Bedbugs found on an N train last week hitched a ride with an MTA cleaner, and now the employee's Brooklyn home is infested, The New York Daily News reported on Wednesday.
The cleaner asked not to be named, but said she first noticed the pests in her home on Aug. 4, two days before the MTA fumigated an employee locker room at the Ditmars Blvd. station where she works. The cleaner said she had nothing in her home before that date, but now she's completely infested.
The bugs are all over her clothes and the MTA isn't doing anything to help, the woman told The New York Daily News. When she asked for help, the transit agency told her to speak with her landlord, but she doesn't want apartment management to know about the bugs. She fears that she can't go back to work until the bugs are dead, or else she will infest the locker room again, but can't afford to have her home fumigated.
The cleaner has worked with the MTA for six years and scrubs the Q and N train lines, where the bedbugs were first discovered. She wakes up scratching at night and has been using vacation days to deal with the problem.
Bedbugs were discovered on Aug. 3 and Aug. 5 in three cars on the N line, according to the New York Daily News.
A spokesperson for the Transit Workers Union said the MTA should pay to have the cleaner's home fumigated, he told the New York Daily News.
The trains were sent to an NYC Transit yard in Coney Island for fumigation after the bugs were discovered. Some were found in train cabs and cushions used by train conductors.
Another conductor, with more than 20 years on the job, also said she found a bedbug in her home in Queens. The MTA said it will continue to check crew areas and all compartments of trains, and will fumigate if necessary.
