Thank goodness the building is under the care of a community organization and landlord that is not willing to put up with this building being only 85% bed bug-free.

Remember this campaign to free a 20-unit Manchester, New Hampshire building (Langdon Mill Apartments) of bed bugs?

A group called NH Bed Bugs, spearheaded by members of the American Friends Service Committee and the Granite State Organizing Project, went to great lengths to try and solve the bed bug problem at Langdon Mill.

As the Concord Monitor reported Sunday,

They moved the families out of the building. They washed and dried all of their clothes and bedding on high heat. They threw out almost all of the furniture they owned – not just mattresses and couches, but tables and desks, too – and solicited donated replacements. After exterminators had sprayed everything, the families came back.

Unfortunately, when new mattresses were being brought back in on Wednesday, three units still showed signs of a bed bug infestation.

Though vastly improved, the building will continue to be treated.

Make no mistake, it is a vast improvement: the building has had bed bugs since 2005, and when NH Bed Bugs stepped in, every unit was infested.

NH Bed Bugs threw itself into the project, and learned on a large scale what individual bedbuggers learn: how difficult and expensive it is to get rid of bed bugs.

Maggie Fogarty, of the American Friends Service Committee told the Concord Monitor,

“. . . we couldn’t ask these refugee tenants to run every piece of clothing they had through a high heat cycle in the dryer. It cost us thousands of dollars to do it for them,” Fogarty said. “They certainly couldn’t afford to go out and buy all new stuff, even secondhand stuff.

“One of the problems we have not figured out is, how do you do this if you’re of limited means? How do you do this effectively?” she said. “It’s a very expensive problem.”

And Fogarty is mindful too of the difficulty of helping people get rid of this problem:

“We cannot convene hundreds of volunteers, and tens of thousands of dollars, for every building in New Hampshire,” Fogarty said. “We have to step back and look, systemically, how we can prevent this problem from spreading.”

[Emphasis mine.]

There are two important points here:

1. Bed bug preparations and treatment are time consuming and costly.  If people cannot afford the costs of bed bug preparations and treatment, or cannot manage the physical labor, then bed bugs will continue to thrive and spread.
2. Bed bugs are a fact of life and cannot be completely avoided.

Some steps may help curtail their spread and/or help stop them in their tracks when they are brought in:

• Everyone needs to be educated about how to avoid bringing bed bugs home;
• Residential buildings, schools, office buildings, public transportation, and other locations need regular professional inspections to detect bed bugs;
• Cracks and wall voids may need to be dusted and sealed, and other preventive measures taken to foil the odd bed bugs which may be brought in.

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• Saatchi and Saatchi New York offices infested with Bed Bugs
• Frankfort, Kentucky Public Housing Authority plays the “bed bug blame game”
• 18-story Dayton apartment building infested with bed bugs to be treated with Vikane gas
• Bed bugs bite Edmonton
• Bed Bugs hit Johnson City Fire Station

The Structural Pest Management Association of British Columbia (SPMABC) will be hosting a free information session on bed bugs and related topics this Saturday (February 28th) at Library Square from 9:00am – 1:00pm. Admission is free, but on a first come, first served basis (the room holds 300 people).

Topics will include:

• General Bed Bug Information
• Prevention Tips
• Detection Methods
• Health Concerns
• Tenant Rights
• Landlord Obligations

For more information please email info@spmabc.com.Similar Posts:

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Bed bugs have arrived in the United States House of Representatives.

All this time we’ve been waiting and hoping to see cities and states, in a painfully gradual trickle, taking action on the national bed bug epidemic. I confess I’m rather amazed at this turn of events.

On May 15, Representative G. K. Butterfield (D-North Carolina) introduced H. R. 6068, aka the Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008. The bill’s cosponsors are: Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), Rep. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey), Rep. Doris Matsui (D-California), and Rep. William Jefferson (D-Louisiana).

This bill would establish a grant program for states to inspect hotel rooms:

whereby not fewer than 20 percent of rooms in lodging facilities in such State are inspected annually for cimex lectularius, commonly known as the bed bug.

The grants can be used to conduct inspections, train inspectors and educate hotel managers and staff in bed bug prevention and eradication.

It’s significant that Butterfield evidently felt compelled to deflect ridicule:

“Unfortunately, it’s not a joke,” Butterfield said in a news release. “Fifty years after being virtually eliminated, bed bugs are back all across the country.”

I am mindful that in 2004, UK urban pest management expert Clive Boase, in describing an “epidemiological approach” to bed bug infestations, wrote that:

Such an epidemiological approach can also help to highlight improved control strategies. For example, anything that can be done to reduce the time taken to identify and completely eliminate current infestations (e.g., the development of effective monitoring devices, or of more effective treatments) will reduce the opportunity for current infestations to give rise to new infestations, before being eventually eliminated. Such an approach will also indicate that infestations in high-turnover locations such as hotel rooms, are particularly likely to give rise to more secondary infestations in the community, and should therefore be seen as ‘priority’ infestations for control. [emphasis added]

Source (link is PDF): Boase, C. J. (2004) Bed-bugs – reclaiming our cities. Biologist, 51 (1), 1-4

I mention this here because, although the logic is familiar to those of us who are well-versed in bed bug issues, it may escape the understanding of people — policy and opinion makers alike — who have yet to become acquainted with the most basic features of the bed bug epidemic.

I look forward to seeing the story of this bill develop. Yes, it should surprise no one that the hotel industry is first in line for legislative notice. But does it matter? Are the larger goals of achieving control of bed bugs still served? We will see.

Is this the biggest surprise in our bed bug world to date? I don’t know. I remember my reaction when Cincinnati committed itself to taking action and we first realized what the possibilities were.

So, weigh in, please. Let’s hear it all.Similar Posts:

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Just as the Lexington-Fayette Health Department did, the State of Kentucky invites residents with bed bugs to call their Public Health Department, according to this article in the Central Kentucky News-Journal online.

Public Health Commissioner William Hacker, M.D., recommends that people who think they may have a problem with bed bugs seek advice from their local health department or health care provider.

Accurate identification of the insect followed by treatment by a licensed pest control company is the most effective means for addressing bed bugs. DPH has developed information to help citizens understand more about these insects.

Additional information can be obtained from the local health department, area pest control specialists or the DPH Web site.

You may also call DPH staff members, Erica Brakefield, technical consultant in the environmental management branch, at (502) 564-4856 Ext. 3732; or Vonia Grabeel, program administrator in the environmental management branch, at (502) 564-4856 Ext. 3724.

The Kentucky Public Health Department website’s bed bug page also has links to a PDF bed bug fact sheet (which we’ve linked to for some time) and a flyer of consumer information related to bed bugs.

It is new as of November 2, 2007, and includes such suggestions as:

Do’s and Don’ts (where have I heard this phrase before?)

• Do not pick up any used furniture or mattresses/box springs from the roadside or your garbage containers.
• If you have gotten furniture from a rental service, always check the seams and any creased areas for bed bugs.
• When traveling, check all motel rooms thoroughly before setting your luggage on the floor or bed.

Bed bugs prefer to hide close to where they feed. However, if necessary, they will crawl several feet to obtain a blood meal. Initial infestations tend to be around beds, but the bugs eventually may become scattered throughout a room, occupying any crevice or protected location. They also can spread to adjacent rooms or apartments.

Well, some good, and some not so good advice here. I’ve heard bed bugs can crawl 20 feet, or 100 feet (depending who you ask). I am not sure about 100, but “a few feet” seems like an understatement.

And while I am at it, can I just ask people not to rent furniture? Please don’t. Like curbside furniture or freecycle/Craigslist booty, it just is not worth it. If you think life without a TV or sofa bites, imagine not being able to sit in any of your chairs or lie in your bed or lounge around watching that TV without being bitten. It is not worth it. I speak as a woman who sat for many months in a metal folding chair after my sofa started biting me in the arse (almost literally). I did not pick up a secondhand sofa, but I know what it is like to not have one, and believe me: a sofa with bed bugs is a lot worse than no sofa at all.

Still, I applaud Kentucky’s attempts to notify the public, and I especially appreciate their invitation to Kentucky residents to call the Public Health Dept. with questions or complaints or concerns about bed bugs. You can call them, and they have given the names and phone numbers of appropriate contacts.

Bed bugs, a health issue? Who woulda thunk it?!?
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