It’s always good when journalists and others in the media tell their own bed bug stories.

As far as raising public awareness about how bed bugs can (and will) infest anyone’s home, having a journalist or writer tell their bed bug story in the news media is almost as good as having a friend or relative tell you they had the problem. Here’s a person who seems to have it together: decent career, nice home (we imagine), he doesn’t look too sloppy in the mugshot next to his byline.

The point is driven home: this can happen to everyone.

Unfortunately, it seems to take a lot of this in order to educate the public about bed bugs. We’re getting there, but slowly. So I am always grateful to see first-person accounts of bed bugs in the print media, on TV, and on non-bed bug blogs.

And today, Michael Hann writes in the Guardian about his family’s bed bug problems.

I can’t decide where, in our battle with the bedbugs, we reached the nadir. Was it when my son’s reception class teacher called my wife to express her concern about the number of bites on his arms, body and face? “He says they’re … bedbug bites,” she said, disbelievingly. “That’s right,” my wife replied. “We’ve got an infestation that we’re being treated for.” “Oh, I understand – I’ve come across bedbugs, when I’ve been travelling in Africa.” The words “but not when I’ve been teaching in north London” went unspoken.

And there, my friends, we see the need for still more public awareness about bed bugs: the teacher was shocked a kid in her classroom had bed bugs.

The article goes through the various experiences the family goes through, including treatment, and undergoing a post-treatment deep clean, only to find bed bugs harboring happily in a bed frame.

The article includes quotations from Bedbugger forum participant David Cain, of Bed Bugs Limited in the UK. David Cain’s suggestion to avoid sitting on public transportation is included as is the advice to the family from an unnamed woman who performed a deep clean after treatment:

… a woman who advised us that, in addition to never sitting down on public transport, we should always remove our clothes before entering a bedroom.

Now, that’s caution.

One of the tips at the end under “How to spot an infestation” intrigued me:

Look for unexplained rashes, although one in 10 people doesn’t respond to bites. If you react badly, use antihistamines.

Jerome Goddard says as many as 70% of folks don’t react to bed bug bites. I am interested in the sources of either of these figures.

I know you’ll want to read the rest of Hann’s story here.Similar Posts:

• Bed bugs in the media: David Cain on British radio, Dr. Susan Jones in the Plain Dealer
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• Halifax tenants dealing with with bed bugs and unsympathetic health department

This BBC article covers a report by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture on problems — including bed bugs, rats, and broken radiators — in housing for victims of torture (and other asylum seekers).  Maria, a woman who escaped torture in Africa with her three and six year old boys said,

“It’s so cold, there’s bed bugs and there’s rats… when they sleep there, the rats get on to the bed.”

And the article continues,

That means all three of them now sleep, eat and play in the main room which is just big enough to fit two single beds joined together.

She says there are blood stains on the grimy wall above the bed.

“The bed bugs climb up the wall, one was just above my head so I squashed it,” she says.

“Once the youngest one had a nose bleed and then one of these bugs came out of the nose.”

Similar Posts:

• British NHS hospitals have frequent pest infestations, including bed bugs
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The University of Sheffield has conducted a study as to whether British people can identify bed bugs, the Sheffield Telegraph reports. Researchers showed bed bugs to 350 people, and found that teenagers (under 15) were unable to identify bed bugs. The findings were published in the Journal of Medical Entomology.

Overall, only 10% of people could identify bed bugs.

However, 20% of those over 60 could do so.

Dr Klaus Reinhardt, an entomologist at the University who led the study, said:

“Older people were expected to know what a bedbug looked like because of their war and pre-war time exposure to these nocturnal sleep-robbers.

“However it is also important that younger generations, in particular those that work in the travel and leisure industry, are educated in the appearance of bedbugs and their nymphs, eggs and traces. The ability to single out a lonely creature crawling over a hotel bed as a bedbug may make all the difference.”

Yes it may.

See also:

“Who Knows the Bed Bug? Knowledge of Adult Bed Bug Appearance Increases with Peoples Age in Three Counties of Great Britain.” by: Reinhardt, Klaus, Harder, Anton, Holland, Stephanie, Hooper, Jennifer, Leake-Lyall, Clark. Journal of Medical Entomology, Vol. 45, No. 5. (September 2008), pp. 956-958.Similar Posts:

• All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival attendees warned of bed bugs
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There’s an article in tomorrow’s Guardian (UK) about how bed bugs are on the increase in Britain, how foreign travel may bring bed bugs from one country to another, etc. We’ve heard it before.

But here’s something we hadn’t heard:

Rentokil has been working on new insecticides, including the Cymexide Nano Fogger, which is being field-tested in France.

Okay, we know foggers/bombs currently available are not a good idea where bed bugs are concerned. But a fogger designed for bed bugs? Tell us more. (Googling the name of the product brought me no joy.)

You can read the Guardian piece here. (I enjoyed the typo which made Mike Potter, “Mike Potteran.” You don’t see that many typos these days in The Grauniad, or any other paper.) Similar Posts:

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Two articles today, from the BBC and the Telegraph, report British National Health Service facilities are battling lots of vermin, including bed bugs.

The Telegraph reports that 127 of 171 hospital trusts responded to a survey, and 100 had kept detailed information on the types of infestations:

Of the trusts that collected detailed information 80 per cent had problems with ants, 66 per cent had rats, 77 per cent had mice, 59 per cent had problems with cockroaches, 65 per cent had biting insects or fleas, 24 per cent had problems with bed bugs and 6 per cent had maggots.

It goes without saying that mice, rats, fleas, flies and cockroaches constitute a definite hygiene and health issue.

But which of these pests can cause itchy bites which may become infected, and can also hitchhike a ride home and cause months and months of misery, the loss of possessions, time, sleep and money?

That’s right: bed bugs.

Bed bugs in hospitals are not exclusively an NHS problem; I don’t doubt for a minute that bed bugs are appearing in hospitals everywhere. (Lest the Conservative politicians who requested this data try and argue the private sector would provide bed bug-free hospitals.)

Just like hotels, hospitals are going to get bed bugs. They come with the people. But the key is: how quickly do they detect them, and how aggressively do they eliminate them?

The information was obtained by the Freedom of Information Act, and it’s a reminder that just because we don’t usually hear in the media that our local hospital has bed bugs, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t.
Similar Posts:

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The website This is Hampshire! reports that council (local government) extermination rates are going up, in Southampton at least. Now it costs more to get rid of bed bugs in Southampton.

CHARGES to get rid of bed bugs and vermin are to rocket as part of a hike of council fees and charges in Southampton.

Residents with a five-bedroom house in need of council assistance over the bugs will be charged £135 a visit – up £64.

Previously residents were charged between £50 and £60 depending on the size of their home.

£135 is about US$269 today. Most PCOs here in New York don’t seem to charge by the visit, so it’s hard to make a comparison, but I’d be interested in know what good private treatment goes for in Southampton (compared with London, a city more likely to be comparable to NYC).

Yanks have previously expressed jealousy that Brits can get Council treatment for bed bugs, but perhaps it’s not that much of a savings on private treatment after all.

Interestingly, the article states that rats and mice are treated for £10 upfront and £15 for follow-ups (I wonder why follow-ups cost more?), and it costs £83 to have someone spray for fleas or carpet beetles.

Not only do bed bugs cost the most to treat (and I don’t doubt this is related to the care required to properly inspect and treat), but they typically require 3 or more treatments.  And that sure takes a bite out of your wallet.Similar Posts:

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The bedbug resurgence in the developed world. We know the story, don’t we?

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. Similar Posts:

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