The article, “Bedbugs infest GF apartment complex again,” said twelve units were infested in the 76-unit Cherry Heights complex (at 110 Cherry Street), which houses those over 62, the disabled, and people on low incomes.

The word “again” in the headline referred to the fact that one unit in the building was infested back in March. This suggests that either (a) all bed bugs in the original infestation were not killed and later spread to others, (b) bed bug infestations were present at the time in other units that were not known about, (c) one or more tenants or staff have brought bed bugs in since the March infestation, or (d) all of the above.

The article says,

After the report of bedbugs in March, the affected apartment and surrounding units were treated.

“We felt that we did have it under control. We felt we did everything that had to be done,” [executive dirctor Terry] Hanson said.

From April to July, the housing authority received no reports of bedbugs. But it’s not clear whether this is a fresh case or a lingering one, Hanson said.

It is possible that other units besides surrounding ones were infested at the time. It’s also not clear how many treatments occurred back in March. Most bed bug infestations take more than one treatment to clear up. Some take many more. If tenants do not react to bites, they may not know if bed bugs are gone. The housing authority should therefore not rely on subsequent “reports of bed bugs” before following up with further treatment.

The Grand Forks Herald said the building was being treated next week with pesticide spraying by Ecolab, and that tenants in the twelve units being treated would be asked to vacate their homes for two days during treatment.

I can only hope residents have been educated about how to avoid moving bed bugs to the hotels, motels, friends’ or relatives’ homes where they might stay during that time.

Bed bugs spread easily and one must take precautions to avoid moving them in one’s clothing or possessions. (This FAQ gives some pointers on how to avoid spreading bed bugs to others.)

The Bismarck Tribune also did a brief story on this yesterday.

If you based your assessment of the bed bug epidemic on news stories which have come out most recently from Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and now North Dakota, you’d probably be thinking that bed bugs are mostly a problem in public housing.

This is far from the truth. All kinds of people get bed bugs in all kinds of homes. I have a hunch, though, that public housing bed bug stories are more likely to make it into the news.

• Grand Rapids, Michigan apartment complex residents vs. bed bugs
• More stories of bed bugs in Halifax public housing
• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Housing Authority vs. Bed Bugs
• Frankfort, Kentucky Public Housing Authority plays the “bed bug blame game”

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Earlier this week, there was the bed bug bill in the U.S. Congress.

And yesterday, an article in the Maine Switch (a website for those in Greater Portland) about the city’s yearly trash pick-up of bulky trash items. Not surprisingly, the day is a yearly impromptu festival for bargain hunters and curb-crawling small-time entrepreneurs:

Just like spring flowers, the sprouting of ratty recliners and beat-up toys on the sidewalk is a sign of the changing seasons in Portland. These cast-off belongings cluttering the grassy strip between the pavement and the sidewalk represent the city’s annual bulky waste pick-up. And like a siren song, yard sale buffs, bargain-hunters and freegans can’t resist this annual opportunity to turn trash into treasure.

I’ve known people who’ve practically furnished their whole apartments with curbside finds. One of the best was the gorgeous sleigh bed a friend found a few years ago. One of the worst was a couch covered in cat hair (and god know what else), which, thankfully, only made a brief appearance in another friend’s apartment.

But the main point of the article, discussed at length, is the dangers of bed bugs lurking in used items.

Oh, but beware those mattresses. Should you haul one home (like one hapless Craigslist poster did recently), you may gain some unwelcome roommates.

“If you’re picking up a mattress or other pieces of furniture, you need to be conscious that they may have bed bugs,” says Doug Gardner, Portland’s director of health and human services. “There’s no way to tell with 100% accuracy.”

That is until you install your lovely find in your home and begin to wonder why you’re suddenly covered in little red bumps.

Unfortunately, unlike Doug Gardner, the author mostly fixates on “mattresses,” whereas any used items might potentially bring bed bugs to your home. Although to her credit, the author later notes wooden furninture is also a problem, I’d stress that other items are also potentially infested. Many, many people throw out everything they own, even though it’s almost never necessary (and they’re not usually acting on the advice of bed bug experts). Throwing everything out can cost you lots of money, won’t get rid of your bed bugs, and will spread them to neighbors and others.

The article has two other Bedbugger points of interest.

First, because of bed bugs, Portland started giving their refuse collectors Tyvek suits last year for the annual bulky trash pickup day. Unfortunately, the city isn’t itself attempting to warn trash pickers about bed bugs, for example here, or here on this PDF flyer. Even a brief one-line warning would help. I understand from this article that they don’t want to seem to be condoning the practice of trash picking during the bulky trash days, but warning against it would not do so and would be germane to avoiding further spread of the problem.

Second point of interest: if you have bed bugs and rent in Portland, the article notes that your landlord does need to get rid of them. If not, you can call the city inspections department:

If apartment renters find themselves assaulted by bed bugs and can’t get their landlord to respond, [city inspections director Jeanie] Bourke’s office fields the complaints. Her team of inspectors then makes sure the landlord hires a pesticide company to spray the place down and that the residents follow a tightly regimented routine requiring the washing of everything and the sealing of clothes and mattresses in plastic.

Thanks to the Maine Switch for focusing readers’ attention on the dangers of trash picking in 2008.

• Portland, Maine detox facility closed due to bed bugs
• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• How to spread bed bugs, in three easy steps!
• Chinches de cama en Espanol

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Since used furniture is such a likely conduit, why, then, does the article tell us that “Health officials recommend getting rid of any infested furniture. . .”? Surely health officials that believe tossing infested furniture is always the best plan are not thinking about the neighbors who will inevitably pick up that furniture, move it in, and start a new infestation.

Yes, it is sometimes (maybe even often) necessary, as the University of Kentucky site tells us. But cities which tell people with bed bugs to toss out their stuff need to provide services for dealing with the refuse. They can’t have people tossing out stuff that isn’t properly wrapped and they can’t have the stuff picked up by neighbors or junk collectors who can “clean” or cover and resell mattresses, or give wooden furniture a new coat of paint.

Cincinnati does have dedicated trash pickup for bed bug-infested furniture, though we have not yet heard much about how well it’s working.

• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Why we need a massive public education campaign about bed bugs (reason #327)
• More bed bug stories from Cincinnati; also, pig spotted in sky over New York City
• Unlucky in Vegas

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Creepy crawly creatures have always been a predictable, if dreaded, part of multi-housing life because of the ease with which they move from unit to unit along shared pipes, wires and cable lines.

Landlords and buildings managers typically address these concerns with monthly inspections and treatments while urging tenants to adopt neater lifestyles and garbage disposal methods.

Now, say area pest control companies, bedbugs have replaced cockroaches and mice at the top of the creature list, and none of these treatments help.

“In New Jersey we’re seeing bedbugs in epidemic proportions,” says Tony Yochum, commercial sales manager for Viking Pest Control with offices in Saddle Brook and throughout northern New Jersey. “They are the cockroach of the new millennium.”

It seems obvious to us Bedbuggers that the problem is spreading rapidly and also that it can be difficult to get rid of bed bugs. But sometimes news articles are more reserved about saying so outright. Sometimes they even seem to state the opposite.

They also often do not mention how easily bed bugs can be transported from place to place:

“You can pick them up at college, a movie theater, in furniture,” [Abarb Pest Service's George] Forst said. “They spread like wildfire.”

For the general public, it is helpful to consider that bed bugs can come from a wide variety of sources, and travel in all directions.

That kind of talk can make some people paranoid, of course. It is not true that you will encounter bed bugs everywhere you go, nor is it true–having had bed bugs–that you will likely reinfest yourself again and again from random locations once your bed bugs are gone.

It is worth taking precautions against spreading them if you have them, and it’s worth being alert wherever you go, since picking up bed bugs is always a possibility.

Jim McCale, owner of J.P. McCale Pest Management in Boonton is quoted as saying

We also recommend inspecting the units above, below and diagonal to the infected unit, but this can be hard. Residents don’t want other tenants to know.

What I hear from Bedbugger readers is most often that the landlord does not want to inspect all adjacent units (because, after all, they may then have to pay to treat them). Another common complaint is that the landlord will inspect, but some tenants will refuse either inspection or treatment.

We almost never hear of tenants who themselves do not want the landlord to have neighbors’ units inspected. (And anyway, if all adjacent units are being inspected, why would the other tenants need to know which tenant made the original complaint, if the landlord is the one calling for inspections?)

It is true, however, that our readers are self-selecting–they’re the information-seekers and proactive ones. Often this comes of necessity–when people have a bad allergic response to bed bugs, they not only come looking for solutions, they also are willing to do almost anything to get rid of the problem. So I guess many of us Bedbuggers might not be typical clients.

• Residents at the Bella Vista apartments learn their building has bed bugs by watching the news
• Bed bugs in Hamilton, Ontario: lessons for landlords and local governments
• Nashua, NH Health Officers on prowl for bed bugs
• Piecemeal inspections and treatment: no way to rid an apartment building of bed bugs

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Virtually eradicated. DDT. International travel. Baseboards. Yadda, yadda.

No. Not at all. Not yadda yadda.

Let’s consider the bedbug resurgence in one developed country.

In October of 1999 the BBC reported the “return of the bed bug” in the UK:

The bed bug is making its way back into domestic life throughout the UK.

The blood-sucking pest - commonly thought to have been eradicated at about the same time as Dickensian slums - is now being reported in increasing numbers of homes around the country.

Then in April 2000, a letter in the BMJ by microbiologists John Paul and Janice Bates: Is infestation with the common bedbug increasing? Dr. Paul and Dr. Bates were concerned about that possibility and noted the lack of bedbug awareness among doctors and the possible association with international travel:

From February to October 1999 specimens from four separate infestations were referred to [Brighton Public Health Laboratory Service]; this suggests that bedbugs are becoming more common.

Interestingly, in all four examples there was circumstantial evidence to suggest the transfer of bugs in luggage or furnishings.

There was an interesting reply by a retired public health physician, Dr. JK Anand, suggesting that the doctors ask the Environmental Health Officers for their infestations data.

Infestations data? Environmental Health Officers? (Isn’t the internet wonderful?)

Bed bugs in Britain:

Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius L.) still abound in some areas of the UK. The annual report of the Institution of Environmental Health Officers states that in the year April 1985-April 1986, 7771 premises in England and Wales were treated, and in 1986-1987, 6179 premises were treated for bed bugs. The Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland reported 43 bed bug infestations in 1985 and 20 in 1986. In the tax year 1987-1988, Belfast EHOs conducted 188 bed bug treatments.

At first, and second, glance this is fairly bewildering information. 7,771 bedbug cases in England and Wales in 1985-1986? That number sounds high, doesn’t it? Fourteen years before the Paul and Bates letter. Remember, in 2000 they were worried by specimens submitted to a single lab from four separate infestations.

We need context in order to understand this information about bedbugs in the UK. How is this possible? A decade before the purported start of the resurgence — according to the BBC again, in April 2004, under the headline “Bedbugs bounce back from oblivion,” more or less marking a red dot on 1995:

Since 1995 there has been an unexpected increase in reports of infestation in Britain, the US and other developed countries.

Clearly the large incidence of infestations in 1986 was forgotten by the late nineties. Were the majority of those infestations controlled? If so, how? Like everything to do with bedbugs, a great deal of mystery must be tolerated.

But, and this is finally the reason for this post, we can now point you to an article that begins to suggest the missing context and how little we know about the bedbug resurgence in the UK and, by extension, in developed countries, an article from January 1990 published in New Scientist, a truly eye-opening piece written by Fiona King. (I’m not sure how we’ve missed this article; perhaps it has not been available online until very recently. In any case, I hope to interest you in its treasures.)

For one thing, a breakdown of the 1985-1986 statistics:

The Institute of Environmental Health Officers found that local authorities carried out 7771 treatments for bedbugs in [1985-6]. Just over a quarter of these were in the North West - Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria - and 17 per cent were in Greater London. The Midlands and Northern Region - Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria - each accounted for one-tenth of the total, while the South West - Devon, Cornwall, Dorset - had the fewest treatments (0.3 per cent).

In Scotland the Royal Health Institute’s figures show that over half of the 41 treatments in 1987 were carried out in Edinburgh and Glasgow. This concentration of bedbugs in urban areas is also found in Northern Ireland, where in 1988 there were 186 treatments in Belfast compared with 7 in Londonderry and 2 in County Down.

About the data collection:

Hard facts about infestations are hard to come by. Information is usually based on the number of treatments carried out. In Britain, many companies dealing in pest control are unwilling to release statistics about which areas they have treated. The main source of information is the environmental health departments of local councils, but reporting is erratic and inspections irregular. Information about infestations is collected in different ways, and is often discontinuous because computerised databases were introduced at different times in different areas. It may also include data about other household pests such as cockroaches, ants or even mice, masking the problem of bedbugs.

And about the difficulties of inspections and the stigma of reporting an infestation:

Most environmental health departments are short of officers to carry out inspections. Usually a council becomes aware of an infestation only if someone complains - but people are often ashamed to admit that their homes are infested and they turn to the environmental health department only as a last resort when their own attempts to kill the bugs with household insecticides have failed. Many cases go undetected for years, until either the bites become unbearable or a relative or neighbour reports the problem.

There is much more. I highly recommend that you read it yourself.

The article is remarkable, among other reasons, for King’s writing about infestations in Africa and India and infestations in the UK virtually in the same breath, at one point comparing the number of bites that people living in “heavily infested premises” in North London and Natal could suffer. When she concludes that “we must find out what is the scale of the infestation” she is not writing about only one group of human beings on the earth.

But what about the United States you ask? Well, we should attempt to examine the history of infestations in the United States, a considerably more difficult project. No Environmental Health Officers tracking data, however imperfectly, here. Next time perhaps.

You may also be interested in the letters from New Scientist readers, here, here, and here. Also, don’t miss the interesting tidbit about Robert Usinger’s hemoglobin levels from feeding his bedbug colony from 1958 to 1964! Further recommended reading about bedbugs in the UK must, of course, include two articles by Clive Boase, both PDFs, which will load if you click here and here.

• NYU student blogs about Bed bugs in Broome Street Residence
• bed bugs: incidence studies needed in NYC and elsewhere
• How bad are bed bugs in Toronto? Nobody knows for sure.
• Bed bugs at Berkeley will be treated with… say what?

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newyorkshitty.com » ‘Tis The Season: Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite!

miss heather of newyorkshitty.com shares a current photo of suspected bed bug refuse at the Astral Apartments in Greenpoint, and shares an article from exactly 121 years ago, decrying the need for “quality affordable housing”, free of vermin.

Glenwood Springs Post Independent - Valley News (Colorado)

“Tom Cornwell, president of the Colorado Pest Control Association, will be speaking to representatives from hotels and motels, … and public and housing personnel from 11 a.m. to noon Friday, Dec. 7.” Public education is the key to beating bed bugs.

Stamford, CT: The Advocate - Flooding and failing health leave residents seeking help (flood evacuees get bed bugs in hotel)

“During the spring nor’easter, a Stamford senior housing complex was flooded, and residents were forced to move to a hotel temporarily. Upon returning home, residents discovered their building was infested with bed bugs.”

Some Crazy Garbage: Away, ye critters

A blogger’s first-hand account of a Pest Control Operator’s visit. Yes, google alerts sends me multiple such posts a day from various “newbites” around the world. But this one was entertaining to read, even as it conveyed the tale of woe you have come to expect.

• Stamford Manor residents have had bed bugs for three years!
• Stamford, Connecticut: 41 cases of bed bugs reported so far this year
• Bed bugs in Philadelphia’s Art Museum area high-rises
• KRDO in Colorado Springs: some misleading advice regarding bed bugs

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This article carries more details on the bed bug war going on in the Montana Rescue Mission men’s shelter than the one blogged last week. It is a harrowing reminder of how hard it is to get rid of bed bugs under certain circumstances.

More than a year ago, the mission spent $5,500 replacing all 27 wooden bunk beds in the men’s shelter dormitory with steel bunks that give the bugs no openings to hole up in or to build nests. All the wooden beds at the mission’s Women’s and Family Shelter on First Avenue North were replaced at the same time, [shelter manager Tracy] Hansen said

Ecolab Pest Elimination Services has been coming at least once a month to do treatments at the shelter, and shelter workers also use a nontoxic powder to treat areas in which bedbugs are found. All the mattresses were replaced at one point, and sheets are now washed daily.

Blankets are also washed regularly, Hansen said, and soon they will be dried in a large commercial dryer, which will kill any bedbugs.

After initially making good progress against the bedbugs, the shelter saw another outbreak over the summer. As Drake explained, “We have so many people bringing in so many things on their persons.”

Hansen said the problem this summer and fall has been concentrated in the chapel, which handles overflow sleepers. Although the dormitory sleeps 54 people and 20 more men involved in change-of-life programs sleep in several common rooms, as many as 40 men a night will stretch out on mats on the floor of the chapel. People are asked not to bring in bags or their own blankets, but they still end up bringing in bedbugs in their clothes.

Over the summer, mission workers ripped out the baseboard all around the chapel, where they found several nests in decaying wood and plaster. Those areas were treated, but there are still occasional finds, Hansen said. Over the summer, he might find 10 to 15 live bugs a day. On Thursday, he said, he found two.
.

Replacing wooden beds with metal probably helps, though bed bugs can also infest metal beds; they can even harbor in the groove of a screw-head. And replacing bed frames does nothing, if mattresses are not properly encased (whether replaced or not). I would like to know if the mattresses are encased, which will help keep them from becoming reinfested.

Regular treatments are good, but most PCOs who know bed bugs seem to recommend treating more than once a month. Washing/drying sheets daily and washing or even just drying blankets (which should also be done daily under such circumstances) is a good idea.

The sad fact is that it is probably hard to do more than control bed bugs in a shelter situation. Even if guests do not bring in bags, as long as people are coming in wearing clothing, the potential for reinfestation is there.

One statement in the article really jumped out at me:

Barbara Schneeman, the communications and advocacy manager at the Yellowstone City-County Health Department, said the department hasn’t heard of any problems with bedbugs anywhere else in Billings. In a given year, she said, there might be one or two calls about bedbugs.

If a homeless shelter has bed bugs, a person brought them in, or they were brought in with a shipment. The former is more likely.
The person can have been an employee, visitor, or homeless guest.

If people are exposed to bed bugs in the shelter, they will also carry those bed bugs elsewhere.
Those people can be employees, visitors, or homeless guests.

Where those people go next, they may leave bed bugs: stores, cafes, government offices, laundromats, buses, trains, cars, schools, hospitals, PCO’s offices, employees’ and visitors’ and guests’ and their friends’ apartments and houses.

If a homeless shelter in Billings has bed bugs, there are problems with bed bugs in other places in Billings.
It’s a matter of time before people realize it.

I hope everyone in Billings with bed bugs will call the Yellowstone City-County Health Department and let them know. Public health officials will not recognize bed bugs as a problem unless you call them and tell them they are a problem. If they shrug it off, do not take it personally. If everyone calls, officials will have to take this seriously. Other health departments are beginning to.

• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• Toronto Community Housing does good; Orlando, Florida tenants and Billings, Montana shelter guest demonstrate why more bed bug education is needed
• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again

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• Allegations of bed bugs affect tourism, according to travel agent
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• bed bugs in Virginia Beach (again), Brown County, Ohio, and potential health risks
• bed bug news for 2007-11-15

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• bed bug news for 2007-11-15
• Bed bugs at Berkeley will be treated with… say what?
• How to avoid bed bugs, according to Texas A&M’s student paper
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back

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The article is a pretty standard “bed bugs are spreading in our area” story. However, the section entitled “The Facts” gives a hint of how far the news media has come as far as understanding bed bugs.

For example, this anticipates the “Oh, we all have bugs in our bed” response:

Although all of us will be living with dust mites, they are not a patch on ever-multiplying bed bugs.

And this gets people beyond the “bed bugs live in your mattress” fixation:

Their daytime home will be in the cracks of walls, the fibre of mattresses, behind pictures and in wallpaper and headboards.

And this gets people beyond just looking for visible itchy bites, which do not afflict all with bed bugs:

Tell-tale signs of infestation, apart from bites on the skin, include small blood spots on bed sheets and tiny black marks by mattress seams, caused by the bugs squeezing out excess blood to crawl back into their hiding spaces after they feed.

While the media are still making errors, and the comments to this article give a sense of how much the public still needs to be educated, I am glad that journalists are now giving much more information about bed bugs and their signs.

Remember when we were told to flip mattresses to look for bed bugs, as if it were always so easy? Or that tossing out mattresses was a solution to one’s bed bug problems? We have a way to go, but we are making progress.

The to those in Scotland: other areas of the country are also experiencing the same. Click to see a map of Bedbugger readers in Scotland and the rest of the UK and Ireland. (Hint: the incidence of Bedbugger readers appears to correspond to the population density of a given area.) Dundee, Glasgow and Clydeside, Aberdeen, Fife, and other regions also have bed bugs.

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that bed bugs are everywhere.

• Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”
• Queries from Bed Bug Helloise: hanging clothes storage?
• Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida residents: do not use the DE from your pool
• Bed bugs spreading in Finland too

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