Redwood City care facility faces bed bug issue

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. ( KRON ) — A local assisted living facility dealing with a bed bug infestation sent one resident to the hospital. His advocates are raising concern and are calling it neglect.

“I mentally, physically, and spiritually crushed they would let this go on for so long, and every day I depend on them to care for me because I’m disabled,” Eric Love, 58, a Hopkins Manor resident, told KRON4.

Love is wheelchair-bound and lives at the Hopkins Manor assisted living facility in Redwood City.

Over the last week, he has complained of extreme back pain. On Saturday, he was sent to the hospital because of it. Paramedics and doctors showed him pictures of his back, which was full of bed bug bites.

“When I went to the hospital, they pulled out four big bed bugs off my skin, and they showed them to me… I was just really shocked,” Love said.

His pain was from bed bugs. Love says he shared his discharge paperwork with Hopkins Manor and was told Hopkins Manor would “look into it.”

“I had to sleep there and wait until Tuesday until they said they could exterminate (the bed bugs),” Love said. As of Thursday, the bed bugs still persist. “I haven’t seen an exterminator,” Love said.

KRON4 sat down with Hopkins Manor and asked about the infestation.

“We have a bed bug issue. We found it since March this year,” Ricardo Aban, Executive Director of Hopkins Manor, told KRON4. He says caregivers have also experienced similar issues from the bed bugs.

KRON4 asked why the infestation has yet to be corrected, and Aban said they had already hired a company to deal with the issue.

“We had an agreement with an ongoing contractor to deal with them, and (the company) comes a couple of times a month to treat the rooms that were identified with bed bugs,” Aban said.

According to Aban, however, Hopkins Manor was not satisfied with the quality of the work expected to be done.

“For some reason, we were not satisfied seeing some rooms. So we requested an inspection from a company, and they brought in a K-9 unit,” Aban said.

The new company brought in that special K9 unit on Friday. They also shared a document from Aug. 8 showing the Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division conducted an unannounced visit to follow up on a complaint.

The department cited Hopkins with two citations: one for staff not properly addressing the infestation and one for not ensuring timely medical attention to a resident in care.

“They requested from us what treatment we have been doing… I’ve shown them our contracts, as well as the visits done by the contracting company, and they advised us to just continue the process and to update them whenever possible,” Aban said.

KRON4 shared this information with Love, and this is what he had to say:

“They never told me, not one time, about ‘previous issues’… They made it seem like it was the first time, and they were being very nonchalant about taking my complaint. They were pretty much just ignoring me. They were callous.”

Hopkins says they are taking this matter seriously but cannot say how long it will take to get rid of the beg bugs. The Department of Social Services said they do not comment on open investigations.

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