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Bed bugs in San Francisco SROs

nobugsonme — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:36:05 +0000

“The biggest problem in the neighborhood, after crack, is bed bugs.” Those are the words of Joseph Jones, a 70-year old resident of a Single Room Occupancy apartment (SRO) in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Jones is quoted this 2009 article from Race, Poverty and the Environment.

This week, Mission Loc@l reports that while a horrifying 73.4% of SRO residents in San Francisco’s Mission District have bed bugs, less than 12% surveyed have complained to the city about any SRO problem, apparently due to a lack of awareness that the option of calling 311 is there.

In order to counteract this lack of awareness, there’s now legislation under consideration to require SRO building landlords to display a poster alerting residents to the availability of the 311 hotline, and informing them of some reasons they might call it.

According to Mission Loc@l,

If the ordinance passes, the fine for failing to put up the poster would be $170, said William Strawn, communications manager at the Department of Building Inspection.

The poster reads: “SRO Tenants: This is your number! If your manager has not responded to your complaints about: bugs, rodents, fire hazards, second hand smoke in common areas, electrical or plumbing problems, no heat, unsanitary conditions, broken windows, or floors, or mold or mildew…Call 3-1-1.”

[Emphasis added.]

The poster is trilingual, in English, Chinese, and Spanish, and also contains contact information for the four San Francisco SRO Collaboratives, non-profit organizations which support SRO tenants.

Josh Vining, a community organizer with the Mission group, said that up until now, the service has been promoted only by word of mouth. Building inspections are less random and more complaint driven nowadays, he said, which makes the calls all the more important.

You hear that, San Francisco? Call 311 and use your complaint to drive some inspections.

In San Francisco, calls regarding bed bugs in apartments (SROs or otherwise) are routed to the Department of Environmental Health.

If you’re in an SRO and have bed bugs, please call 311.

If you’re renting in another type of multi-unit building in San Francisco, you can report bed bugs by calling Norma Castro at 415-252-3805.

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photo credit: mayorgavinnewsom on flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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NYC Department of Health revamps its bed bug information

nobugsonme — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:26:43 +0000

The big news this week is that New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has now produced a new guide Preventing and Getting Rid of Bed Bugs Safely (PDF in English, Spanish, and Chinese).

While not perfect, it is miles better than previous literature available from the city, and is presented much more prominently, on the home page of the NYC DOHMH website.

It emphasizes many things which should be emphasized: that good, knowledgeable, professional help is usually needed to get rid of bed bugs, that some people do not react to bed bug bites, and that bed bugs can infest many parts of the home, as shown in the photo on the cover of the pamphlet:

The pamphlet also has a lot of good suggestions on avoiding bed bugs, on supporting treatment (e.g. caulking and sealing crevices), and on avoiding foggers and bombs which make problems worse.

I was not thrilled with the emphasis on using a hair dryer on low to kill bed bugs — the pamphlet notes:

The heat from blow-dryers will kill bed bugs after 30 seconds of continuous contact.

This is not my area of expertise. However, it seems improbable that bed bugs would hang out in a spot for 30 seconds if a hair dryer is fixed upon them; it also sounds quite exhausting from the human point of view. (Using one to scare bed bugs out of a crevice, and the pamphlet also suggests, seems more useful, especially if you see signs which suggest a harborage in a particular region).

Steamers are more of a specialty item, but they do not need to be pointed at one spot for 30 seconds straight (Stephen Doggett’s Bed Bug Code of Practice 2nd Edn. suggests moving 30 cm in 15 seconds), making them infinitely more useful in killing bed bugs.

I found the pictures less helpful than photos might be, and not entirely accurate: the spider beetle and carpet beetle pictures are quite different from those we frequently see submitted by readers (suggesting other varieties or life stages are more common); the first instar bed bug nymph is pictured in the same color as the older bed bug life stages, when in fact even a fed first instar looks very different from its older brothers and sisters, and the unfed first instar is another thing entirely.

Finally, the HPD pamphlet suggests

Bed bug infestations usually require the services of well-trained, licensed pest management professionals, also called exterminators. Tenants whose landlords do not promptly respond to bed bug complaints can call 311 and file a complaint with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and may also hire their own professionals.

[Emphasis added.]

One problem with this: we have heard that NYC HPD inspectors will not respond to every complaint with an inspection, and that if they do come, they will record a violation only if they find live bed bugs walking around once they visit.

A few pages before, the pamphlet described how to do a careful inspection, and told readers,

If live bugs do come out, crush them with a paper towel and throw them away outside your building.

(I am not sure of the reasoning behind the idea that even crushed bed bugs should be disposed of outside the building.)

From what I gather, you should not try and clean up or kill your bed bugs before having HPD inspect your home, because if you do so, the inspector may then not see any evidence, and if so, will not force your landlord to treat for bed bugs which will still, very likely, be present.

This puts residents in an icky situation: waiting until the HPD inspector (or PCO, for that matter) sees and registers the existence of the problem, before beginning to solve it. It’s not something most of us can stomach.

However, for tenants on a moderate budget who can’t afford to just hire their own pest management professional, it may be their only way of getting help.

We hope the city will be able to address that kind of conundrum in future — perhaps by (a) not telling tenants to do their own inspections and kill their own bed bugs once discovered, and (b) sending HPD inspectors very swiftly to all tenants complaining of bed bugs.

For now, we’re really glad the city has improved its educational efforts around bed bugs. And we hope they will bring a bed bug educational campaign to the subway platforms, bus shelters, newspaper advertisements, and public service announcements sometime soon.

We hope the NYC Bed Bug Advisory Board will soon be making its report to the city. I fear that in this economic climate, it may be hard for the city to make the changes it needs to make, but I’m still optimistic.Similar Posts:

311 finally has bed bug category — New York vs Bed Bugs

nobugsonme — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 04:05:26 +0000

Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs called to find out what it’s like to call the New York City 311 help line and report bed bugs, now that bed bugs are their own separate category in terms of 311 complaints. Renee writes,

I called 311 to see if anything was new in how the actual calls were handled and a nice guy named Joseph walked me through what they’re doing. Basically, it’s the same but there was a certain efficiency to this call and no more “bed bugs? did you say bed bugs?” It’s still a complaint process that’s routed to HPD or NYCHA, and a call transfer to the Health Department if the caller wants the bed bug fact sheet. Interestingly, they’re now also taking complaints for subways (it’s a script for rats, mice and bed bugs or conditions conducive to the same), and that call gets routed to the MTA.

That’s huge. Good to hear.

Now, can they meet the demand of bed bug inspections?

I know you’ll want to check out “311 finally has bed bug category” at New York vs Bed Bugs.Similar Posts:

New York Daily News: NYC bed bug complaints up 34% in one year

nobugsonme — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:50:29 +0000

The New York Daily News has a good article today on the 34% increase in bed bug complaints in the last fiscal year, compared with the previous one.

The data for this came from the amazing Renee Corea, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of New York vs. Bed Bugs.

Adam Linsberg reports,

“There are lots and lots of people who are having a devastating experience with bedbugs,” said Renee Corea, who helped start the coalition New York vs. Bed Bugs after being bitten. “We are already regarded as the most highly infested city in the United States.”

New Yorkers called 311 with 9,213 bedbug complaints in the last fiscal year, up 33.7% from the year before, according to records that Corea’s group obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

That probably understates the problem, Corea said, because uncounted numbers of New Yorkers call exterminators instead of phoning 311.

Thanks to Renee for communicating this crucial fact — one we bedbuggers know too well, but one which the powers that be — and the media — almost always overlook.

The article also mentions the crucial bed bug hearing next Tuesday at City Hall (1 pm, 2/24). Our good friend Lou Sorkin of the American Museum of Natural History is also quoted,

“If you look at other cities, their local governments have taken a big step to try to educate people and deal with the problem.”

Yes indeed.

Other important information conveyed in the article:

The city Health Department doesn’t consider bedbugs a health issue, but at least three other city agencies track bedbug infestations separately in Housing Authority projects and school buildings.

Not all exterminators know how to spot and treat bedbugs, and critics say the city doesn’t do enough to stop infected mattresses from being reused. Some victims may be too embarrassed to seek help, and some small landlords may not be able to afford a competent exterminator, advocates say.

It would seem obvious that the city needs a more unified fight against the red menace, and that the current advice the city gives — when it is heavily prodded — to tell your landlord, to call 311: these are not always sufficient.

Want to know what happens when entire buildings become infested and landlords react after the fact by continually treating the entire building for bed bugs?

This happens. Here’s a bed bug registry complaint about a building on Lawrence Avenue East in Toronto, but it could be anywhere bed bugs were allowed to take over a building.

The Landlord here has told me that she is battling bed bugs on EVERY SINGLE FLOOR.

Every Monday the pest control guy comes and makes his rounds to spray for bed bugs.(For people that have prepared their unit, and are on ‘the list’ to be sprayed)

I’ve had my unit sprayed so so many times this past 12 months, and I still have bed bugs!

As if the idea of people living indefinitely with bed bugs is not enough, the poster goes on to claim a man in the building killed himself due to the ongoing infestation.

This report (brought to my attention by Death2BBs in the Bedbugger forums) was from a building in Toronto, but it could have been anywhere.

Thanks to Renee and Lou for getting the important facts about bed bugs out there, to Adam Linsberg for the excellent story, and to Roy Edroso in the Village Voice blog Running Scared for spreading the word.

And check out New York vs. Bed Bugs for details on how to testify in person at next week’s City Council Hearing (and on how to testify in writing if you cannot be present).

Update 2/17:

More from ABC 7 online, New York 1 andStaten Island Live (quite a turn-around for bed bug news in Staten Island.)

And then there’s WCBSTV.com, which says we got a bed bug task force in New York City in January 2008…

Update 2/28:

NBC News and The Staten Island Advance, the NYPress blog and Gothamist.Similar Posts:

Why bed bugs are taking over Chicagoland

nobugsonme — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:07:35 +0000

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.Similar Posts:

New York City has a new bed bug bill!

nobugsonme — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:37:22 +0000

Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs uncovered a surprise on the New York City Council website: a new bed bug bill, Int. no. 873, calls for the Department of Health to get involved in the bed bug fight in New York City, by

training PCOs in proper bed bug treatment,
providing a list of those PCOs to the public,
training property owners in how to eliminate bed bugs, prevent their spread,
providing information on the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene website, and
providing information about bed bugs to 311 callers, and taking reports of bed bug infestations via 311.

The bill does not go into a lot of detail on these steps, for example, I’d love to know more how these training programs will be carried out. It’s essential that the best advice and bed bug expertise will be sought in creating and implementing them.

And what will be done with the reports of bed bug infestations? I hope they’ll be used to track where bed bug infestations occur. Right now, someone in New York City knows which tenants have called 311 to complain about bed bugs. If violations are found, we have a limited degree of access to this information. We have no idea how many tenants in NYC have bed bugs, nor how many homeowners do.

However, despite these questions in my mind, there’s a lot to be hopeful about here. Education of property owners and the general public is crucial to eliminating specific infestations and to reducing the spread of bed bugs in the city. The Department of Health is a very appropriate agency to get involved in this issue. And we’d love to see the city tracking bed bug infestations via 311.

For that reason, I think we all need to get behind this bill. If you’re in New York City, please click over to New York vs. Bed Bugs for more information on what to do, and to join our campaign.

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The full text of Intro. 873 follows:

Section 1. Chapter 1 of title 17 of the administrative code of the city of New York is amended by adding a new section 17-194 to read as follows:

§17-194 Bed bug techniques training program. a. The department shall establish a program to train exterminators in the proper techniques to eliminate bed bugs. Upon successful completion of this program, the exterminator shall be considered trained pursuant to this provision, in the proper techniques of bed bug extermination.

b. The department shall establish a program to train property owners in the proper techniques to eliminate bed bugs and to prevent the transfer and spread of any bed bug infestation. Upon successful completion of this program, such owner shall be considered trained pursuant to this provision in the proper techniques of bed bug extermination.

c. Any training programs developed pursuant to this section shall include, but not be limited to, identification of bed bugs and understanding their life cycle, inspection procedures to identify infested areas and furnishings, techniques to prepare infested sites for containment and extermination, encasement techniques, and proper techniques for the moving and disposal of infested furnishings and materials. Any training program should also provide instruction on which techniques and pesticides are inappropriate for bed bug elimination.

d. The department shall make available on its website general information on bed bug awareness, infestation and control.

e. The department shall ensure that a toll-free hotline number, such as the 311 citizen service center, shall be made available to the public for any person seeking to report an incidence of bed bug infestation or to request information on bed bugs.

f. A list of exterminators trained pursuant to this section shall be made available to the public on the department’s website, upon request by calling the 311 citizen service center, and upon request in person at department offices to be located in each of the five boroughs, as determined by the department.

§2. This local law shall take effect ninety days after its enactment, provided, however, that the department of health and mental hygiene shall take any necessary actions to implement this law, including the promulgation of rules, prior to such effective date.

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New York City bed bug numbers, Bedbugger-style

nobugsonme — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:57:27 +0000

The official New York City data on how many people have bed bugs consists of two sets of numbers: calls to 311 (which are available to the public, sort of), and constituent complaint calls to city council members, which are currently shrouded in mystery.

311 posting NYC

Originally uploaded by Beauty Playin ‘Eh

According to NYC HPD data obtained by New York vs. Bed Bugs, there were 8,840 complaints and 2,757 violations in fiscal year 2008, as of June 19, 2008. (That means 8,840 people called 311, and of those whose homes were inspected, 2,757 cases were cited as bed bug violations.)

Still, those numbers, as alarming as they may be, are relatively low.

Homeowners never call 311 to report bed bugs. And most tenants don’t call 311 about bed bugs, unless their landlord is such a deadbeat that fuggeddabout calling a bed bug specialist, s/he won’t even call the building’s once-a-month roach-spray guy and have him do a little spray and pray.

And few people call their city council members about bed bugs, though I seriously think we all should, now that we know they’re actually keeping track of the calls.

I have often cited the incidence of New York City residents visiting the Bedbugger forums and complaining of bed bugs — compared with the extremely small number who tell us they called 311 to file a bed bug complaint — as anecdotal evidence of how much bigger the bed bug problem is in this city than the city’s limited data shows it to be.

And the anecdotal evidence keeps coming from elsewhere too.

Yesterday, Aly Walansky, of the SheKnows A Little Aly-tude blog, blogged about a string of bed bug infestations among her New York City friends and acquaintances:

. . . today I got an email from one of my closest friends…she is actually a friend I almost moved in with last year, and she recently moved to studio in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. Apparently, last night she discovered that her neighbors had bed bugs…and today, she discovered she did, as well.

Sadly, this isn’t even her first time dealing with them. Last year, she had a ferocious experience coping with said vermin at a boyfriend’s home. Matters were made worse when she escaped home to her parents, and discovered some had followed her there.

At the time though, we had chalked it up to the freaky Queens infestation crisis.

My friend persevered, spent a fortune on decor for her new home…and now is dealing with it again. She’s understandably hysterical.

But Aly’s story does not end there.

Not an hour later, I was telling my BFF what the morning’s events had uncovered, and she shared horrible news. (No, she does not have them.) However, one of her good friends does too! Then, I get to the office I am at today, and overhear another person chatting…you guessed it.

So Aly’s friend has had them twice, the friend’s neighbors have them, the friend’s boyfriend and parents had them the last time the friend was infested. Aly’s friend-of-another-friend also currently has them, as does someone at Aly’s workplace.

You might wonder if Aly has a fairly large social circle, but really, if New York has over 8 million residents, and only 2,757 people were known by HPD to have had bed bugs in FY2008 — why that’s about 0.003% of the population! The odds of a single individual knowing such a disproportionate number of bed bug sufferers are quite astronomical.

That is, if the HPD data comes anywhere near approaching the actual incidence of bed bug infestations in New York City.

I think it’s safe to say most people also don’t yet report their infested addresses on the Bed Bug Registry.

So, perusing the 311 stats yet again, I got to thinking: how many different people from New York City came to Bedbugger.com last month?

Without going into too much detail,* I’d estimate, based on Google Analytics data, that at least 9553 different New York City residents visited this site in the month spanning June 14th to July 14th. These are what Google calls “Absolute Unique Visitors,” not folks coming back again and again (as many readers in the throes of a bed bug infestation do).

I think it’s safe to say that many of these are just bed bug-curious. (May they remain only curious.)

Some may be having a bed bug scare. (May it remain just a scare.)

But I think it’s highly likely that a good chunk of the 9,553 are either in the throes of a full-on bed bug encounter, or have reason to think they have been exposed to bed bugs, or have seen an unidentified insect and/or felt unexplained itching or have apparent bite marks, and suspect these are bed bug bites.

I can’t make any claims as to what percentage of Bedbugger readers fall into the “bed bug-curious,” “having a scare,” “suspected or known bed bug exposure” or “full-on bed bug infestation” categories.

However, for what it’s worth, I do note that more NYC residents paid a visit to Bedbugger in the last 31 days than called 311 to report bed bugs in the entire fiscal year 2008 so far (as of June 19th).

They’re not here for the witty repartee, fashion advice, or gossip. Something is making them spend their precious leisure time reading about a blood-sucking insect.

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*Detail, for those who enjoy it: Google Analytics separates NYC into the four normal boroughs and then every “city” in Queens, making this hard to tot up, so I am counting only cities in Queens with more than 9 visitors. In other words, this is a very conservative estimate. I also don’t get data on unique site visits based on geography, so I’ve used the percentage of unique site visits for the site as a whole and adjusted the NYC visitors based on that.Similar Posts:

Nashua, NH Health Officers on prowl for bed bugs

nobugsonme — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:36:50 +0000

I am delighted to report this news item from Patrick Meighan of the Nashua Telegraph in Nashua, New Hampshire. It’s a story about how Nashua city Health Officer Nelson Ortega and Deputy Health Officer Heidi Peek spent 4 and a half hours inspecting all 117 rooms in a rooming house in Nashua, and found 16 of them infested with bed bugs.

The inspection was prompted by tenants’ complaints to the health department. However, Ortega expected to–and found–that many more units were infested than the number of people who complained.

Complaints about bugs at 23-25 Temple St. prompted the inspection, Ortega said.

Given the tenant complaints his office received, Ortega said he expected the infestation to be even more widespread than what inspectors found.

“Sixteen is still a significant number,” Ortega said. “If they don’t hurry up and deal with it, it’s going to keep growing.”

He added, “the minute we left, they should be calling the pest companies.”

The building’s owner, 23-25 Temple Street Realty LLC, is expected to have exterminators come in as soon as possible, Ortega said. They’re required to spray not only the infected rooms, but also the adjacent rooms and the rooms directly above and below, he said.

Because the 16 rooms were scattered throughout, most of the building will have to be treated, Ortega said.

The owners also have 35 days to correct general maintenance violations, which range from the illegal use of extension cords and hotplates to unsanitary toilets and covers missing on wall outlets, Ortega said.

Health officials will do a follow-up inspection after the building owner has had time to spray for pests and correct the violations, he said.

I wish that all health officials were as wise to bed bugs, and as proactive as these.

I also wish every building owner (whether it’s a hotel, apartment building, rooming house, or whatever) would read this. All too often, people try to get away with treating only the units of people who notice and complain about bed bugs. And in such cases, they will often find bed bugs popping up again and again.

I am also glad to see this because it shows a case where people with bed bugs called a health department and got some action. Readers often tell us their landlords are not dealing with bed bugs, and they don’t know what to do. Or if their landlord is helping them, the problem is still hard to treat.

Well, even though your city health officer may not be as clued in about bed bugs as Nelson Ortega is, why not give them a call?

Cities and counties do not realize how many people have bed bugs unless you tell them. So please, consider googling your city or county health department and giving them a buzz.

And a reminder to tenants, landlords, and government officials alike, anywhere: take a hint from Nashua Deputy Health Officer Heidi Peek, who is quoted in the article as saying:

“The reason I really wanted to get in there, I had a hunch there were people who weren’t reporting (bedbugs) – which we found to be true.”

At least 50% of people bitten by bed bugs do not react to the bites, according to Michael Potter.

Many of these will have no idea they have them.

Many more will know they have them but fear being blamed and not report it.

Still others will simply put up with the situation (unbelieveable, yes, but we hear it time and again).

Do not assume people are bed bug-free simply because they say they are.

And certainly do not assume they are bed bug-free simply because they do not call a city information hotline.

Especially if calling a city information hotline is the least intuitive thing for them to do, as in the case of NYC tenants with bed bugs. Do you hear that, New York City HPD? If you want people in NYC to call a number to tell you they have bed bugs. You have to tell them to do it.Similar Posts:

New York City to get bed bug awareness campaign

nobugsonme — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:08:25 +0000

Finally.

The Daily News reports that New York City is going to get a bed bug education campaign.

The article reports that there will be town hall meetings about bed bugs in Washington Heights (1/28), Astoria (2/5) and Bushwick (3/12).

Housing officials will roll out the campaign with a town hall meeting Jan. 28 in Washington Heights, where the creatures have rampaged through tenements, churches, bodegas, taxi garages and upscale co-ops overlooking the Hudson River.

Residents there have been under siege: The number of complaints has skyrocketed from 62 in 2005 to 366 last year, when 119 landlords were hit with violations.

More community forums will follow in two other neighborhoods with recent bedbug outbreaks: Astoria on Feb. 5, and Bushwick, Brooklyn, on March 12.

Tenants, homeowners and community leaders will be taught in English and Spanish how to identify bedbugs, exterminate them in a safe and low-cost manner and guard against future contaminations.

Just as important, they’ll be told what not to do, like spray an apartment, which can scatter the pests, or pour gasoline on mattresses, which poses a fire hazard.

This is all good, but I hope it will be just the start of a wider campaign to raise awareness. Television, billboard, newspaper, and bus shelter advertisements should be implemented to raise awareness, though there has been no suggestion this will happen. If the city wants to fight bed bugs, it is going to cost money, but not nearly as much as continuing to ignore the problem would have cost us in lost tourist income.

Awareness is just the start; as we’ve been saying for a long time, we need local government to track infestations. Someone needs to know where the bed bugs are and how widespread infestations are. Calls to 311 are just the tip of the iceberg. The city is still in denial about the true scope of the problem.

Another goal of the campaign: Alerting immigrants with limited English to watch out for unscrupulous merchants.

“Selling refurnished mattresses to Dominican immigrants who think they’re brand new – without telling them they’ve been reserviced – is a big business in my district,” said City Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Washington Heights). “Unfortunately, many of those mattresses are crawling with bedbugs.”

This is important. The resale of mattresses should be banned. It should be illegal to pick up and resell any items marked as infested with bed bugs. And people need to learn to mark them as such.
Ultimately, though, the city is going to need to take a tougher line with landlords and tenants. Tenants must report bed bugs, landlords must treat them properly, PCOs must be contracted to come back until bed bugs are gone.

City inspectors should consider employing bed bug dogs to help them detect bed bugs, since visual inspections are time consuming and quick inspections often miss bed bugs.

Finally, financial assistance will be needed on several levels: homeowners and landlords may need assistance with proper treatment. And elderly, disabled, and other people will need physical and financial assistance with doing proper preparation for treatment.

I hope the city will institute a bed bug task force and staff it with entomologists who are true experts on bed bugs–and I hope these experts will be listened to and their suggestions followed. And soon.

This is no hero on a white horse, folks, but it is a start.

Check out the Daily News story here.

Update later in the day on 1/15:

Here’s a video from ABC7 Eyewitness News at 5 pm today. (Click on the number “2″ next to the bed bug photo, to see the video.)

It is not clear what the city is going to do, besides hold these meetings and work on the mattress resale issue. I guess we will know more tomorrow when the plan is officially unveiled.

The ABC7 video features Jeffery Eisenberg of Pest Away, and a Pest Away tech reporting that they use two chemicals in fighting bed bugs (Suspend and Gentrol).

The newscasters quipped to one another at the end,

“You said you’d get a new bed, right?”

“And you said you’d get a new house!”

Sorry ladies. It’s not that easy.Similar Posts:

NY Daily News: bed bug epidemic attacks New York City

nobugsonme — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:12:39 +0000

The lead story in the “News” section of today’s New York Daily News is on bed bugs. That’s good: it’s always good to see bed bugs in the news.

It’s not a particularly helpful story, however.

For starters, there are inaccuracies. Let’s start with this caption below a photo of an adult bed bug:

Unfed bugs are 1/4 to 3/4 inch long. They are brown or red-brown in color…

No!

They are never 3/4 inches long. Bed bugs, fed or unfed, range from 1/32 to 1/6 inch long. After hatching from the egg, they have 5 nymphal stages and one adult stage. Unfed bed bug nymphs (first instars that have never eaten) are clear in color. Fed bed bugs can be anywhere from red to rust to brown in color.

(Editor’s note, the error was made less egregious: by late Sunday night, it said “Unfed bugs are 1/4 to 3/8 inch long.” This is still inaccurate, however.)

This matters because people considering whether they might have bed bugs need to know the correct size, and that unfed nymphs are translucent, not red or brown.

Also, the “do’s and don’ts” suggests people “bag books, papers, most loose objects, and contents of closets so exterminators have access to all cracks and crevices in the home.”

This is not good advice in and of itself. If you bag up everything in your home, or discard it (for that matter), before a Pest Control Operator (PCO) has inspected and verified the presence of bed bugs, then it may be very difficult for them to diagnose your problem. You may end up with all your stuff in bags and PCOs telling you you don’t have bed bugs. And they may be wrong.

What’s more, simply bagging stuff that contains bed bugs or their eggs means you have bags full of bed bugs. What are you going to do with that, now?

Your PCO may advice you to carefully inspect and clean and bag items, for a time during treatment. Make sure you do so only after the problem has been identified by the PCO, and after the PCO has told you when you will be removing stuff from those bags. The answers on that seem to vary. Reading this FAQ might help you be prepared to discuss the issue with your PCO.

One interesting tidbit was an update of the previous data from HPD on bed bug complaints and violations.

The numbers are off the charts: In 2004, New Yorkers placed 537 calls to 311 about bedbugs in their homes; the city slapped 82 landlords with bedbug violations, data show.

In the fiscal year that ended in June, 6,889 infestation complaints were logged and 2,008 building owners were hit with summonses.

They must get rid of the pests within 30 days or face possible action in Housing Court, the city Department of Housing, Preservation & Development says.

This would be for fiscal year July 2006-June 2007. You’ll recall that approximately 1/3 fewer complaints were logged by 311 the prior fiscal year, and less than half as many were declared actual bed bug cases.

But these numbers are misleading because they only represent cases where those with bed bugs were tenants in city apartments and called 311 to report their bed bugs. As I have been saying for more than a year, most people do not do this. Out of a hundred tenants in NYC with bed bugs, I’d be surprised if more than one or two called 311. Most people don’t even realize this is an option–they know from past experience that pest complaints are directed at landlords. Moreover, those who do know, more often than not, choose not to call, because they’d rather work through the landlord if possible, rather than file a housing complaint and risk alientating the landlord. (This is often the last resort.)

The numbers are also misleading because they don’t include public housing, which logged, “1,708 verified bedbug cases in 277 public housing projects this year, the city Housing Authority says.”

The numbers also do not include statistics for those who own co-operative apartments, condos, or other housing.

The statistics offered on bed bugs in the schools (50 schools suffered a total of 74 bed bug “cases”) don’t line up with data the same newspaper shared back in February 2007, when the same newspaper reported that 43 schools had identified a total of 95 live bed bugs. (The story is gone, so you will have to read about it here.) Though it’s interesting to know that only an additional 7 schools have discovered bed bugs in the last ten months, it seems they must be defining “bed bug case” differently now than then, to have gone from 95 “bugs” to 74 “cases”.

Any statistics from the schools are skewered, however, since teachers have to see, catch, and mail away a bed bug for verification before the presence of a bed bug in the classroom will be registered. And while this may seem reasonable, anyone here will tell you you can be bitten badly and for a very long time before you ever see one. A lone teacher in a busy NYC classroom has slim chance of finding a bed bug on a student. Shall we assume, then, there are more?

Perhaps the most intriguing story in the article was that of Bernard Spitzer’s apartment building. We’re told,

[Bed bugs] even contaminated five or six apartments in the swanky rental tower at 220 E. 72nd St. owned by Bernard Spitzer, the governor’s 83-year-old father.

Several tenants described a persistent, if intermittent, infestation on the 15th, 16th and 17th floors.

A few infested floors, midway up a high-rise: nothing unusual there. But wait:

Spitzer’s 28-story building sits atop the six-story home of Marymount Manhattan College, which discovered seven infestations in two residence halls. The problem was under control by October, a spokeswoman said.

Marymount Manhattan has three residences for students, none of which are in this building. It does cause one to wonder whether there is any connection between the incidents on the 15th-17th floors and in the homes of some of those who spend part of their time in the first six floors.

We also get an update on the city’s “response” to bed bugs:

City officials say HPD inspectors are increasing enforcement as complaints mushroom and the Health Department is handling education and prevention efforts. It’s not more actively involved because its focus is on disease-spreading pests, officials said.

“That’s not good enough,” said City Councilman Gale Brewer (D-upper West Side.) “It’s great that we’re not smoking as much, and great that we’re not eating trans fats, but we need to focus on bedbugs in the same aggressive manner.”

Brewer wants to create a Bedbug Task Force and bar the sale of reconditioned mattresses, which the Bloomberg administration opposes because it “would adversely impact lower-income New Yorkers,” a mayoral spokesman said.

I love Brewer’s comments about smoking and trans fats, both of which are banned from local restaurants. Bed bugs are not.

Brewer first went down this Bed Bug Task Force/resales of mattresses road in the fall of 2006, but we haven’t really seen any results yet from these initiatives.

All in all, the city’s response is very ostrich-like. Let’s compare with other cities in the US: San Francisco has guidelines for dealing with bed bugs in apartment buildings, hotels, and other locations, as does the state of California. Lexington, KY and Cincinnati, Ohio health departments (yes, health departments, Mr. Bloomberg) have both declared war on bed bugs.

Lexington tells residents to call the health department if they think they have bed bugs.

Cincinnati has a hotline just for bed bug information. They also have dedicated bed bug trash pickup for discarded furniture. We think encouraging residents to throw furniture away, rather than helping them pay for treatment, is misguided. But Cincinnati is trying. They think education is key. Hear that, Mr. Bloomberg?

San Francisco City Supervisor Chris Daly got $63,000 in this year’s budget to help low-income residents pay for laundry and freezing of possessions. San Francisco politicians listened to SRO activists who told them this money was needed. Because poor people seriously can’t afford to do the necessary tenant’s part of bed bug treatment.

And let me be clear: not one of these localities is doing enough to combat bed bugs. None of them, not by a long shot. Much more help is needed, especially laws about disclosure of infestations, tracking of infestations by government agencies (so someone is actually paying attention to where bed bugs are spreading), and financial assistance to landlords, homeowners, and tenants who are having trouble paying for preparations and effective treatment. Bringing back some of the recently outlawed, more effective pesticides for targeted bed bug use would go a long way (and no, I do not mean DDT).

Meanwhile, NYC is doing none of this. The NYC Department of Education has deployed “bed bug kits” to schools. Their website claims:

Schools are not an ideal location for bed bugs to reproduce, because they are nocturnal insects that require feeding prior to reproduction; but in the event that bedbugs do show up in our schools, the DOE’s Pest Management Unit is providing a Bed Bug Kit to deal with specimens.

This is erroneous information. Bed bugs are nocturnal if food is available at night, pure and simple. Transplanted to schools, they will bite, reproduce, and thrive. This is an example of wishful thinking, which seems to be the backbone of NYC’s bed bug policy.

NYC does not even tell tenants to call 311 about bed bugs, unless they wade through the HPD website looking for this directive.

And yet bases its assessment of the severity of the problem on those calls.

Discuss.

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