The Cuyahoga County Recorder's Office Is Dealing With a Bed Bug Infestation, If You're Wondering Why Things Are Taking Longer Than Normal There

Lawyers, title agencies and the rest of the assorted professionals that depend upon the Cuyahoga County Recorder's Office to do the people's business have been frustrated in recent weeks as things have taken longer than normal to get processed.

There's a reason for that: bed bugs.

The County confirmed that the office has been dealing with an infestation, per spokesperson Mary Louise Madigan.

And it's so bad that pest control companies have been out at least a dozen times.

A. Dozen. Times.

An internal email to county employees read:

The County's Environmental Health & Safety Manager is working with the Director of Real Estate Services and building management to exterminate the bugs found on the fourth floor. We know you have been patient; please bear with us as we continue to work on this.

Here's what we've done so far:

* General Pest, Inc. and Orkin technicians have been here at least a dozen times. They have: placed "monitoring stations" (traps) and used heat treatments up to 130f for 3 hours on surfaces in the affected areas. That is beyond the standard heat treatment.
* General Pest used chemicals on all affected areas from ceiling to carpet.
* Specially trained dogs have been in the building four separate times, most recently on October 12th. Despite these efforts, we've had two sightings in the same area on the fourth floor, room 4-100. Therefore, we are going to provide a more aggressive treatment tonight, Friday, 10/16 and again next Friday, 10/23.

The building will be monitored and inspected in between these scheduled treatments. Thank you for your continued patience - we are working to get this done.

Those who work in the industry already seemed to know this.

On one listserv dedicated to the process of deed and title recording throughout Ohio, for example, someone recently asked why Cuyahoga County's turnaround time had been slower than usual.

Here was the reply, from someone at a local title agency:

Someone sent a box of bedbugs to the recorder about 3 weeks ago. They were closed, fumigated, reopened and closed again when the second generation hatched.

So only a day or so of in person filings in last 3 weeks. Doubt if many mailed filings happened 

Madigan, for what it's worth, denied that anyone mailed bed bugs to the office. Then again, the spokesperson wasn't aware of the infestation when contacted last week by Scene.