Now the Thai railway company is blaming backpackers for bringing bed bugs to the trains, as the Bangkok Post reports in an article entitled, “Foreign Backpackers deny they’re bed bug spreaders.”

Foreign backpackers say they are disgusted by bed bugs, but even more disgusted by the suggestion they are the ones carrying the insects onto trains. Many foreign backpackers waiting for trains at Hua Lampong station yesterday conceded they knew little about bed bug infestations on trains.

They said the thought of bed bugs crawling on the velvety seats of long-haul trains and biting passengers while they dozed off was truly off-putting.

But to be accused of carrying the blood-sucking bugs on to trains was even more disgusting, said many foreign backpackers interviewed yesterday by the Bangkok Post at the train terminal.

Bed bugs can travel in any direction. Anyone could have brought the initial bed bug(s) onto the train: employees, local travelers, foreign backpackers, even train inspectors.

But the comments being made by officials in Thailand imply they haven’t got a clue how bed bugs behave:

Transport Minister Santi Prompat said yesterday the bugs may have jumped onto travellers’ backpacks during forest treks and then found new homes in the cosy seats of the trains. He said the velvet-covered seats and cool temperatures contributed to make the trains a fertile breeding ground for the insects.

Bed bugs would enjoy a nice velvet-covered seat, but they can also live in the train structure itself. And while bat or bird bugs are similar to bed bugs and might be found in the forest, they don’t leap onto people as they walk by.

Backpackers could certainly have brought bed bugs from a hotel or other lodging, as this traveler concedes:

American Sean Vaughan-Housman, 23, said he had not heard the news about the train beg bugs, but added he had come across the insects at a guesthouse.

But it may be unfair to point the finger at backpackers for the infestation of bugs on the trains, he said.

It most certainly is: you can’t prove foreign backpackers brought bed bugs onto the trains, or were the only people to do so.

More important, however, is the fact that travelers who rode on the infested trains are likely to have caused other infestations when they left it.   Maybe a few people brought bed bugs on to the trains, and yet how many more surely took them away from it?  The train infestation likely caused other infestations of passenger homes, guest houses, restaurants, even other trains, buses or planes.

If anyone sat on the train and picked up a hitchhiking bed bug in their clothing or bags, they could have infested subsequent locations. So the train company should be focused on that scenario. They’re to blame for infesting others as well.

This is why the bed bug blame game does not work: when people jump to blame others, they often forget there’s usually many more who can rush to blame them.

Sawittee Malaipan, an entomologist at Kasetsart University, said some foreigners, including refugees and tourists, did not like to take baths and so they attracted the insects.

It’s not surprising to see this sort of rhetoric levied against western young people. Here in the US, many want to blame immigrants for spreading bed bugs. But this entomologist’s line of thinking is incorrect: bed bugs are not attracted to people who do not take baths.

My assessment of this piece is that bed bugs are as much of a surprise to locals in Thailand as those in Paris or New York City. Once one realizes, “they’re back,” there’s a rush to place blame.

Well, sorry: they’re just back. Everywhere. Trying to blame others when bed bugs appear is pointless and distracting. It’s also usually based on faulty logic and scant or no evidence.

Instead, look to yourself. Do your best to keep your home, business, bed-and-breakfast lodging or public transport system bed bug-free, and you will keep from spreading bed bugs to others. And when you do get bed bugs, catch them quickly, apologize to anyone affected, and for goodness’ sake, get rid of them ASAP.

Thanks to hopelessnomo for pointing this article out.

• Bed bugs infest Thai trains, Bangkok Post reports
• Bed bugs in French SNCF trains
• Bed bugs in almost all 58 states… (okay, um, all 50 states)
• Attention Oxford Mail editors: bed bugs did not return because students suddenly stopped cleaning their flats

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Edward Higgins, the defense lawyer, tried to kill the suit, claiming it’s impossible to know how and when bed bugs arrived in the home, but the judge did not dismiss the civil suit:

Circuit Judge John McBain said there’s no evidence the YMCA camp knew of the blood-sucking insects in 2005, but a jury or judge could decide whether officials should have suspected bugs and used routine pest control.

Higgins’ response?

“No one in the Midwest had a clue there were bedbugs here,” Higgins said. “Most people thought it was the subject of a nursery rhyme.”

The bed bug blame game is a difficult one to win, as Higgins knows. In most cases, we have to admit a lack of definitive evidence as to the source of an infestation.

On the other hand, whatever the climate in 2005, the days of denying responsibility because you never heard of bed bugs in your area are now kaput.

Nevertheless, detecting bed bugs is no picnic even when you are aware, as many Bedbuggers will attest.

And it is true that you have to be aware in order to detect them. Still, the article asserts that

While bedbug population has been on the rise in the United States in the last five years, it is not true that no one in the Midwest knew of their existence before that.

“Bedbugs and people have been together since we lived in caves,” Michigan State University entomologist Howard Russell said.

Bed bugs have been here all along: we keep hearing this. Many entomologists and PCOs will assert they saw bed bugs (albeit more rarely) throughout the golden years of 1972-1999 (after DDT was banned in the US but before the current epidemic “began”). And yet others date the resurgence of bed bugs to circa 1999.

On the other hand, Russell does not see a clear link in the YMCA infestation and the home infestation:

“I would argue it was a coincidence because bedbug populations are on the rise, and there are many sources,” Russell said. Also, only DNA testing could prove the bugs hitched a ride from Storer Camp to the plaintiff’s house, he said.

Now, about that DNA testing: does he mean testing the home bed bug’s DNA (against that of the bed bugs found at the camp?) Or does he mean testing the client’s DNA being compared with that found in blood eaten by bed bugs at camp? Even if it’s proven that the bed bugs at camp and the bed bugs at home are from the same strain, or bit the same boy, how would either test prove definitively that bed bugs did not travel in the other direction?

Yes, I know a lot of readers will be really frustrated with me. Of course he got bed bugs from the camp, people will say. The same way that when someone first notices bed bug bites after a trip to a hotel, or the purchase of a new mattress (delivered in a truck), they will assume they know the source of bed bugs. And make no mistake, these are all probable sources. But it is also true in these cases that bed bugs could have been present in the home–undetected–before the incident in question.

That’s why the blame game doesn’t usually work.

I’m not a lawyer, but it seems like more than probability is needed to win a lawsuit.*  Perhaps that kind of evidence is available to the judge and jury.

Not enough information is available from the article to call this a coincidence, nor to place blame. We don’t know what the kid saw or experienced at camp vs. at home. We don’t know if he was bitten at home first, or at camp. And even if we did, this moment (the first bite) is often hard or impossible to identify: it appears you can be bitten for months without reacting. People sometimes report a large number of bites appearing at once after many bites not causing an immediate reaction; entomologists who feed bed bugs have reported this occurrence.

Because bed bug bites are allergic reactions, and vary so widely, it is very hard to say when the cause is introduced, or removed.

*Update (3/10/2008):  a reader who happens to be a lawyer responded to my comment above that, “I’m not a lawyer, but it seems like more than probability is needed to win a lawsuit.”

Actually, the standard for a civil case is
“preponderance of the evidence” — more probable than
not — basically more than a 50% chance.

http://www.answers.com/topic/preponderance-of-evidence?cat=biz-fin

Thank you, anonymous lawyer, for that correction.

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Terry says, “A pest control program for bed bugs is very detailed. You’ve got to get all the crevices. We are doing a little more than we really need to, but it’s to make sure we don’t have a problem in the future.”

That means Terry’s son, Tony, has to bag contents of every locker in the school, and then spray those contents with an insecticide.

Tony and his mother are wearing only gloves now, but when the heavy fumigation gets underway, they’ll be wearing face masks, too.

I am interested in these methods, since I have not heard PCOs here talking about spraying into bags of belongings. Perhaps a PCO would tell us what this might be.

I initially thought it was a good thing that Bracken County Schools were taking bed bugs seriously after finding a bed bug in school, since cities like New York City are so slow to take action against similar situations. My initial positive sense was based on Bracken County’s willingness to treat schools for bed bugs. I thought that their treatment of every school in the district was based on a sense that bed bugs must be more widespread than in just this one school.

Now, however, I am becoming more concerned about the community’s response, especially their apparent obsession with pinpointing its source. It betrays a lack of education about bed bugs and their behavior, which appears to be a prevalent problem elsewhere too.

Parents in Brooksville are divided about the schools closing an extra day just for bed bugs.

Elizabeth Aulick, a mother of two Bracken County students says, “Yeah, it does concern me, but the letter I got said they only found one bug. If it’s one bug isolated to one child, keep him home for a few days.”

A mother of three Bracken County students, including one at the Middle School says, “I guess it’s a little unexpected. I never expected something like this, but I guess it’s a good thing. Just to be on the safe side. It didn’t both me, I said, ‘Well, that’s fine.’”

The school fumigation in Bracken County is getting the full support of the county health department there.

I am glad the health department in Bracken County recognizes bed bugs as a concern, since many don’t. However, I have to say that what’s being said about the child in this case is absurd.

People in Bracken County must not associate the schools’ bed bug issue, if they indeed have one, with this one student who may have had the bed bug on his things or on his clothing. Bed bugs can live and breed in schools or in school buses or public transportation, and they can crawl onto students at any of these locations (as well as many others). As we have taken pains to explain in the past, the presence of a bed bug on a person or their things absolutely does not prove the person brought the bed bug in.

All parents, including those of the child who was bitten by the bed bug, must search at home and have a qualified PCO inspect if anyone is complaining of bites or if they see any bed bugs or possible signs. However, it is crucial that parents and school officials realize that bed bugs are not lice, and do not live on people. They crawl on, feed, and run away. If a bed bug is found on a person in a school, it does not mean the person brought the bed bug to the school.

I would assume the Bracken County School officials know this, since they are treating every school, and not just the one the bed bug was found in. And yet it does not sound like the parents or media have been picking up on that fact.

If the child did indeed have had an infestation at home and brought them into the school, then his family, too, caught them from somewhere. They spread easily. And everyone should be alert. Everyone should be asking where this family might have picked up bed bugs: parents’ workplace? YMCA? School? Bus? Motel? Because where they got them, you can get them too.

However, the child should not be blamed, nor should he be kept home. People with active infestations need to take some steps to avoid spreading bed bugs. Treating the child himself as if he were contagious is an ignorant mistake.

• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs
• NYC Bedbuggers: time to have some local politicians over for a bite or two
• New York City public schools continue to be treated for bed bugs
• Spring break bed bug warnings!

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Having heard nothing since then, I was glad to see that yesterday the New York Observer (in their 10/23 online and 10/29 print edition) re-told the bed bugs at Cadwalader story, that the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.com law blog (housed in the same building as Cadwalader!) covered the Observer’s coverage. After all, the more people realize you can have bed bugs at work–even in very classy workplaces–the better.

The Observer’s David Lat also edits the online legal tabloid AbovetheLaw.com, where we picked up the original leaked-memo bed bug story. We missed this, but on October 3rd, Above the Law also covered a second report of bed bugs in the same offices, this time on the 20th floor:

It is believed that said bedbug infiltrated the premises through a delivery or box shipment. Perhaps it was hidden in a document production from opposing counsel?

While this is entirely possible, since bed bugs had previously been found in the same building, I would not be surprised if other locations in the building were infested. Maybe (gasp!) the blamed employee was fired for nothing. It is very difficult to locate blame for a bed bug infestation.

And remember, the original memo made this claim:

“A single treatment by an exterminator usually controls bed bugs and prevents reinfestation for several months.”

Perhaps one treatment was not enough.

In October, management was more careful to avoid the leaked-memo scenario:

Attorneys were notified of this breach in CWT’s bed bug security via email. We haven’t seen the email message, which we understand was protected against forwarding, printing, or copying.

Too bad. The first memo was fascinating.

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• Harvard dorm treated for scabies–but what was it really? Also, bed bugs at Columbia?
• Another top NYC lawfirm gets bed bugs

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His lease was terminated Sept. 27, about a month after he said he posted fliers alleging that bedbugs had invaded 11 apartments, including his own. A hearing on the eviction notice will take place Oct. 26 at Superior Court in Morristown.

Rutgers Village, in an Oct. 2 court filing, placed the bedbug blame squarely on Veghte.

The apartment complex alleged that Veghte, on or before Sept. 17, “either intentionally or through gross negligence, created an infestation condition within his apartment” that he initially failed to report. The landlord also alleged that Veghte refused to cooperate with extermination efforts.

How could Veghte have “intentionally” caused a bed bug infestation within his apartment? Does this mean he sought out bed bugs, brought them in, and infested his home?!?

How could he have “created” the infestation through “gross negligence”? While it is true that someone might have bed bugs for a time and not report them, thus allowing the problem to escalate, we know that different people react to bites in different ways, and bed bugs can be hard to find. Unless they are crawling over the walls all day, it seems like it would be nearly impossible to prove how long someone had them and known about it.

Failing to report the infestation promptly is another matter, and we really do not know what went on there.

Parsippany housing coordinator Rena Plaxe said she was contacted by Veghte several times but did not intervene in the dispute. Plaxe said it appeared that the landlord had acted reasonably.

“From what I understand, he found a bedbug. He put it in a Ziploc bag. He took it to the management office. They set up an extermination process for his apartment, but he’s been unable or unwilling to properly prepare the apartment. Therein lies the problem,” said Plaxe, adding that the landlord was able to do only “a cursory treatment” as a result.

It does sound as if “unable” to prepare is more likely than “unwilling” to prepare. Read on:

Veghte, a former truck driver who said he had not worked since 2002 due to three herniated disks and osteoarthritis in his neck and back, said he was unable to remove items from cabinets and closets as requested by the landlord to aid in extermination.

“I’m disabled. I asked them for help,” Veghte said.

What should disabled people do, if they ask landlords for help with prep and do not get it? Who can they, or the landlord, call?

And why would a landlord evict a disabled person who could not do their prep? Veghte claims there’s more to the story.

Rob Jennings reports for the Daily Record that Veghte feels he is being evicted because he told neighbors about the bed bugs via a flyer he distributed on August 25th. He received the eviction order on Sept. 27, and the building sent tenants a letter about bed bugs on October 10th. Regardless of anything else that happened, the building clearly did not warn Veghte’s fellow tenants about the possibility they were infested until six and a half weeks after Veghte distributed the flyers. They had to have known of this possibility since at least late September, at least two weeks before October 11, since the man was evicted then.

Assuming Veghte did distribute the flyers without notifying the landlord of his infestation directly, which was not a good idea, several weeks at most could be proven to have passed between his knowing about the infestation and his notifying the office as per Plaxe’s description.

His lease was terminated Sept. 27, about a month after he said he posted fliers alleging that bedbugs had invaded 11 apartments, including his own. A hearing on the eviction notice will take place Oct. 26 at Superior Court in Morristown.

Veghte’s being represented by Legal Aid.

This is not the first time someone has been evicted for not doing the prep required for treatment. Last December, multiple families (including one with a disabled son) were evicted from an Edmonton, Alberta building for not properly preparing for bed bug treatment. Read more about that here. In that case and this one, the evicted individuals claimed to be unable to complete all the steps of required preparation. These can vary depending on the PCO. In the Edmonton building, the tenants complained of not being able to move furniture and other items, and not having anywhere to move them to. As the article implies, they may not have fully understood the reasons for prep, or how to go about it.

In the current New Jersey case, Veghte is disabled. Although I understand that landlords do not feel they can do tenants’ prep, it simply is not acceptable that disabled persons, or for that matter, elderly people, busy single parents, or anyone else who has difficulty doing required preparations, should be evicted. Preparations can be time-consuming and demanding on one’s energy and physical abilities. If people need help, then there must be government agencies who will provide assistance in cases where people simply cannot do the physical labor, or do it quickly enough.

Make no mistake: tenants must report bed bugs promptly if they are aware of them (and whether Veghte did or not is uncertain), and prep needs to be completed properly before treatment. Not doing so puts neighbors as well as the property in jeopardy, and I am not supporting anyone who fails to do those things. However, people who need help with prep must get this help. We cannot expect disabled or elderly people, or those with other legitimate limitations, to simply find help somehow. As a society that does not evict people for being physically challenged, we simply have to provide help.

If this man is really being evicted for not doing prep, his eviction amounts to discrimination, and it’s just plain wrong.

Let this story be a warning to tenants: notify your landlord promptly, and in writing, the minute you suspect a bed bug infestation. People whose first instinct is to simply self-treat could conceivably be accused of not reporting an infestation. In NYC, landlords are often happy to try and evict you, since they can raise the rent for the next guy. Don’t give them any excuse for doing so.

And a warning to landlords: make sure your tenants understand how and why they need to prepare. Many good PCOs will give a talk at the building for tenants about the hows, the whys, and the wherefores. Education is key here. However, you have a responsibility too–to let tenants know of neighbors’ infestations. If you don’t, you may be sued, like this Chicago landlord. All’s fair in love and torts.

And a warning to the rest of the world: we must find ways to help people who cannot prepare for treatment.

Or there are soon going to be a lot more disabled people, elderly people, and parents of young children on the streets. What a shame.

• More from Edmonton bed bug evictions case
• Bedbug evictions: Edmonton tenants evicted because they did not prepare for spraying
• Still more from Nashua, New Hampshire: fewer bed bugs at 23-25 Temple St.
• Bed bugs & tenant organizing: don’t take this lying down

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Courtesy of the CBC’s links from its fine story on bed bugs (which remains the best television clip on bed bugs to date, hands down, in my humble opinion), a rundown on who pays for tenants’ bed bug treatment according to Province. It is really complicated. I am not even going to try and paraphrase it.

However, the easy thing to say is that the law is pretty much on the tenant’s side in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia. Nevertheless, folks in those areas should read the information on your location; it is definitely not always cut and dried, and you have responsibilities as well as rights. Seek legal advice or advice from a tenant’s organization in your area if you need help understanding the laws the CBC page links to.

In most other areas, the responsibility for paying for bed bug treatment varies a great deal Province by Province and according to the situation.

Yes, you guessed it: they want to play the blame game.

In some places it depends on whether the tenant can prove they did not bring bed bugs into the apartment, in others it depends on whether the landlord can prove tenants did bring them in. In still others, arbitration is provided where tenants and landlords cannot come to an agreement.

• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.
• Halifax: where the bed bug “blame game” is the law
• added to the “Tenants and Landlords FAQ”: Washington, D.C. and Florida
• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay

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Journalist Sarah Ferguson dropped me an email to let me know that her Village Voice article on the seminar was up, here.

As expected, the bed bug news is not good:

“We have to be in an absolute bed bug state of mind,” warned Dr.
Michael Potter, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and leading expert in the now global bed bug war, with no apologies to Billy Joel. “This problem is not going to go away. I don’t see how the problem is going to get better. It’s going to get chaotic.”

Potter came equipped with a PowerPoint presentation and tales of bed bugs “oozing their way” through hospitals, nursing homes, movie theaters, drycleaners, Laundromats, schools, and all manner of dwelling spaces.

“Probably every major university in the U.S. has bed bugs in its dormitories,” he said. He flashed a particularly disheartening slide of an infested mattress in the “heart transplant wing of a major urban hospital.”

There were also entomologists and PCOs talking about pesticide-resistance, and rental property owners trying to cover their backsides:

One property owner wanted to know whether tenants could be sued for bringing the evil critters into a building—a notion that, given the rates of infestation in parts of NYC—struck us a little like suing for getting the flu.

The ‘flu analogy is an apt one we’ve often made ourselves.

“You’d have to be pretty confident that tenant was the cause,” responded Denise McCurry, an attorney for MGM Mirage resorts and casinos in Las Vegas, who was flown in to address the mounting liability issues faced by property owners and their exterminators. “And remember,” McCurry added, “the tenant is not likely to have a lot of money.”

As we keep saying, the blame game just does not work with bed bugs. (Click here for previous articles discussing the limits of the bed bug blame game.) Everyone is not allergic to the bites, and those who are allergic to bites generally notice bed bugs first, regardless of whose infestation actually started first. Those not allergic to bed bugs are the last they know they have them, and so very likely to spread them, as appears to have happened in Amanda’s case, covered on apartmenttherapy.com. But even in that case, as far as AT readers know, at least, there is no proof the bed bug infestation started with the “cute neighbor.” Who knows how many others in the building are infested. We’ve even heard of bed bugs being transmitted from one building to another via a shared wall.

Sarah welcomes you, and I encourage you, to leave a comment on the article.

This was mine:

I sorely wish that the NYC government would heed Dr. Michael Potter’s warnings about how bad bed bugs are and how much worse they’re going to get.

Most people in NYC with bed bugs, once they realize or suspect the problem, call their landlord, or a pest control operator.

Unfortunately, the city of NYC bases its statistics of how many new yorkers have bed bugs on how many people call 311, the city’s question and complaint hotline, to report bed bugs.

Since no homeowners, and few renters actually call 311 to report an infestation, the city’s statistics are very skewed.

When NYC undertakes a real study of how many homes pest control operators treat for bed bugs, as Toronto did in 2003, they will be very surprised to find out how widespread the problem is.

Unfortunately, Bloomberg prefers to pretend they are a minor problem, like cockroaches. When they finally spread to almost every building and almost every workplace, it will be too late to enact changes to halt their spread. Not only do we need a public education campaign, and a required-by-law service for picking up bed bug-infested refuse (as per the article), we need systems for tracking bed bug infestations, and better systems for dealing with renter’s complaints. Most people won’t call 311, I am told everyday, because they don’t want a bad reference from their landlord.

Until reporting bed bugs to the city is divorced from reporting a housing violation, we are not going to know how many people are infested.

I’d love to hear from anyone who was at the Bed BUg Control Seminar–what did you find interesting or new, that we should know about?

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Unfortunately, as Geralda Miller of the Reno Gazette Journal reports, the advice being given to tenants is not great:

“They’re an indoor critter,” [Jeff Knight, Nevada State Entomologist] said. “Get rid of the mattress. Get rid of the infested bed frame and thoroughly treat everything else. Bedding has to get a hot wash and dry.”

Those were the instructions [Building Manager Rhonda] Mathews said she gave her tenants.

“Get rid of them or they’re not living here,” she said.

Mathews said she has spent more than $100 to treat each infested unit and the 10 surrounding ones.

Knight said it is important that pest control companies do a thorough job to get rid of the bugs.

The Washoe County Health Department gets “one or two” valid complaints of bed bugs a month. PCO treatment for bed bugs cost the building manager $100 per unit. I know the cost of living in Reno is lower than in NYC, Boston, or San Francisco, but this seems very low. I hope the PCO is trained to treat bed bugs specifically, which may not be the case in a place with very few cases.

If the state entomologist is really telling folks to simply throw away mattresses and frames, and wash bedding (what about all the other clothing and linens in the home?) then they may be seeing a lot more cases soon. Because others will pick up those discarded items. And because clothing and other items can harbor bed bugs, allowing them to continue breeding and spread further.

Across the country, in New Haven, Channel 3 reports that residents of 15 Housing Authority apartments have been relocated to a hotel while their apartments are “fumigated” and “decontaminated.” The terminology there may well relate more to common ideas about pest control practices (killing bugs = “fumigation”) rather than the actual techniques used.

I was very excited to read the following words:

[Channel 3 Eyewitness News Reporter Erika] Arias reported that the Housing Authority is taking the outbreak seriously. [Resident Alberta] Silverspoon said that as soon as she alerted the authority, immediate action was taken.

Quick and drastic action on the HA’s part seems good. But they need to be cautious now: there’s significant danger residents will have moved the bed bugs to the hotel, and they can certainly reinfest their homes when they move back in, so I hope the Housing Authority knows what it’s doing and takes some time to educate and provide necessary supplies (XL ziplocs, mattress and pillow covers, even laundry services for evacuated items) to make sure this doesn’t happen.

It makes me wonder, are hotels going to start asking if prospective customers are bed bug refugees?

The New Haven Register also covered this story. Here, we learn the building is called Crawford Manor, is on Park Avenue, and has 109 units (only 15 identified as infested).

However, this second article was more disturbing. It suggested housing officials were rushing to blame the infestation on one tenant:

Housing Authority Executive Director Jimmy Miller said Wednesday the problem began in a unit of a female tenant who is known to carry her belongings around in bags and owns a few cats. He did not identify the tenant. The city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative Bureau is being asked to condemn the unit, he said.

“It’s a very serious thing and it’s quite an undertaking,” Miller said.

Miller, who has been running the agency for about 18 months, said this is the first occurrence during his tenure. He did not know of any others in recent history.

“It’s not something that would go unnoticed. You do get bites from them,” he said.

Actually, some claim that most people are not allergic and so do not react (in other words, they neither see bite marks nor experience any itching). Even if “most” is inaccurate, it’s certainly true of “many.” There’s a wide range of reactions from serious allergic reactions that land people in hospital, to dime-sized welts and severe itching, to what looks like mosquito bites, to tiny red dots, to nothing.

So if HA officials are basing their ideas of how bed bugs spread from one unit to another, or which units are infested, on whether people experience bites, their data is liable to be inaccurate. There will doubtless be bed bugs in other units, not reported, maybe not even noticed.

The housing authority was alerted when tenants from another unit detected the bugs and reported the problem.

Miller said the authority has not identified the cause of the outbreak, but officials believe the infestation spread as the female tenant moved bags around common areas or as visitors entered and left.

“They don’t usually travel person-to-person and they don’t normally travel more than 100 feet,” he said.

The housing authority first had to have the female tenant’s unit cleaned and her furniture will be destroyed.

Thirteen other tenants were housed temporarily in area hotels Tuesday night and about half were able to return to Crawford Manor Wednesday. Authority staff gave them meals and made sure everyone on medication stayed on their regimens.

Crawford Manor is a mixed-population development. Miller said it is going to cost the authority approximately $80 per unit to decontaminate the entire building. It was unclear Wednesday how much alternate lodging, meals and staff overtime would cost.

The tenant in the unit that set off the infestation was relocated from Brookside, one of several housing complexes on West Rock targeted for revitalization.

Miller said the authority will be implementing a policy for sterilizing tenant belongings before relocations occur.

“We’re on top of it,” he said.

Good to know they’re on top of it. (I’m impressed by the $80 per unit cost. But the city probably has a contract of some kind.)

I hope they also educate themselves and tenants about how bed bugs are picked up and spread. Because although bed bugs may not walk more than 100 feet, they will hitchhike on anyone: any tenant, visitor, or employee could have brought them in.

I am troubled by the way in which New Haven housing authorities want to pin the blame on an easy target: a woman who has cats and carries her stuff around in bags.

First, the fact the woman has “a few cats” is irrelevant: we can get bed bugs from the abandoned nests of bats, birds, and even rats, but they do not come from cats. If a human is present, they don’t even want to bite the cats. So I am not sure why people are obsessed with the woman’s cats, as if they were a factor. Presumably the cats living in a high-rise do not go out, so they did not pick up hitchhiking bed bugs and bring them in.

Second, it is clear that if someone did have bed bugs and carried their stuff around in bags, they’d have more chance of carrying bed bugs to more locations than a person who, for example, traveled light. But it really does not matter whether the “bags” are laptop cases, Prada bags, messenger bags, or shopping bags.

It is true that clutter allows bed bugs to easily hide and breed. But it does not cause them to appear.

This sounds to me like a witch hunt: “15 units are infested, one is the home of a woman who has a few cats and carries stuff around, therefore, let’s blame her.” It’s easy, but it’s not necessarily scientific. Even if her unit now has more bugs than any other unit, I am not sure it could be proven she brought bed bugs in, or that she was “bed bug ground zero.”

She may be the source in this building, she may not. But the real problem with pinning the blame on someone is that it makes others feel they’re off the hook. The truth is, whoever brought them into the building, caught them somewhere. It’s an epidemic. Maybe they caught them in New Haven, maybe they brought them in from a vacation, school, workplace, or hospital. The person who brings them into the building is not the cause. Moving them out does not prevent reinfestation. And they also implied that “tenant zero” was relocated there from another (presumably infested) HA building.

More to the point, did 15 people from this building just infest a local hotel? I’d like to know what precautions were taken to avoid that situation. This is the problem with the blame game: everyone who has bed bugs got them from someone else (unless they got them from a bat, a bird, or a rat). Who are you gonna blame?

We need public education, assistance for people in low-income housing (with supplies and treatment costs–besides the PCO), and prompt PCO treatment.
We need government awareness, better policies, funding, and willingness to act (New Haven got a lot of that right).
We need bed bug aggregate pheromone traps, more and better pesticides and other treatment methods (thermal, cryonite, etc.).
But we don’t need the pointless and inaccurate blame game.

• more on bed bugs in New Haven: they’re only using steam cleaning?!?
• New Haven housing officials confused: why can’t they get rid of these bed bugs?
• New Haven: another housing complex has bed bugs
• Business Week: The Cost of Bed Bugs

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Students are partly to blame for an explosion in bed bugs in Oxford, according to pest control experts Rentokil.

The company said it had seen a 64 per cent increase in the number of bed bug-related callouts in the city between June 2006 and June 2007.

The increase in the city is higher than the national average, which the company said was a 52 per cent year-on-year rise.

Interestingly, the same representative of the same firm told the Daily Mail on Thursday that the increase in Manchester was 179% during the same period. Much higher than that in Oxford.

Anyway, I’m waiting for how students are to blame. Here it comes:

Although Rentokil would not release the exact number of call-outs because it was deemed “commercially sensitive information”, the rise was blamed on: *Bad housekeeping by students and busy families *Bugs brought back from abroad as overseas travel becomes cheaper *An increase in the popularity of car boot sales and retro-style clothes.

While travel can help spread bed bugs, and secondhand items are definitely a huge risk factor, poor housekeeping per se is not the cause of bed bugs. Nor will they stay away if your home is pristine. All of the experts on bed bugs will tell you that bed bugs are as happy to suck the blood of a “clean” person as a dirty one, and happy to live in your “clean” home and sleep near your tidy bed.

Bed bugs did not come back in the last decade because students and working parents were suddenly messy.

And while we’re at it, your grandparents did not raise your parents in bed bug-free homes because they held themselves to a higher standard of hygiene. They did not have bed bugs because of a little chemical known as DDT which wiped them out for decades.

Bed bugs are back because of changes in pesticide use worldwide, coupled with ours being a highly mobile world.

And bed bugs are highly contagious. And they hide well, even in many clean homes.
The only way “clean” can help keep bed bugs away is if your idea of cleaning includes regular vacuuming of the mattress, bed frame, sofa and other soft chairs, and every crack and crevice around the perimeter of the bed room and living room.

“Clean” can also help you spot bed bugs or their leavings, if “clean” means “clutter-free” (which isn’t necessarily the case).

However, anyone can get and keep bed bugs. They can move into any home, hitch a ride in any tote bag or suitcase.

The only real nugget of truth in this article was this:

Rentokil technical director Savvas Othon said: “The large student population in Oxford is one of the possible reasons for the increase in bed bugs. Students travel a lot and move around socially, which allows them to spread.”

Yes–more social interaction, more “getting around” (whether that means travel, hanging out, or visiting lots of others’ homes) does affect the spread.

So does moving frequently. Student areas in Boston have likely seen bed bugs spread for this reason–with many universities in one town, you have the students (many in a new apartment or dorm room each year), the international travel during the breaks, people coming from all over to study, and then the student lifestyle which means going places (library, coffee shops, clubs, jobs, buses, trains, etc.) They may also not necessarily recognize the problem. And to be fair, from where we stand, university residences (dorms) and student landlords don’t always eliminate the problems well–so the next batch of student tenants will often inherit previous tenants’ infestations.

Let’s try and avoid the inaccurate association of “dirty” homes with bed bugs. And let’s not stigmatise students who have bed bugs–they don’t have them because they did anything wrong. In this sense saying the “students are partly to blame” seems inaccurate to me. Their lifestyles are conducive to spreading bed bugs.

So are those of business people who travel, jet-setting CEOs, politicians, rich holiday travelers, actors, sports teams and so on. It’s easy to blame students, or drug users and prostitutes, but it is not accurate. I think passing the blame to one or a few groups of people is not only inaccurate, it also gives others a false sense of security. And it accentuates the stigma of having bed bugs–the shame that keeps people from reporting them promptly, keeps them from getting treatment promptly, and keeps them from warning others (dry cleaners, friends they visit, etc.) that they might spread the problem.

Instead of talking about bed bugs like they’re an STD or a sign of poor hygiene, why not consider them to be like the ‘flu, or a cold? It’s not uncommon to warn a co-worker that you might sneeze on them (”Don’t stand too close, I have a bit of a cold”). While our lifestyles can make catching colds and flu more likely (indeed, spending time in planes seems to expose you to these “bugs” too), we don’t say, “Business people are partly to blame for the spread of the common cold.” And we don’t hesitate to warn someone about our contagious germs. I hope one day soon people will feel as free to warn others about their bed bugs, and as unlikely to blame the victim who caught a cold on the bus to work. Let’s drop the blame-and-shame-game.

Let’s never forget that the real problem is the bed bugs. And they’re happy to feed on you, whoever you are.

• Spring break bed bug warnings!
• Bed bugs lurk in hotel rooms, says ABC news
• Ryerson University: a study in unenthusiastic bed bug control practices
• Infested student apartment building at Wright State University, Dayton

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In it, he describes the treatment, and repercussions meted out to the alleged source of the infestation.

Oh, and the Chairman also says they don’t have “an infestation.” Whatever that means.

The memo contains some strange claims, including assertions that:

a) “A single treatment by an exterminator usually controls bed bugs and prevents reinfestation for several months.”

Not so, assuming traditional methods (sprays, powders and the like), most cases require multiple treatments.

b) Treatments occurred on June 18th, again the next morning, and again a week later (based, apparently on additional bed bug sightings in the same area.

This is odd, since the memo also rightly admits it is normal to see some bed bugs after the first treatment. Why did they keep spraying before the expected 10-day follow-up?

c) “They do not show themselves during daylight hours, only at night in the dark.”

That’s not necessarily true.

d) “[Name of PCO firm] has said that it is very unlikely that these bugs could be transmitted to your home. However, for the next several days, please closely examine your clothing and any materials you take out of the office.”

it’s definitely possible you brought them home. And be vigilant for several months or more, since one or two bugs can establish themselves in time. You may not be allergic and so you may not feel bites; in such circumstances, you might not notice visible evidence of bed bugs for many, many months. Until they are everywhere and you are seeing them in the daytime.

e) “Note also that [name of PCO] has assured us that [name of law firm] does not have any infestation and will continue to proceed with an aggressive course of action to remedy the situation.”

Um, how many bed bugs do you think you have to have, to have an infestation?
Because I’d say you do have one.

f) Oddly enough, they think they know the original source of the bed bugs:

“During the course of the extermination, a box was identified as the source of the bugs and was immediately removed from the premises.”

Possible, but really? Can you be sure the bed bugs came from the box?

g) And finally, most distressingly, this statement:

“The individual who we believe brought the insects into the firm came forward on Tuesday, June 19, and is no longer associated with the firm.”

We don’t know the details. Assuming this employee was fired only for allegedly bringing bed bugs into the firm, and assuming this person did not intentionally or knowingly bring the bed bugs in, perhaps s/he has a good case for wrongful dismissal. I really, truly hope so. That would be a bed bug lawsuit I could get behind. Because even if the employee brought the bed bugs in, it is quite possible s/he did so unknowingly.

Oddly enough, it may take months for the other employees to get that. But when some of them unknowingly take bed bugs home, they will understand that the blame game does not work with bed bugs.

This is the first time I have heard of anyone being fired because of bed bugs. Things are starting to get really ugly.

• Covington, Kentucky IRS building infested with bed bugs
• Cadwalader, Wickersham, and Taft’s alleged bed bugs, part two
• Fox NY claims it became infested with bed bugs “a few weeks ago”; tipster tells Gawker they fired employee who brought them in
• Another top NYC lawfirm gets bed bugs

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