Residents, workers say bugs and infections rampant at London, Ont., care facility
CBC
WARNING: This story contains some graphic images.
Residents of a privately run residential care facility in London, Ont., say the 722 Hamilton Rd, home is overrun with bed bugs and cockroaches, and they want the owners to provide better cleaning and more care.
Ricky Williams, 44, moved to Bruce Residence in December last year after undergoing heart surgery in London.
"I got bit so many times. I had sores all over my body," he said. "There was blood all over my sheets, all over my pillow. If you move your dresser or something, you'll see like 30 cockroaches scatter."
Williams said cleaning staff aren't moving quickly enough. He shared a photo with CBC News of feces spread over a bathroom floor and said it stayed that way for three days.
Another resident, Bob Campbell, 73, also shared his concerns.
"I threw a black toque on the floor and went to lunch," said Campbell, who has lived at the group home for 15 months. "When I came back, the black toque was covered in bedbugs.
"You couldn't even tell it was black anymore. It was copper tone."
CBC London reached out to Bruce Residence to get more information on the facility.
A spokesperson, chief operating officer Joe Todd, said it is regulated through the City of London and currently has 47 residents in 49 units.
He said all the residents need a little extra help with their day-to-day living, although they live largely independently. Many of them were once homeless and nearly all of them are on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) or receiving Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits, Todd said.
Sometimes that money goes directly to the facility, and in other cases, the residents receive it first and then pay their rent.
"Right now, it's mixed, but going forward we're going to be implementing a system where we receive" those government benefits directly, he said, expressing concerns some of the residents use that money to buy drugs and don't pay the rent.
Todd said Ethan Eswaran bought the property on Hamilton Road three years ago and runs three other similar residential facilities in Strathroy, St. Thomas and Mount Brydges.
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