Steve Floros is starting to think outside the box. He’s talking about rethinking building specs, fomenting tenant enterprise opportunities to prepare apartments or educate tenants, quicker response times. That’s a forward-thinking housing official there.

Very encouraging.

I’m thinking we need TV public service commercials to inform people what the signs of bed bugs especially in shared housing. It’ll scare people, but an infestation will happen whether people know what they are or not.

Our way to fight back.

but I agree with you, as knowledge is certainly power. and if it takes a gross picture to make someone that much more aware, maybe it will prevent someone somewhere from going through this hell.

Yes, bed bugs are all over, but that’s not the whole story. Reading a blog like this one is like being a doctor who treats [insert disease]. Some days, it might seem like everyone has bed bugs.

The vast majority of people in this country still don’t know what a bed bug is and do not have bed bugs — even frequent travelers. The first pitch of the game has not yet been thrown. We’re still in batting practice. There’s a loooong way to go before it gets really bad. Remember, we started from virtually zero eight years ago. It’s a very big country and even epidemics take time.

By contrast, countries that never beat bed bugs or only beat them to the same extent that we beat roaches are in extra innings. So there’s no question that they’re exporting them with greater frequency than we are. At some point, we might reach equilibrium and eliminate our “trade deficit,” but that’s years or decades away. I hope we don’t and can turn the tide.

Finally, baiting became popular in the 1980s and 1990s, but my understanding is that many PCOs no longer use baits and have gone back to spraying. Maybe Winston could sort out this issue.

The blame game is pointless and just detract from the problem. Bed bugs have been a spreading problem in the US since the early 2000’s. I’ve read news articles warning about them since 2002.

They are here. They are a problem and we need to address it. Public awareness, shared PCO best practices. The only good point I can see is that with their spread, PCOs are more experienced with treatment.

Nymphs:

I also glad that Lou Sorkin is trying to make people aware of nymphs as well as the adult. I’ve only caught one nymph and man are they small. I would not have known what it was there, except I was scrubbing an infested mattress seam, it fell on my foot, and I felt it moving. Was I so lucky. When cleaning be careful.

Thanks for your message!

I assume you mean the articles in the news media, since we rarely post a ginormous picture of anything, let alone ginormous pictures of bed bugs.

I hear you on the never-ending trauma those pictures induce, though actually, some might argue that more pictures in the media would be good (as per Lou Sorkin’s words to the New York Magazine journalist, in the article covered in another recent post here.) Since people typically search only for an adult, brown bed bug, many infestations may grow because people see transparent/white unfed or red fed first instars, and assume they’re not bed bugs. If photos of both unfed and fed first instars and adult bugs were provided, it would help those who later find a bed bug to identify it.

Doesn’t help us sleep any better, though.