Bayonne public housing apartment infested with flies

Debbie Walker can’t eat and she can’t sleep. She can’t even stand to spend time in her own apartment.

Unwelcome guests can have that affect on people.

But for this resident of Bayback Gardens, a Bayonne Housing Authority building, it’s small flying insects, not unwanted relatives, that are literally bugging her.

“When I get up to prepare something (to eat), I can’t because they are in my food,” said Walker, who said the infestation began a couple months ago. “They’re all over my dish rack. They’re in the shower, you can’t shower there.”

Even at night, there’s no relief, said Walker, who watched Friday morning as three flies landed in her cup of water and another in a plate of scrambled eggs she had cooked.

“They are all on the wall when I get ready to lay down at night,” Walker said. “They make noise, they squirm around my head. ... they buzz in your ear.”

An exterminator that visited Walker’s apartment identified the bugs as phorid flies, fuzzy creatures one-eighth of an inch in size with wings. The flies breed inside drains and sewer lines, feeding off organic materials and bacteria.

The visit did nothing to stop the flies, said Walker, who added that she was told that the little buggers — sometimes called “drain” or “sewer” flies — must be so far down in the pipes that more drastic measures must be taken.

“They told me the flies are in the pipes of the buildings,” said Walker, who fears that other apartments in the 11-story building are are infested. “They know (the treatment) doesn’t work, but the exterminator said they’ll come back and do it again.”

Another tenant told a Jersey Journal photographer that he, too, had trouble with flies in his apartment, but he could not be reached later Friday.

Bayonne Housing Authority Executive Director John Mahon said he’s aware of the infestation and the authority is exploring ways to get rid of the flies.

“Since (the extermination) didn’t work, they are coming up with another approach because ... it might be further down in the drain,” Mahon said. “... We try to address any complaints that we get as quickly as we can.”

Walker says she wants to be moved into another apartment in the building while the housing authority exterminated the flies once and for all. But Mahon is confident the BHA can quickly find the cause of the infestation and deal with it.

“No, we wouldn’t move her,” said Mahon, noted that exterminators make rounds in the building every month. “... At this point we are going to address the problem and it will be taken care of.”

Walker believes the infestation was caused by plumbing issues in the laundry room on the first floor, claiming the washing machine discharge backs up to her kitchen sink and the bathtub in her second-floor apartment.

Mahon said no one has reported any drainage or plumbing issues related to the laundry room.

“It’s a bigger problem and they don’t know how they are going to get to it, so in the meanwhile, I am supposed to live with a million of these flies until y’all decide?” said Walker, who said she’s home all day because she is on disability. “No. I want out of here.”

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