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New York Magazine on bed bugs

nobugsonme — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:08:51 +0000

New York Magazine has a new bed bug story dated November 12th (print edition of 11/19), by Melissa Kirsch.

It contains lots of solid advice about not picking up curbside furniture, being wary of Craigslist finds, and searching for fecal spots and blood stains. But it also contains some advice we don’t normally see. Especially pertinent, this comment from our friend Lou Sorkin, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. (Hear him talk about bed bugs and other pests today–Tuesday–at 10:40 on 99.5 WBAI in NYC, or listen to the streaming live audio here.)

The telltale signs of their presence are itchy welts on your body, frequently in clusters of three or more. You might see tiny red or brown marks on your sheets where you’ve crushed bugs in the night. If you suspect infestation, check under carpets and in moldings, and survey mattresses, box springs, and bed frames. Look for feces and shed skins. And look for nymphs: “Ninety-nine percent of papers written on bedbugs neglect to mention that a bedbug starts as a tiny egg and hatches from it to become a [1- to 1.6-mm.] nymph that’s translucent white,” says Louis Sorkin, entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. “If people knew to look for nymphs, they could head off the problem much sooner.” The bugs pass through six stages of development and feed at least once during each, which means you can get bites before there are full-grown adults visible. If you think you have a problem but can’t find anything, press packing tape or a lint roller underneath carpet and in the corners of beds. Nymphs and eggs will stick to it.

Lou is bringing up a really important point here: many people first see a bed bug that is a fed or unfed nymph. And neither bed bug will look much like the image of an adult bed bug typically pictured in a media story. The first five photos in our page with photos of bed bugs and signs of bed bugs convey the enormous visual difference between fed vs. unfed first instar nymphs, and between nymphs vs. adults. Since people who have not yet had bed bugs often hear of them via the two-minute segment on Fox, or an article in their local paper, it would be best if more news outlets would feature a visual comparison giving people some awareness of this range when and if they do encounter a bed bug.

The article warns people against self-treating with Raid or foggers / bombs, and talks about the importance of dealing with clothing properly, notifying neighbors, and getting a professional in.

What I found most interesting was the final paragraph, which was centered around the need for action on the part of the city:

SEE SOMETHING (DISGUSTING), SAY SOMETHING

Last week, bedbugged tenants mounted a Craigslist-based attack on their Greenpoint building, and protesters in front of the Department of Health demanded action on asthma-exacerbating roaches and rats. They’re not the only ones who think the city could do more to crush creeping menaces. “Bedbugs are a major mental-health issue. I get tired of the Department of Health saying, ‘It’s not a physical issue, so we’re not going to focus on it,’” says Upper West Side council member Gale Brewer. She (and many exterminators) advocate a campaign along the lines of the subway-safety ads to spread word about bug-suppressing preventive steps. Other strategies: certification of bedbug-specialist exterminators and bans on mattress resales. To fight other pests, exterminators would like the DOH to enforce pre-demolition extermination laws more aggressively and hire more pest-control experts to manage parks and public spaces. For its part, the DOH says it has retrained staff after the KFC/Taco Bell rat debacle and is working on plans to combat residential bedbug and rodent problems.

I am really glad that Gale Brewer, who originally proposed the ban on reselling used mattresses in NYC, is still speaking out against bed bugs and their very real negative effects on health. I hope we will get an update on the NY City Council Bed Bug Task Force that was begun over a year ago, but is yet to take action (to our knowledge).

The recommendations here–enforcement of pre-demolition extermination laws, the mattress re-sale ban, and the certification of bed bug specialist PCOs are all good ones. We’ve been talking about the need for a public education campaign (subway ads, TV ads, and so on) since Bedbugger.com started.

Finally, Kirsch said, when describing what to do when you determine you do have bed bugs,

Don’t terrify yourself with horror stories on the Internet; check informative sites like Bedbugger.com.

Informative is good: thanks, Melissa Kirsch! We’re doing our best to get information out there and help people with bed bugs stay as calm as possible, so they can fight bed bugs in an effective way.

I hope we can also have something to do with getting people involved–maybe not so calmly–in fighting for change in public policies, like the ones suggested in this article. It’s always a good time to call your city council representative, or to write to the mayor, about bed bugs. Wherever you live, whether it’s New York, Halifax, Melbourne, or Lexington, Kentucky, take a moment to tell a local politician that bed bugs had a serious impact on your life–whether it was on your family, your finances, your job, and your health.

New Yorkers:
Click here to email Mayor Bloomberg.
Click here to look up and email your city council representative.
Click here to email Gale Brewer about the Bed Bug Task Force even if you’re not in her district.

And here’s a few words from the Rolling Stones–way back in 1978–that still ring true:

Don’t you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side,
Bed bugs uptown!
What a mess– this town’s in tatters
I’ve been shattered
My brain’s been battered, splattered all over Manhattan

Pop this mp3 on your iPod and muse on how little things have changed. And don’t forget: email your city council representative and remind them there are, once more, “bed bugs uptown.”

And so, it gets worse: bed bugs on the move

nobugsonme — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:59:31 +0000

A news round-up for today:

This article in the Quad-Cities Online reported yesterday on bed bug infestations in a public housing complex in East Moline, Illinois. The reporter quotes one resident who has been battling bed bugs since fall.

“I work too. My tax dollars are going to support places like this (government run low-income housing). If people knew how disgusting this is, I’m sure they’d be upset,” said a resident of the Joseph Fulton Homes. The woman asked to remain anonymous.

Interestingly, a number of comments to the article also note that low-income folks should not have to live like that. At least one commenter (going by the name “some anonymous person”) mentions that “only the poor have to live like this.”

Well, not exactly. While it’s true that in this case, it’s a low-income residence, sadly, people of every social class and walk of life are having to deal with bed bugs. Many, many people we hear from at bedbugger.com — low-income, moderate-income and middle-class– have a problem getting their landlords to treat the problem promptly and effectively. The rich are perhaps in the best situation, since they have more possibility of moving, but this problem is not easy for anyone, and everyone who suffers from bed bugs suffers and takes a hit. And it can afflict anyone at any time.

We need better government support for fighting bed bugs, because nobody should have to suffer this problem for long (and a week is too long).

A second local public housing complex, a senior apartment building called Warren Towers, also has units with bed bug infestations, a story which was covered by the Quad-Cities Online on May 30th.

In other news, even though I have a google alert which tells me when people mention bed bugs in the news or in their blogs, I don’t usually mention non-bed-bug-blogs in our news round-ups. There are just too many people blogging their infestations on a daily basis to keep up.

But today, one caught my eye: this professional blog at LibraryJournal.com, suggests that folks are starting to talk about their bed bug infestations not just amongst their nearest and dearest, or in the workplace, but amongst colleagues they may not know well. That’s good news: talking about bed bugs means more people learn about the problem, how to spot it, and its likelihood of appearing in their lives, too.

Bravo to Heather McCormack at Library Journal, and Heather–we hope your Brooklyn bed bugs are on their way out!

Meanwhile, Lisa Hoffman’s Scripps News article on bed bugs (the one also published in the Knoxville News) continues to make the rounds of syndication, now in the Albuquerque Tribune.

Next, for anyone in Boston who does not have to work next Wednesday, the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation is having a Bed Bug Conference.

2nd Greater Boston Bed Bug Conference: Extermination and Legislation
Wednesday, June 13, 2007, 8:30AM - 3:00PM

There is still time to register! Registraton is $25.00 and includes lunch and refreshments. (Click the link above to get to the ABCDC site and download the registration form.)

Sponsored by the Greater Boston Bedbug Task Force, this event will provide updated information about the bed bug outbreak to more than 200 exterminators, inspectors, health providers, property managers/landlords, tenants and housing advocates, as well as members of the general public.

There’s also information at the same link for local residents to apply for a grant from the ABCDC to fight bed bugs in your home. Allston Brighton residents take note! We’re big fans of the ABCDC’s bed bug-fighting attempts (some of which are mentioned here), and we’d be glad to hear about other community organizations that are trying to help people with bed bugs, or help people avoid getting bed bugs in the first place.

And finally, today some tenants in a Jamaica, Queens apartment set off a roach bomb which exploded, harming them and damaging their apartment and belongings.

Authorities say the explosion shattered the windows of Apartment 4E at 164-30 Hillside Avenue just after 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

Some residents inside the apartment were overcome, and at least two were taken to the hospital.

The force of the explosion reportedly blew pieces of the fourth-floor window onto a construction shed and the street.

Fire officials said the roach bomb explosion may have been sparked by a pilot light or a refrigerator compressor.

In case the fact that bug bombs do not work to rid your apartment of bed bugs did not dissuade you from using one, they’re also apparently potentially dangerous.
ABC 7’s photo shows what looks to be much of the apartment’s contents pushed up against the (blown-out) window.

I realize the news reports this as a roach bomb, but since there are (for good reason) no over-the-counter bed bug bombs, since we know people attempt to use bombs made for other pests to eradicate bed bugs, and since Queens is experiencing a lot of bed bug infestations, I do have to wonder if that might have been the case here.

Don’t try that at home, kids!

“Bombs don’t work on bed bugs.” Citation, anyone?

nobugsonme — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:47:15 +0000

(Editor’s note: this FAQ is in kind of a rough, unedited state. Please read the whole message and all the comments (there are not many) in order to get the full answer. I will be editing this as soon as possible.)

This is a shout out to our PCOs, entomologists, and other bed bug specialists: we’re told, over and over, that bug bombs (aerosol foggers) do not work on bed bugs. They can spread them deep into your walls or to your neighbors (not the intended effect in a multi-unit building).

Today we have a Bedbugger forums participant asking for a reference on this topic. Her landlord’s PCO uses bombs (aerosol foggers) to treat bed bugs. She learned from Bedbuggers that they do not work and he wants to know where she got that information. She doesn’t want to say she read it on Bedbugger.

I looked in six of the university fact sheets linked from this page, and none of them warned against bombs. We need something to hand to this landlord and PCO. Has anyone got a “source” to send us to, besides the Bedbugger yahoo group, where I learned bombs were bad from hymenoptera (aka PCO incognito), louento (aka Lou Sorkin) and ch (aka Caitlin Heller)? There’s some urgency to getting this information, and your help would be much appreciated.

(It’s important to clarify that full-structure Vikane fumigation, which requires an evacuation of the entire building, and treatment of the entire building, is something entirely different, and does work well for bed bugs.)