In an article in Newsday last week, Dave Mejias (D-Farmingdale) was cited as saying bed bugs were migrating to Nassau County, Long Island from eastern Queens.

On Long Island, infestations are increasing in Nassau County, officials said. The exact number of complaints logged by the county’s Health Department was unavailable. Bedbug calls are listed in a category called “commensal pests” and aren’t separated or tracked, an agency spokesman said.

Legis. Dave Mejias (D-Farmingdale) believes the reddish, six-legged bloodsuckers are migrating from eastern Queens into Nassau, although experts have said the problem already existed on Long Island.

In the city, many complaints come from Brooklyn. However, it’s a citywide problem, said Seth Donlin, spokesman for the housing, preservation and development department. “It’s not only one part of the city that’s really seeing an increase,” he said.

(Emphasis mine.)

Bed bugs are a citywide problem.  They’re also a state-wide, region-wide and country-wide problem.

We have heard the claim made before that Queens may have been one of the places bed bugs first took root in New York City.  Entomologist Gil Bloom told the Queens Tribune in December 2006 that

“We started to notice [bed bugs] in 1999 or so. I will say that Queens is one the early epicenters. Astoria is probably one of the early epicenters in this area,” he said.

(Emphasis mine.)

Saying Astoria was one of the epicenters is not the same as saying Queens was “ground zero” for bed bugs (as the same article’s title alleged).

Saying Long Island is getting bed bugs from eastern Queens seems like a stretch: as the article notes, people in Long Island have had bed bugs for a long time.  Bed bugs are not being tracked there, so no records really exist.

I am wondering if there is some study out there that Mejia is privy to — one that tracks bed bugs as they hitchhike (march?) from Jackson Heights or Jamaica, Queens to Nassau County.

I am visualizing little bed bug ankle tags, and entomologists hunched over microscopes, reading little tiny numbers off their ankles.

(Oh, I just know I am going to get commenters telling me bed bugs do not have ankles.)

Bed bugs aren’t squirrels or monarch butterflies (sadly).  Sure, they can walk, but they don’t have to migrate by their own steam, walking or flying from county to county.

They can easily hitchhike, catching a ride on people and their possessions: from Manhattan to Old Westbury, from Orlando to Hicksville, from London to Garden City.

And in the other direction.

They can travel with you on purses and in backpacks and suitcases, even in a pocket or trouser cuff, from fine restaurants, movie theaters, ivy league colleges, hotels, resorts, and clothing stores, that clean-looking commuter train you rode home on this morning.

The key word there is you. They can hitch a ride with you, oh people who travel to and from Long Island.

They probably came to Nassau County like they came to eastern Queens, Chicago, Vancouver, Prince Edward Island; like they came to Maya Rudolph’s former loft, to Ralph Lauren’s design studio, to the most prestigious law firms in New York City, Stanford University, the finest hotels in London, the trains of Thailand and France.

They came with people.

I fear that the Nassau County Legislator is associating bed bugs with the big, dirty city.  Make no mistake: bed bugs can and will come home with you from anywhere.Similar Posts:

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Question: Do you live in Astoria, Queens and have bed bugs?

Want to move out of your bed bug-infested apartment and avoid the hassle of destroying and tossing out your infested furniture and other items, including a futon and a captain’s bed, and stuffed animals?

Want to expose lots of people and their neighbors, co-workers, relatives and friends to bed bugs?

Great!

Here’s what you do:

1. Place ad on Craigslist offering nearly all of your possessions for free.

I apologize if this is a duplicate. I thought I posted it but now I can’t find it, so I’m trying again

FREE STUFF!!!!!! I am moving Saturday morning, so everything needs to go ASAP. Please email me to arrange for pickup. This list is *NOT* inclusive. As I pack, more stuff is being added…

2. Include detailed list of items available and warnings that the items have been exposed to bed bugs in your infested home.

I have to start with the warning: the home these items come from have bedbugs. HOWEVER, many of these items were from rooms where I never saw any evidence of bugs or will be easily cleaned. I just don’t have the time to do it myself!

3. Wipe your hands clean and don’t think twice about the carnage which will most surely follow.

Yes, sure, you gave the warnings, so you’re ethically absolved of all responsibility. Have a nice day!

The truth is, everyday people take bed bug infested stuff off the curb which has warnings attached. People can be idiots.

So if you don’t destroy or debug your stuff, you are spreading bed bugs.

You’re spreading the itchiness and discomfort of bed bug bites, the cost of pest control and replacing possessions, the many hours of sleep, and hours and hours of work. You’ll likely cause others to have to move too, at great expense of time and money.

Don’t kid yourself that the warnings you gave will prevent others from suffering. If you have bed bugs in your home, people could pick them up and take them home just by coming over to get something of yours, let alone taking it in their car or into their home.

Thanks to Aly of A Little Aly-tude for the find, for warning her public, (and for the shout out!)

If ad has been removed, see screenshot here.Similar Posts:

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• Take a Seat project: a really bad idea where bed bugs are concerned
• Ohio fighting to get Propoxur for residential bed bug applications
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• Bed bugs on Today with Meredith Viera and Janice Lieberman, today

Tomorrow the Bed Bug Seminar comes to Astoria. This is where it is located (travel directions included).

Tuesday, February 5 from 8PM to 9PM at Ricardo’s Catering Hall, 21-01 24^th Avenue in Astoria, Queens.

Remember to RSVP, per the city’s request:

Anyone interested in attending any of these seminars is encouraged to call (212) 863-8830 to reserve a space. Translation services will be provided for Spanish-speaking members of the public.

Word from attendees of the first event in Washington Heights was that the presentation was pretty basic.

Hopefully they will spend more time on questions and answers than they did last time, and you can ask some of your questions then.Similar Posts:

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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:

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