Awakening in my bed bug-infested apartment is similar to the feeling I had coming off hours of anesthesia required for the surgical procedure I endured last fall. It is the horrific feeling of unstoppable insects parading all over my body. Each night, I tolerate bed bugs that are too small to see, let alone swat at. The only evidence that I spend the darkest hours of dawn as the subject of an all-you-can-eat bug buffet is the array of red bumps that swell up on my body in the morning.

My apartment is in shambles. All of my clothing is sitting in black garbage bags as if it was trash, strewn across my furniture-less living room floor. For the past two weeks I've lived a nomadic existence, carrying my book bag in one hand and my refugee-style knapsack filled with underwear and sweatshirts in the other. This is the intolerable situation I've been forced to deal with due to the bed bug infestation in my living quarters.

Allow me to flashback to the day that I finally realized my numerous bites were not the result of a late summer mosquito attack. It was naive and childish of me to think that my landlord, who will remain anonymous due to my fear of legal fisticuffs, would come to my rescue.

How much of a "Mr. Rogers" I must have been to think that in light of what I had now discovered, it would still continue to be a "beautiful day in the neighborhood." What an inconvenient enlightenment it was to find that some landlords are harbingers of pure greed and selfishness. For the first time in my life I was placed in the metaphorical sandals of David fighting a goliath who would use whatever means necessary to achieve victory.

I first approached my landlord to present the case of my bug infestation only to be met with the required fumigation of my apartment, coupled with the necessity to have all of my linens and clothing professionally laundered — which I can assure you was not inexpensive. If at this point my bed bugs ceased to be an issue I would have been satisfied and moved on with my life, but this was not the case.

Guided by a false sense of optimism, I moved back into my apartment, made my bed with freshly dry-cleaned linens and fell asleep, only to awake with fresh bites. I approached my landlord again, who was becoming increasingly unreceptive to my pleas for assistance. The landlord proceeded to issue a statement to me saying that because none of the exterminators who were summoned to my apartment had physically found any bugs, the premises was deemed habitable.

For the purpose of brevity, allow me to nutshell the following events. I would spend the next two weeks in chaos, sleeping on various couches, missing several classes because of the pure disorganization that was my life. Forced into a corner, I informed my landlord that I would seek legal advice in an attempt to break my bug-laden lease, thus ending my stint of imposed homelessness.

This is when things got ugly. In response to my suggestion that I would now seek legal assistance, my landlord immediately threatened to no longer speak with me, as if I was a child being sent to his room without supper. So here I stand, marooned in an apartment that is still infested with bugs, on the cusp of a lawsuit.

I can assure you that I am not alone in this tenant-landlord quagmire. Take for instance, a UW sophomore who spoke to me under the condition of anonymity for fear of legal repercussion. Upon moving into his new apartment, he discovered harmful mold growing as well as an ant infestation. After having his complaints fall on deaf ears, he informed his landlord that he would be contacting the Board of Health. This is when, like myself, he was dealt the same unprofessional cold shoulder by his landlord.

It seems as though the landlord business in Madison has about all the regulation and guidelines as the meatpacking industry did in the early 1900s. The Madison Tenant Resource Center states on its website that "Intimidation of someone who has tried to use his or her fair housing rights (including retaliation or threats of retaliation)" is prohibited.

Was it not a form of intimidation for either of the landlords to threaten a termination of civil communication when we merely suggested our obtaining legal assistance? Just as the Homeland Security Department attempts to assure our safety by compiling lists of unsafe places for American travelers, there should be a similar organization that compiles lists of unscrupulous landlords who callously threaten the well-being of Madison tenants.

Max Schlusselberg ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in journalism.