POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- At the Twin Rivers Tower in Point Pleasant, the greatest generation is fighting yet another battle.

“These people have been through so much,” Resident Manager Libby Stewart said. “Lived through years of things that we haven't lived through.”

This time, the problem is inside their own four walls: bedbugs.

“I feel like we're in world war three,” Stewart said.

The problem started in July. Now, after months of treatment, the fight is paying off.

“We're winning,” Stewart said. “The exterminator told me this last week that we are 90 to 95 percent done.”

The Mason County Health Department says Twin Rivers has done everything right, and having bedbugs has little to do with cleanliness.

“It doesn't mean that you're dirty,” Riddle said. “It doesn't mean that your house is dirty. It doesn't mean that you don't clean your house. It's similar to any other insect that just likes to hide and then come out at night.”

Here, the bugs were brought in by way of used furniture. That's one of the most common ways they're spread, and they don't discriminate.
That’s why at Twin Rivers, they're fighting the problem together.

“Everyone knows who has bugs here,” Stewart said. “But you won't hear it around town. Oh, this one has bugs or that one has bugs. It's we have bugs.”

In fact, she says it’s made them a stronger family.

“This place has pulled together,” Stewart said. “No one has been shunned because they had bedbugs. We hope that it won't happen outside in the community when they find this out and know what we've been going through.”

The company that owns the apartments is paying 100 percent of the cost for the extermination. It's also bought bedbug proof mattress covers for residents and even replaced one woman's bed and sofa.