A dog and handler trained in bedbug detection searched the New Westminster Public Library Tuesday afternoon after bedbugs were discovered.
Blair Fryer, the city's manager of communications, said staff discovered the presence of bedbugs in the fiction section late Monday. The library didn't open Tuesday so the matter could be dealt with.
Abell Pest Control representatives attended the New Westminster Public Library Tuesday to discuss the issue with senior staff. A sniffer dog and its handler, who were scheduled to attend after The Record's deadline, will help pest control staff determine the extent of the problem and determine how it should be treated.
High pressure/high heat steam, a heat chamber treatment and high pressure vacuums in cracks and crevices are some of the treatment methods that may be used to deal with bedbugs at the library.
"The use of chemicals is not being considered at this time," Fryer said. "It's the heat that kills them is what we have been told."
Fryer said the city appreciates that the library's closure is an inconvenience but won't reopen the facility until it's satisfied the issue has been dealt with.
"Having said that, we are going to deal with this as quickly as possible," he said.
Library staff has been on the lookout for bedbugs, knowing they've been discovered in other libraries.
"We isolated the ones in question and removed them," Fryer said. "One was alive. There were several dead ones."
Bedbugs were found at the Cameron branch of the Burnaby Public Library on Oct. 18. That library reopened after books in the affected areas were bagged and boxed and sent to the Metrotown branch to be heat-treated. A pest control company steam cleaned the furniture and the bookshelves.
The Burnaby Public Library is having all of its branches inspected after dead bedbugs were found at its main branch in Metrotown at the end of September. After a reader found a dead bedbug in a book, a pest control company brought in and used a sniffer dog and found more dead bedbugs in the thriller-mystery section.
A sign on the door of the New Westminster library states that the library is closed because of building maintenance issues.
