Comments on: Bed bug complaints in Vancouver have doubled every year for the last five years http://bedbugger.com/2008/09/12/bed-bug-complaints-in-vancouver-have-doubled-every-year-for-the-last-five-years/ bed bug news, information, activism, and support Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:14:38 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Barelyliving http://bedbugger.com/2008/09/12/bed-bug-complaints-in-vancouver-have-doubled-every-year-for-the-last-five-years/comment-page-1/#comment-12165 Barelyliving Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:37:09 +0000 http://bedbugger.com/?p=1145#comment-12165 No bugs, I see you're doing the math, too. Here are my figures. Dr. Stephen Rells estimated in 2007 that 1 in 6000 homes were affected by bed bugs. I've seen figures in NYC of it increasing 500% per year, (I thought I saw that for Vancouver, too, but I must be mistaken.) So I'll take the lower number; cases doubling each year. That number makes sense to me, because think of how even people, on this site, working hard to not spread the bugs have accidentally spread to boy/girl friends, parents, etc. We all know that not everyone is committed or informed enough to not spread these. Check it out, with those numbers and rate-- in six years 1% of the population will have this problem, and in 2021, 13 years, everyone will be dealing with this. Obviously that depends a lot on my assumptions, but this is an extremely under-reported issue so I would bet that those are cautious numbers. Also, when things start getting to a certain level (critical mass, shall we say?) then public places will be a huge problem. We need some sort of governmental task force on this. (Not because the government is especially good at doing things, but because they are the only one with the authority to move pesticide, educating the public, and other over-arching issues, along. Now is the time to act on this. Before it is too overwhelming. I've been contacting every public official/agency I can think of, but no one will get back to me. They probably think I'm some low-class nut case struggling with such a gross problem, but they need to get informed or they are neglecting their duties. No bugs, I see you’re doing the math, too. Here are my figures. Dr. Stephen Rells estimated in 2007 that 1 in 6000 homes were affected by bed bugs. I’ve seen figures in NYC of it increasing 500% per year, (I thought I saw that for Vancouver, too, but I must be mistaken.) So I’ll take the lower number; cases doubling each year. That number makes sense to me, because think of how even people, on this site, working hard to not spread the bugs have accidentally spread to boy/girl friends, parents, etc. We all know that not everyone is committed or informed enough to not spread these.

Check it out, with those numbers and rate– in six years 1% of the population will have this problem, and in 2021, 13 years, everyone will be dealing with this. Obviously that depends a lot on my assumptions, but this is an extremely under-reported issue so I would bet that those are cautious numbers. Also, when things start getting to a certain level (critical mass, shall we say?) then public places will be a huge problem. We need some sort of governmental task force on this. (Not because the government is especially good at doing things, but because they are the only one with the authority to move pesticide, educating the public, and other over-arching issues, along. Now is the time to act on this. Before it is too overwhelming. I’ve been contacting every public official/agency I can think of, but no one will get back to me. They probably think I’m some low-class nut case struggling with such a gross problem, but they need to get informed or they are neglecting their duties.

]]>