Anyway, enough about Goddard.

So, who is doing the most interesting bedbug research, since you attend these conferences and read the papers? Is it Eric Siljander? Foraging ecology and pheromones? I was interested in this interview with Stephen Kells, University of Minnesota:

While most bedbugs cluster (in groups ranging from tens to hundreds and sometimes thousands) in hidden crannies surrounding a bed, a handful of wanderers can often be found in more distant locations, such as an air vent or other remote nook.

Why, Kells wondered, do these outlying bugs stray far from their food source? Perhaps they are seeking a place of safety, dispersing to find a new host, or leaving an infestation that has grown too large. In any case, the behavior has direct implications for pest control–especially if the “outliers” are laying eggs.

This is interesting stuff. Who else is looking into this?

If our scientists were to develop proof that bed bugs transmit disease, we would suddenly have government funding and the attention of the media. Until then we have an uphill battle of making the case that bed bugs are a public health problem.

Right now our efforts might be best focused on getting adequate funding to the university researchers that are working on the next magic bullet.

Perhaps the next effective approach will be a form of Advantage or Frontline for humans, but I think you are correct that it will take a multi faceted effort from many different levels of our society before we see any meaningful change.

Doug Summers MS

there are some phone #s listed higher up in the thread … care to call???

I’m really so very sorry if this happened to you, but showing cause and proof is really very difficult. Especially, in a city or area where the bugs are raging through the neighborhoods this is very hard to prove. In the past 2 months I’ve watched mattresses go out onto the sidewalk on … like a block by block basis.
There are now tons of “free books” and “free mattresses” up on Nob hill eight blocks up from where I live. No sign … “bug infested” Nada!!!
Yesterday there were five free bags of books—today only one was left—that’s one way how the bug spreads. And I in no way mean to disregard your anger in any way shape or form–you are very welcome.

And Nobugs, it’s great to see you. I just keep repeating “What would Nobugs do?” I think I’m going to make a WWNBD T-shirt to commemorate this experience. We miss you but everyone is participating and helping out and I think things are A-ok over here in bedbugger land. See you again soon!

Rotating pesticides is just a temporary (money making) band-aid. It is all we have—and about half of the companies, as far as I can tell, are botching the job anyway.

This only all the more weakens the “rotating pesticide band aid theory”.

The likelihood that I will be cited and possibly even evicted because my rug has some white powder stains on it—to protect me from a blood sucking, most likely disease carrying and spreading parasitic insect, is not only ludicrous but far worse than anything Marxist-like.
We are talking about HUMAN BEINGS not chimps or white rats in a lab! I feel compelled to wash away all of that powder that is keeping those blood sucking
Bugs–temporarily–out of my abode! But if I’m cited and thrown out into the street because of that—or even threatened of an eviction—-I will follow suit file law suit—whatever it takes.
Otherwise … we might all just as well become Marxists because of this horrible bug.
I will most definitely, without defiance take a stand on this issue. I hope all other lower economically resourced people will do the same.
If it comes down to that—I will have no qualms getting in front of a camera.
Y’all already know I know how to work a crowd!
Unity For the sake of basic human dignity—that should be the theme, I say, in fighting this bug whatever discipline or financial status you happen to have. Remember the fall after the Roaring Twenties—this bug will be the cause of that—and sooner than most of us realize…