Pest Management Professional’s articles are often so good, but in the past, you had to know to look for them. (Thank goodness they added an RSS feed so we can subscribe.)

Mark Sheperdigian brings the bed bug information in three “new to us” articles: the first is on what consumers need to know about bed bugs.

In short:

• They’re not microscopic. (Lou Sorkin always helpfully reminds us, and the authors of run-of-the-mill newspaper stories that bed bugs come in a range of sizes and colors depending on life stage and whether they’ve eaten or not (lovely, yes?)
• You can’t get an infestation from a single egg (though you can get one from a single pregnant female).
• You can’t clean them away.
• And you can’t prevent them.  (You can reduce the risk, but never 100%.)

You’ll want to read the rest of this article here.

The next article is about choosing pesticides, and is really for the bed bug pros among us, but is enlightening to us laypeople too.  In particular, the beginners’ guide to pyrethroids.  And neonicotinoids? New to me.

The choicest nugget here, though, was the suggestion that PCOs test a bed bug population as to its pyrethroid-resistance.  Simple, not foolproof by any means, but really smart:

If the bed bugs are resistant to pyrethroids, you should either know this going in or ensure that pyrethroids are not your main line of defense. How can you know if your bed bug population is resistant without having to send them to a researcher somewhere? You could try this procedure, which has been suggested from a number of sources:

At least a day before the treatment, collect some bed bugs and hold them overnight in a jar on a cloth or paper towel that has been treated (and dried) with your pyrethroid of choice. If all of the bed bugs are dead in the morning, you may fire when ready. If half the bed bugs are dead, be sure to incorporate other non-pyrethroid materials into your program. If the bed bugs are all alive, you should rethink your strategy — leaving pyrethroids out of the mix altogether.

This is not real science and will not lead to dramatic headlines that rock the pest management world, but it may help you avoid a follow-up treatment or two…or three.

Up until now, this might have only worked in large infestations, where “collecting a sample of bed bugs” is simple.  However, new bed bug monitors like the CDC 3000 will mean that even smaller infestations can be tested in this way.

Cool, huh?

(As always, I do not recommend you self-treat for bed bugs.  I am not a PCO but I think a good one is going to get rid of your problem more quickly and more fully than you ever will.  A good PCO will be able to do so safely and will know how to avoid making the problem worse.)

Finally, I found this PMP article enlightening.  In it, Sheperdigian pokes some holes in common theories about bed bug resurgence.

His point appears to be not so much that an end to baseboard spraying or the survival of bed bugs in chicken houses (for example) did not contribute to the resurgence of bed bugs, but that no one theory alone fully accounts for bed bugs’ reappearance, in such numbers, at this time, and their degree of pyrethroid resistance.

Read this one for the sub-headings alone.  (”Harlan hears a who?”  Priceless.) 

And know just how indebted we are to Dr. Harold Harlan, who kept his bed bug colony all those years before there seemed an obvious need for one.  And boy, do we ever need them as research subjects now.

Thanks to Renee for article suggestions!

This in a new article from WLWT NBC 5 in Cincinnati:

Dr. Camille Jones, assistant health commissioner for the Cincinnati Health Department, said the city’s bedbugs have gained fame not because its problem is worse than other cities, but because local officials have more aggressively tackled the problem.

“We’re trying to get ahead of it, and we’re also the only city that has baseline data on about the prevalence of the problem,” Jones said.

In other words, cities like New York and Chicago look like they have less of a bed bug problem than Cincinnati, because they have not even attempted to come up with statistics on the scope of the problem.

I personally find it amusing when the news media outside Cincinnati talk about the rise of bed bugs in that city, instead of considering their own bed bug problems which are receiving (in most cases) less attention from the local government or health department.

Case in point? Articles like this recent one from Los Angeles, which appeared in various iterations in Australia and Connecticut — a country and a state with big bed bug problems, at least in some of their cities.

On the positive side, articles such as this raise awareness of bed bugs as a problem. They introduce the idea that one in six people in a city could have encountered bed bugs in a short span of time. Thanks for driving that idea home, Cincinnati!

And they hopefully also bring a lot of people to look at the bed bug activist site New York vs. Bed Bugs. Even if they sadly missed Renee’s point (and misquoted her to boot), publicity for the issue and the organization is still good.

(Still, “a clean house”? Seriously? Are we still there? I thought we had moved past the idea that there might be a correlation between bed bugs and housekeeping.)

Anyway, isn’t it silly to talk about bed bugs “over there in Cincinnati,” when you haven’t even turned your mattress over for a look?

But even if readers think, “Ewww, Cincinnati!” they’re also probably thinking, “Oh, if Cincinnati, then maybe here, too.”

And when it comes to agitating for change, imagination is key.

Until everyone thinks, “Bed bugs could (will) happen to me, too,” there will still be those who laugh at the idea of bed bug task forces, or bed bug legislation.

The NYC Pest Control Operator known as KillerQueen on our Bedbugger Forums is, in fact, John Furman, who runs Boot-a-Pest.

The hardest working bed bug activist and blogger, Renee Corea, did a nice in-depth interview with him over on New York vs. Bed Bugs.

Furman’s magic secret may be his belief in careful, detailed inspections:

The inspection for bed bugs takes time. Not 10 or 15 minutes either. My inspections for low level infestations take an hour and a half or more. I don’t do free inspections and if you have a problem, I will usually find it. I turn furniture upside down, I remove the batting on your box spring, and I spend a half hour just looking at your bed. I check behind pictures, pull the edges of carpeting up, etc. This type of inspection and service I can’t do for free.

But the importance of a thorough inspection is paramount. I have done inspections for people suffering from fleas, carpet beetles, etc. they insisted they had bed bugs but no evidence proved there suspicions. They were confident in my findings and moved on to resolve the true problem at hand.

Many PCOs will search for bed bugs, but readers regularly report their inspections lasted for fifteen minutes or less. Some people watch as a PCO pokes around for ten minutes before declaring them “bed bug free.”

Some people, of course, don’t have bed bugs. But the industry really needs to face the fact that cursory “inspections” won’t do.

The next step for many who have such a cursory inspection, but who cannot determine any other reason for their skin problems, is to bring a bed bug k9 team in to inspect. And dogs can be a real help in many cases.

Here’s the problem: if your dog alerts to bed bugs, but the PCO who subsequently comes in to treat still does not inspect carefully, won’t it be difficult to make sure all harborages are detected and treated?

Be sure and read the rest of Renee’s discussion with John Furman, here.

Click here to listen to this brief news item on New York City Council’s Intro. 873 from WNYC news, New York.

The tone of the item is dominated by the Health Department’s reminder that bed bugs are only “a stressful and unpleasant nuisance,” and that the health department already has a page on its website about bed bugs, and that “the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development takes complaints, performs inspections and issues violation summonses when appropriate.”

Yes, and the city’s response to bed bugs so far has been so effective that bed bugs are (somehow, still) spreading at an alarming rate. I judge this only by the reports to HPD, since we don’t have a more complete set of data.

Some cities, like Cincinnati (well, okay — only Cincinnati), actually attempt to find out what percentage of their inhabitants have (or have had) bed bugs. The answer — in Cincinnati? 14.5%.

I would not be surprised if a similar percentage of New Yorkers had been afflicted with bed bugs.

But the way things are going, we will never know, because we are completely in denial about it and no one is asking the question and therefore we don’t have to deal with the answer.

As a general rule, I don’t wish bed bugs on anyone. Not even my worst enemy.

But I do wish a knowledge of what it is like to have bed bugs on those who feel they are merely “a stressful and unpleasant nuisance.” Lice are a stressful and unpleasant nuisance. Detected and treated, they usually do not trouble a person for more than a few days.

We regularly hear from people in New York, Cincinnati, London, Boston, Vancouver, and all points in-between who are getting bed bug treatment and yet are troubled by bed bugs for weeks and even months on end.

They lose a lot of sleep.
They suffer a lot of stress.
They use money — often thousands of dollars which should go to health insurance, or medications, or buying vegetables for their kids — to pay for treatment, endless rounds of laundry, plastic bags, and more treatment.
They get their belongings gassed with sulfuryl flouride.
They sometimes have to move.
They go to job interviews with red welts all over their faces and remain unemployed.
They stop having friends and family over, for fear others will become infested.
Those in multi-unit buildings who cannot afford to move may never get rid of the problem.

Think this causes very real psychological and physical health problems? You bet.
It is a lot worse than a nuisance.
The health effects of bed bugs are often a lot more serious than a bit of stress.

In this economy, in this expensive city, the Health Department is being a bit short-sighted not to see the potential of any problem that causes ongoing stress and saps one’s financial resources as a genuine health concern.

More on Intro. 873 here.

And read Renee’s response on New York vs. Bed Bugs. She did not receive the Health Dept.’s comments well either.

Ahhh, lovely image, no?

Baked Bed Bugs in Vancouver, well known in our Bedbugger Forums, is in the news today, having done a thermal bed bug remediation for a New Westminster, BC family that was short of funds and going through a bad bed bug infestation.

The Province reports that Laura Powell, a mother of two, asked a Christmas wish bureau for help, and received not only gifts for the family, but the greatest gift a bed bug sufferer could get for Christmas: an end to bed bugs.

After Powell’s story ran, she was contacted by the Christmas bureau and told there were several families who were willing to sponsor her during the holidays.

On top of being showered with gifts to put under the tree, a bedbug company by the name of Baked Bed Bugs offered to fumigate her apartment free of charge.

“He is one of the nicest men I have ever met in my whole life,” she said of the owner of Baked Bed Bugs. “We are wonderfully happy. I’m just so pleased.” After having just about all her Christmas wishes answered — although she was unable to visit her family due to the snow — Powell is looking forward to the new year. She hopes to move to a new apartment soon.

Of course, they referred to the thermal treatment as “fumigation.” That word — as a stand-in for “treatment” — seems particularly beloved to the Canadian media.

This cartoon is said to have been run by Ripley’s Believe it or Not on January 21, 2001. You can see the image here, but the key point is the text:

Once a bedbug bites a person it will not bite anyone else! This ensures that it is drinking from the same blood type!

(The pictured “bedbug” is thinking: “Love that B+!”)

No idea where Ripley’s got this, but I have never heard it and do not know how it could be true.

How would a hotel room become overrun with bed bugs if they refused to bite subsequent guests?

How and why would bed bugs spread throughout a building if they could only feed on the original host?

Don’t believe everything you read.

The Evening Leader reports that Wrexham Council is offering its tenants an inspection to rule out bed bugs.

A FREE inspection and advice service is available from Wrexham Council for residents who may be worried about the possibility their home has bed bugs.

People wanting to make use of the facility should telephone 01978 298989 to arrange for a pest control officer to visit.

Private tenants should report bed bug problems to their landlord. If the landlord is not prepared to carry out the treatment, the tenant should contact the local authority with the landlord’s details.

While it is true that small or moderate infestations might not be easily detected by a human inspector, I certainly appreciate the council’s effort, as it signals a willingness to detect bed bug infestations before the tenants even notice them.

Since there are always some folks who cannot or will not ask for such help, an even better idea would be mandatory inspections of all council flats by a bed bug professional working with a reputable bed bug dog. (I am not sure what the local laws dictate regarding this.) Second best would be voluntary inspections with a bed bug dog. A human who takes the time to search carefully can also do a nice job.

Wrexham Council also have a section of their website on pest control which is devoted to bed bugs. Residents of Wexham take note: it’s not perfect; one fact it does not mention is that tenants may not feel itchy bites and may also not see anything, at least at first.

I don’t have enough time at this moment to do much commentary on this, but I want to point you to New York vs. Bed Bugs, where Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs posted a new podcast with David Cain of Bed Bugs Limited (many readers will also know David from our Bedbugger forums, both for his knowledge of bed bugs and his sense of humor).

Among other things, the discussion covers David’s recent London Bed Bug Survey, and various types of bed bug monitors.

Thanks to Renee, and to David!

New York vs. Bed Bugs points out the distressing data from a recent survey: the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Joint Bed Bug Task Force (JBBTF) sponsored a series of questions in a survey conducted by The University of Cincinnati Institute for Policy Research. They found that 14.5% of Cincinnati residents surveyed had had bed bugs.

Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs writes,

Cincinnati, population 332,252, received give or take 757 official bed bug complaints in 2007. Do we realize what this survey suggests about the likely underreporting rate? The official stats could account for less than 2% of the actual cases.

And is it possible that there could be ______ New Yorkers who have bed bugs? Why can’t we have this type of survey here?

I agree, and I suspect we would find the percentage of New Yorkers who have or have had bed bugs is much higher than that represented by HPD bed bug violations.

We’ve known for a long time anecdotally that the official numbers probably do not account for the majority of NYC bed bug cases.

It’s scary to consider that a number like this 14.5% might be applied to the NYC population.

And let’s not start in on the fact that the same survey found 31% of Cincinnati residents with bed bugs used only an over-the-counter spray to fight their bed bugs — a method likely to allow bed bugs to keep on thriving and spreading.

New Yorkers, don’t walk by the entire wall of bed bug spray in the Duane Reade on Fifth Ave. in midtown and tell me you are not worried. Join us at New York vs. Bed Bugs and write your letter to tell the city to do something, now.

Well, perhaps that’s not fair. I am sure there are loads of reasons why bed bugs are spreading around Chicago. The lack of assistance from city agencies is only one contributing factor.

Jessica of Chicago vs. Bed Bugs has a disturbing post today about what happens when you call 311 to report bed bugs in the Windy City.

Alas, she finds that you get met with confusion (the person taking the call has never heard of bed bugs) and a suggestion to call the health department.

And then the health department sends you back to 311.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

If post-Christmas sales are not your cup of tea, you could play “Report the Bed Bugs” all day, in Chicago.

But you might die of boredom, or frustration.

Instead, you might consider why the City of Chicago spent time and money making this website, when its own health department staff tell callers with bed bugs to set off bug bombs and “wash their sheets more often.”

And perhaps once the Chicago Department of Public Health educates its staff about bed bugs and how to deal with them, they can talk to the 311 folks — Chicago Information, you know — about reading the city’s information website.

Read, and try not to weep.

J. Fred Kuntz has been The Star’s Editor-in-Chief for 26 months and he writes in this article that he is retiring this week.

How is this bed bug news?

Easy: The Star has had the most persistent coverage of bed bugs in any single media publication (outside of a bed bug blog, or pest control industry journal), period. As Kuntz says,

We wrote powerful stories about poverty – and helped to spur increases in the minimum wage, close loopholes in the Employment Standards Act, improve dental care for the poor and stir action against bedbugs in public housing.

The bulk of The Star’s bed bug articles were written by Joe Fiorito.

I do not doubt for a minute that this coverage has helped make things happen in Toronto.

I hope the incoming Editor-in-Chief continues along these lines.

Because if you don’t talk about your city’s bed bug problem, no one is going to do anything about it.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that bed bugs have been found in hospitals around Northern Ireland:

Cockroaches were spotted outside a kitchen in Belfast City Hospital, while bedbugs were found in Erne, Tyrone and Fermanagh hospitals. At a day-centre in Coleraine, rats chewed their way through a fibre optic cable.