Motel guests covered with bed bug bites

A 5-year-old little girl with long curly brown hair and pink flip-flops stood in the parking lot of the Midtown Motel pointing out the dozens of tiny bites all over her body.

Her family's motel room was infested with bed bugs, according to her father.

"I've been bit up," the child whispered.

The red bite marks covered her little arms, legs and face.

The problems at the Midtown Motel in Newport News were apparently so bad, so unsanitary, Newport News police officers, firefighters and city health inspectors responded to the motel.

They talked to tenants like Kelly Jordan who has been living at the motel for the last two weeks.

"It's real bad. I mean, I am just itching every night. We have no where else to go. This is our only option," said Jordan.

Even the motel's own maintenance man, Kevin Starllings, said the place is not fit for humans.

"We peeled back the corners of the mattresses and bugs ran out like roaches," said Starllings.

The maintenance man and many of the tenants say the infestation of bed bugs is not the only problem. They say the air conditioning does not work, there is black mold growing in the motel and most of the rooms do not have smoke detectors which are required by law.

Starllings says the owners of the motel refuse to spend any of the money they make off the tenants to clean the place up and make it safe.

"He won't buy freon so the people can be cool," said Starllings. "He don't spend money on nothing, but every time you turn around he is taking a vacation with his family."

The motel owner, Sanjay Burt, at first insisted there are no problems, even as police officers and health inspectors stood in the parking lot speaking with motel tenants covered in bed bug bites. Then, he blamed the tenants for creating the bug problem and stealing the smoke detectors.

"Look at how they live," said Burt.

The owner also claimed that he kept a smoke detector log book, but when WAVY.com's Mary Kay Mallonee pressed him saying, "If you are doing that than how are you missing the fact that so many smoke detectors are missing?"  Burt responded, "Sometimes it happens. I get busy."

As for the bed bug problem, Burt had not even talked with an exterminator until late in the afternoon and only after WAVY.com pushed him to make the call.

WAVY.com also pressed the owner to put tenants in rooms with bug-free beds until an exterminator can address the problem. Burt promised to do that.

WAVY.com will be keeping an eye on the Midtown Motel and checking in with city health inspectors to see what they can do to improve things at the motel.