Bedbugs block Social Security checks

DETROIT, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Residents of a Detroit high-rise apartment building said bedbug-related stoppage of mail delivery has interfered with their monthly income.

Tenants in the Detroit Housing Commission's 143-unit Warren West Apartments said the mail stoppage, which the U.S. Postal Service said began last week when a mail carrier encountered exterminators spraying for bedbugs, is endangering their livelihoods by preventing them from receiving their Social Security checks in the mail, the Detroit News reported Thursday.

"We have a bedbug problem, but it's not so bad; the exterminator comes in and takes care of it," said Robbie Wingate, 59, who suffered a stroke two years ago. "But now they're refusing to deliver the mail. How dare they? I need my check to pay the rent, and so do a lot of other people in this building. There's people in wheelchairs; people with no legs. How are they going to eat? This is bad."

Ed Moore, spokesman for U.S. Postal Service Detroit District, said officials are working on a plan to deliver mail outside of the building.

"When the carrier delivered there last week, the exterminators asked her why she was in the building, and said she couldn't be there because of the bedbugs," Moore said. "At that time, the mail was temporarily suspended. We won't put our carriers in harm's way."