-- that were non compliant. we have not had to utilize the penalties but are prepared to use them. the data i am going to share is going to suggest that in the category of bed bugs, a lot is going on. things seem to happen the way they are supposed to happen. we do not anticipate having to use penalties and enforcement provisions frequently. i am going to divide the data into two groups. one is hotels and shelters. the other is apartments and houses. supervisor kim: do you have this data for us so that we can look at it? >> i can do this. i do not have it printed out. ok.

i will prepare this and get it to you. in a two-year period, we had over 500 complaints for both categories. these are only the situations where the tenant has not resolved the issue with the landlord. in apartments and houses, in 74% of the cases, 393 instances, the issue was resolved in 15 days. in 90% of the cases, it was resolved in 30 days. almost 100% are ultimately resolved. this tells us that the process of the tenant interacting with

the landlord is working. it had already begun to work. the only way they could have resolved it in 30 days is if the process had already begun. it suggests to us that in the apartment case, in large part the landlords are responding to tenant issues. there is only a residual case when they need to come to us. when they do come to us, we're able to resolve the issues with landlord corporation rapidly. in hotels and shelters, we have about the same number of complaints, 572. about 50% are resolved in 15 days. that suggests that as they have contacted us, they have probably also been talking to the landlord in progress is happening.

we see about 80% being resolved in 60 days. this suggests there are more challenges in the hotel and shelter arena in managing this issue. these are some of the issues that she was alluding to. many of the challenges are in the tenants being prepared and capable of doing the steps required for pest control treatment. there are alternate pest control treatments available. it is not our prerogative and ability under city law to mandate one particular type of pest control treatment or another. our mandate under city law is to ensure that the tests are eradicated. there is no mandate to say they

are eradicated in a certain number of days or using certain treatments. this gets to the third regulatory responsibility which is pesticide enforcement. the city does not have an independent jurisdiction on pesticide enforcement. it is the enforcement agency for state law. the state law on pesticides is clear. certain pesticides are allowed in certain uses. it requires licensing a pest control operators. it does not allow the city to independently prohibit or recommend one pesticide treatment or another. it ties our hands. we have tried to do other things. the fourth and last issue i want to point out is our role as

manager of housing. we manage some hotels through master leases. we have done some particular things to prevent bedbug infections that may be replicable in the wider industry. when new tenants are coming into a master lease patel, they are being screened for bed bugs. they're asked to wash and clean their belongings. i do not have all the details of the process. it is a process that the managers of the program believe is reducing the incidence of the problem in those hotels. what is really challenging about this issue is that this is a pest transmitted by people and their belongings.

while we can provide a lot of education and rooms can be prepared to prevent transmission, it is very hard to control a bug that lives on people. it is difficult to do without doing things we would consider a violation of privacy. it is a challenge. the population we're dealing with often has complicated issues. we provide the same sets of resources from adult protective services to mental health services. the city has been supported. the legislature has been supported by providing for nonprofits to help tenants manage. i am going to stop there and take questions.

supervisor kim: i do have a couple of questions. i was trying to write down what you are saying. how many notices of violation total did dph issue against property owners for any violation? >> i want to separate the complete data. a complete data from the violations. supervisor kim: i want to know what percentage of complaints and violations are for bed bugs. >> 532 in apartments. supervisor kim: do you know what percentage that is in your total number of violations? >> in terms of the complaints we respond to, that would be roughly about 10% in the

apartments and housing. do you want to estimate for the hotels what percent of bed bugs? in the shelters, we're estimating 50% to 60%. supervisor kim: this is a problem that comes up frequently as one of the most reported complaints that the ph --dph gets. >> many people are hearing about bed bugs. they are having a problem. they do not know what it is. they call us because they might have bed bugs. we're going in and doing a thorough inspection and finding there are none. that is one of the reasons these complaints are being abated. there is a public perception of bed bugs driving the complaints.

the actual violations are much less than the complaints. i do not have those numbers with me. supervisor kim: do you have the number of all violations that are bed bugs? >> i do not have that. supervisor kim: how many environmental health inspectors are assigned to bedbug code enforcement? >> we do not assign inspectors to a particular pest. we assigned inspectors to two different programmatic areas. we have two inspectors handling roughly 500 sro's. they are investigating complaints and doing some room by room inspections.

these have been designated as family sro's or where the city has the master lease function. for the apartment inspection program, we have 10 inspectors distributive citywide. supervisor kim: 10 for apartments and two for hotels and shelters. you say that is roughly 530 hotels and shelters? but there are roughly about 500 sro hotels. with tourist hotels, is 800 total. supervisor kim: these two inspectors are responsible for 800 hotels? >> that is correct. we're managing by the complete

response to complete response -- we are managing by the complaint response. at the service level we are providing, it is adequate. i mentioned we're doing the pro- active inspections in only a subset of the tesoro -- of the sro's were the city has the master lease responsibility or where we have assigned families. i think we would be welcoming of being able to do a preventative function.

it would need additional resources. we are funded by license fees from the property owners. supervisor kim: in 2008, we passed the healthy housing ordinance. it pays for nine full-time staff members. the city hotel and apartment owners paid $1.5 million so that we can have routine complaint inspections. do any of the 9.5 inspectors' work on the proactive inspections? >> in terms of bed bugs, they are working on be proactive inspections on the limited set. supervisor kim: how much do they do every year in terms of pro- active inspections? >> for the sro's designated for

master lease and family, we inspected every room, every year. supervisor kim: that is a small percentage of the 20,000 sro units in san francisco. >> i think we inspect roughly -- you can come up to respond to this. supervisor kim: i think a number of questions i will need to both appear. we have roughly 20,000 residential units in our sro's. what percentage do we do pro- active inspections for? >> i cannot tell you numbers in terms of inventory units. i can tell you in terms of the sro's. we're typically doing room to room inspections in 170.

that is out of 500 plus sro's in the city. the tourist hotels represent a different category. the demand for that and proactive inspections is less. we would not necessarily recommend the room by room inspections in the tourist hotels. it would be an advantage to do that. i know that dbi does also do these inspections. this is a specialty area of the identification of factors as a special area of training. supervisor kim: do you work with dbi? are you coordinating this with

dbi? do you ever do joint inspections together for buildings with the most complaints or violations? do you make sure they handle a different set of buildings other than the hundred and 70 you may inspect that year? >> it is not a usual day-to-day practice to coordinate the inspections. record made them in code enforcement cases. -- we coordinate them in code enforcement cases. we will set up a code enforcement investigation were multiple agencies are doing the investigation at the same time. those are a case by case. supervisor kim: what is the process for certifying inspectors for bedbug abatement? >> there is no particular certification for bed bugs. they are one kind of pest. there is a state director control branch within the health

department. de- require continuing education units for -- they require continuing education units. bedbugs are included. all of my inspectors in both programs maintain that certification. supervisor kim: do you believe that the dph directors rules and regulations are adequate? >> when we issued the regulations in 2006, we were the first city in the country to do so. i think they are adequate to deal with the response of component of the problem but not necessarily prevention. we can do some of the things for

more proactive inspections. even if a room is inspected and found clear before a tenant occupies it, a tenant can bring in bed bugs. that makes it a difficult situation. supervisor kim: i understand that. would it be helpful to mandate a type of treatment or to mandate that complaints get resolved within a certain number of days? would it help if we were to change that? >> one of the things that changed with the december amendment to the nooses -- nuisance code is that our staff have guidelines for what is required and in what time period. we do have a standard amount of time for which the bedbug

complaints must be resolved. those are regulations. they are not city law, but there are regulations. we can amend those as needed. supervisor kim: would it be helpful to amend city law to mandate a type of treatment or number of days? >> i think it would have potential pros and cons. if one treatment is much more expensive than another, it may discourage treatment and recording -- reporting. it may cause other problems. we have never mandated for private property is a particular type of pest control treatment. we would have to think about that issue very carefully. supervisor kim: i know certain treatments are more effective than others. they are probably more expensive.

are there different standards set for the different types of treatment? either industry or from your perspective -- that certain types are best treated by heat or pesticides. >> if there are no accepted best practices or standard practices for this. this is an emerging area. there's going to be a lot of new technology. there is no dog sniffing -- now dog sniffing technology. this is an emerging area. there are state rules that tie your hands. our city and others in california would be loath to develop guidelines that were explicit about pesticide control.

supervisor kim: is there any kind of licensing required for pest control operators, who provide abatement for bed of control services? >> all of the operators are licensed under state law. the types of treatment -- certain types of treatment require a particular type of permit, the most toxic types of treatment. these do not require a use by used treatment. supervisor kim: so nothing specific around bedbugs. among operators, is that consistent in their ability to successfully abate bedbug issues, here in the city? >> i do not think so. again, these are -- regulation of the pest control industry, monitoring of the effectiveness of the pest control industry --

we have not been collecting data. i suppose we could look at the data from the test operator to see if the tests were chronic, or if there were any patterns, that is something that we could study. since we are asking for treatment records for those operators. supervisor kim: that would be great. they could help buttress the number that we get. landlord probably go straight to the operators, not the city. do you help provide guidance to owners and managers on where they can find quality and effective services? are there companies that are known to do good quality work, that you refer them to? >> we tried to provide guidance based on what treatment should look like. again, it has not been our practice -- and some may

consider it inappropriate for the city to recommend one business over another. we are trying to promote exactly what they should expect from the operator. when we get a notice of a violation, we are explicit about what that pest control operators should do. three treatments of these kinds, this many days apart. they need to put monitors, in certain cases to see if the adjoining room has been invested. we are explicit in what we want to see from the best control operator. supervisor kim: i know that we do not necessarily detail minimum of guidelines for when to issue a violation for bedbugs. rose mary mentioned you do not need to see the bad bugs, but

just the blood on the seheet -- that is enough to issue a violation. what are the minimum guidelines for issuing a violation? >> pursuant to the changes in the health code, we will be clarifying that for the entire community. what is the physical evidence ultimately that judges -- that leads to a notice of violation? in our practice, any of these findings will lead to a notice. isupervisor kim: so we have a detailed list of the physical evidence. >> we have a list in the day-to- day practice of stopping there will be translated into a public document for people.

another specific thing -- supervisor kim: the physical evidence listed in order to issue a violation? >> some of the physical evidence includes blood stains on the mattress. feces, the exoskeleton of the dead bedbugs. you can actually see, at times, live bedbugs. sometimes, you see other stages, what we call nymphs. it is not one single item that prompts us for a notice. it is a combination of those things i mentioned. supervisor kim: i would love to get that list. thank you.

>> just to add to that, where there is ambiguity, we will leave a sticky trap in the room and come back to look for evidence. that is a pretty standard industry practice. supervisor kim: could i ask a few follow up questions to ms. bosk, too. thank you, colleagues, for this time. i want to ask members of the task force that has been the convening to summarize some of their findings, their research. you had talked about a reasonable accommodation requests. for many of our seniors and disabled individuals who are not able to repair their room for inspection, what does that mean, what does preparation mean? >> we will frequently find in

situations with seniors, people with mobility problems, that they may not be in an appropriate situation to prep the room, or as materials, move things away from the wall so that treatment can occur. in those situations, we will deal with several agencies. adult protective services, legal services for the elderly. we will work with our code enforcement outreach program, the sro collaborative, so they can contact individuals to help them prep the room. we really try to be sensitive to the issues because we realize if the room is not prepped properly for the best control operator, we are not going to get the results intended for desired. supervisor kim: what does prepping a room mean? >> essentially, moving things away from the wall, boxing

materials, assisting with the treatment of the personal items so that they do not re-in fact the room. these are things we talk about when we refer to prepping the room. supervisor kim: how many accommodation requests do you get? >> people do not always use the term reasonable accommodation. we may see that they might need the assistance, so we will contact various agencies. i do not have specific numbers. on the basis of the notices of violation that i put up there, we will see some issues with prepping the room 55% to 70% of the time. with respect to that, we are usually contacting agencies, or we are already present because we are working with the collaborative or community group, and that was the basis of the complaint brought to us. supervisor kim: i know a large

number of our sro residents are seniors or disabled individuals. i imagine this is one of the pressing issues, regarding our sro's. >> absolutely, and i commend you for honing in on this issue. we are also addressing according and cluttering issues, which are giving us ancillary problems. that is why we will work with the legal services for the elderly, so they can articulate properly the reasonable accommodation request, and work with the property owner and pest control operators, to make sure those needs are met. supervisor kim: what kind of training does your inspectors received on hoarding, covering issues? >> every year, we come back from staff meetings. i recently had a staffer who

attended those training sessions, who specializes in hoarding and cluttering matters. since he left, i'm in training somebody new in that. supervisor kim: do you think that we effectively utilize dph and dbi resources in order to combat the bed bug problem? also, if you have any suggestions for improvement in collaboration between the two departments. >> as i previously stated, we work with health department, but there is always room for improvement. one of the things that the operators and tenants are looking to the city on it is getting more information and a better understanding of the combination of tool that will be more effective. as you are aware, there had been