the insect infested flat. Andrew first discovered the massive infestation when he first moved into the Sandyhills high rise block of flats in February 2020, although he admitted he initially did not think much of it.
Soon after, he realised the problem was much worse than first anticipated as he began waking up with rashes all over his skin, which turned out to be bed bug bites as he saw the critters crawling all over his mattress, pillow, and duvet. After discovering this, he decided to look under the bed and to his horror he discovered more of the insects around the skirting board and all over the carpet.
Andrew told the Glasgow Live “I’ve been savaged by all the bed bugs. I hadn’t had experience with them before now but the whole place is crawling with them. I woke up early one morning and saw two of them crawling up the duvet towards me. And there were babies under the pillow. They leave horrible marks.”
Mr Breslin, 42, got in touch with the housing officers who informed him that it was not a problem they had ever dealt with before. As such, a pest controller was sent in November to spray the property and said they would be back to complete the work, but they are yet to arrive. The tenant has tried to reach out to the contractors carrying out the fumigation but states his calls and messages have been ignored.
The resident has expressed that his depression has gone downhill since finding the bugs in his home. Andrew Breslin has said “I’m sleeping on the sofa now but they’ve begun following me in there. I now have the same ritual before I go to bed. I check in the pillows and in the duvet. It’s a battle. I don’t know how much more I can take. I have OCD with bugs, and this has affected me hugely. It really has me going around the bend. This sort of issue plays with people’s mental health. I can’t even sleep properly because I’ve got creepy crawlie sensations. It’s turned into a nightmare. I’m at my wit’s end. I understand these are hard times and all due to lockdown, but it is pushing me over the edge. I have nowhere else to go.”
A spokesperson for the Glasgow Housing Association has confirmed the housing association have tried reaching out to Andrew at the time of publication. They have said: “We’ve tried several times to contact this tenant to arrange a time for our specialist contractors to go out and sort the latest issue, but we couldn’t get him by phone or email. We were very sorry to hear the issue had come back after our contractors treated the problem in November, followed up by regular weekly checks. We understand it’s affecting the tenant’s wellbeing so there’s no issue with getting it fixed. We finally made contact with him today and we’ll try to get this resolved as quickly as possible.”