Alaska Daily News (2014) explained,
After years of homelessness with her husband and children, Sandra Haviland was ecstatic to land an apartment this May.
The two-bedroom unit at the Royal Suite Apartments, a former motel that fronts Minnesota Drive, was modest.
The couple’s elementary school-age sons would share a bed. So would their two teenage daughters. Haviland and her husband would sleep on the couch and a fold-out cot, respectively.
But after camping on the floor of a church and being crammed in motel rooms, an apartment promised stability and peace.
“When you are homeless and you finally get an apartment, you’re just so happy,” Haviland said.
But six months later, Haviland and others who reside at the Royal Suite Apartments are finding out just what being a low-income renter with few other options can mean in Anchorage.
Haviland and some of her neighbors say their apartments are so infested with bedbugs that they put children to bed at night with a dose of Benadryl to dull itching and allow sleep.
One of Haviland’s neighbors, Crystal Girlando, has taken to at times sleeping in her pickup to escape the bugs.
Girlando’s daughter-in-law Brandy Straight, who lives in another unit, catches bedbugs in a cup of water for proof. Like many other residents, she has removed her mattress, box spring and couch from the apartment to a stairwell in an effort to expel bedbugs.
The manager of the Royal Suite Apartments says he is doing everything possible to rid the apartments of bugs, having purchased a $10,000 electric heater that is supposed to safely eradicate bedbugs from an apartment over a six-hour period.
“I am very confident we are taking care of those problems,” said manager Thomas Yoon.
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