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“On the bed bug list” in Brooklyn

nobugsonme — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:27:31 +0000

TV on the Radio vocalist/guitarist (and solo artist) Kyp Malone talks openly to Larry Getlen in this New York Post story about how he’s aware people in his building have bed bugs. The building?

“It’s pretty old. It’s on the bedbug list,” Malone says, complaining about the prewar building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he’s lived in a one-plus-bedroom, sixth-floor walk-up for the past four years. “I’ve seen people cycle through. They spray and bomb* and all the things you’re supposed to do, but it doesn’t work.”

Despite the building’s bedbug misfortune (a bullet he’s managed to dodge), the apartment, which Malone has shared since December with his artist girlfriend, Jessie, has served him well through multiple redecorations.

It seems like a tipping point that people who haven’t had bed bugs are aware of and talking about bed bugs in their buildings — and kind of famous people, no less.

I like Kyp Malone’s music, and I really hope he doesn’t have any bed bug problems going forward (because bed bugs and musical instruments or works of art are such a bad combination), and I really hope that his neighbors get some proper help soon.

No one in New York City should be living with bed bugs.

No building should go onto “the bed bug list” and stay there.**

—

*Note: people really should not be bombing to try and eliminate bed bugs. Just FYI.

**Note: we’re not aware of any actual “bed bug list.” Perhaps this refers to the Bed Bug Registry, where people voluntarily report their own infested apartment units or hotels, to warn others. Or maybe this refers to the records NYCHPD keeps on building violations, which you can access here.
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New York City Housing Authority: “bed bugs = emergency” + “wait a month” do not compute

nobugsonme — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:56:47 +0000

Eyewitness News (ABC 7) in New York reports that residents of the Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn are suffering with bed bugs — and yet the New York City Housing Authority is giving them appointments for treatment up to a month after they complain. And this is so even though the authority knows the building has a bed bug problem (residents are responding to flyers posted in the buildings).

ABC 7 says “Housing officials told us they treat bed bugs as an emergency situation.”

Meanwhile, the average bed bug population can expand a lot in four weeks without treatment.

That’s a lot of eggs, a lot of bed bugs, a lot of bed bug bites.

You can watch the video here.Similar Posts:

Bard of Bushwick Frank Hoier sings about bedbugs

nobugsonme — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:08:26 +0000

Oh, you’ll like this: this week in the Brooklyn Paper online, Frank Hoier gives us a modern take on bed bug blues songs, with a “musical editorial” with the refrain,

“They bit me high,

They bit me low,

They bit me places you don’t even want to know!”

Sound familiar, anyone?!?

The Brooklyn Paper kicks off its first installment of Frank Hoier’s “Rhythm and News.” This week, the Bard of Bushwick sings about bedbugs!

And he’s cuter and way more talented than all the singing hipsters on the recent Bushwick/East Williamsburgh bed bug edition of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Just sayin’.

Check it out: The Brooklyn Paper: Frank sings about bedbugs.

And of course, for the “Mean Old Bed Bug Blues,” check out:

Furry Lewis (1927):

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Caveat dumpster! Do not take those Brooklyn sofas, Craigslist readers

nobugsonme — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:51:26 +0000

Those Craigslist crazies are at it again, this time in Bushwick/East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Check this out:

CURB ALERT: 2 nice couches (Bushwick/E. Williamsburg)

Two very nice couches have been thrown out in front of 15 Thames St, in Bushwick/East Williamsburg. One is red velvet, the other is a floral pattern. They both have signs that say BED BUGS on them, but I’ve slept on both these couches in the past week and haven’t noticed any bedbugs. Please take these great couches and save them from someone else’s wastefulness.

(Emphasis mine.)

Now, why would someone who is throwing out a sofa say that it had bed bugs, if it did not have bed bugs?

We know it is possible to be bitten by bed bugs and not react to bed bug bites, and we know it’s possible you won’t see bed bugs when they’re around.

If someone advertises that something has been exposed to bed bugs, by all means, please stay away!

If you ever doubted that we need a widespread education campaign about bed bugs, which includes a focus on how easily they spread, how difficult they can be to spot, and how many people do not react to bed bug bites, consider this ad.

Consider also it was posted in Brooklyn, New York City, where even the USA Channel’s fake detectives know what bed bugs look like.

The recent Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode featuring hipsters with bed bugs got some things wrong, but it was set in the same neighborhood (Bushwick/East Williamsburg).

The address listed in the ad, 15 Thames St., is in a neighborhood with many infested buildings, according to the Bed Bug Registry. (And we don’t know which building the sofas came out of, of course.)

Keep in mind, all infested buildings are not listed on the Bed Bug Registry. Not by a long shot.

Needless to say, I would not take in a curbside sofa, at this point in time, whether it declared itself bed bug-free, or had no signage at all. I certainly would not take in a sofa with a bed bug warning. Sheer lunacy.

Caveat dumpster. That’s all I am saying.

The original ad is here, while it lasts.

A screenshot is here.

Thanks to KillerQueen for finding this one.

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More bed bug coverage in New York — but not enough, considering

nobugsonme — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:00:29 +0000

We are getting more press on bed bugs this week, presumably due to the excellent City Council Hearing held on three bed bug bills on Tuesday. I personally don’t feel I am seeing enough coverage of the event itself.

The Daily News weighed in today with “Boro with the most bedbug calls: B’klyn 42% jump in complaints to 311.”

Newsday is working the same AMNY story I posted about Tuesday.

And the New York Times has what is mostly a standard-issue article about a bed bug dog team. No offense to Bedbug Finders in Connecticut, but the Times should be dealing with the bills covered in the Hearing and the related issues in more depth, this week.

When the last hearing on Intro. 57 happened in 2006, there were news stories on NY1 and another channel, including interviews with people who testified, people who had had bed bugs, as well as Council Member Gale Brewer.

Even though Brewer held a press conference Tuesday before the Hearing, I have not personally seen any footage in the television news. Have you?

(Stay tuned for more from me on the hearing.)
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Singer Nicole Atkins tells amNY she fled bed bugs in Brooklyn

nobugsonme — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:51:42 +0000

Chanteuse Nicole Atkins, who plays the Bowery Ballroom Friday, told amNY she moved to Jersey after battling bed bugs in Brooklyn:

Atkins moved to Asbury Park, N,J., last year, which is a stone’s throw from her Garden State hometown, Neptune, which inspired her acclaimed 2007 major-label debut disc, “Neptune City.”

“I just got sick of sleeping on an air mattress with bedbugs in Brooklyn and paying high rent,” Atkins says. “My friends moved to Asbury Park and started galleries and restaurants. I just wanted to be there. I love it, but I come back to New York a couple times a week. I take the train to the city. It’s where I write my best songs.”

They have bed bugs in New Jersey too, of course, but we’re glad Atkins found an escape from bed bugs and we hope it’s permanent.

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More rumors of bed bugs at Fox News

Time Out New York tackles the New York obsession with free furniture

nobugsonme — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:43:25 +0000

In a new article in Time Out New York’s Apartment section this week, entitled “Bugs in a rug … and everything else!” TONY teases readers:

Yeah, we know you love found furniture. We do too. But what’s hiding in that street-side score?

Good question.

Journalist Julia Schweizer tours the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, examining curbside freebies with local pest control pros. They find a folding chair, a mattress and box spring set, a desk, a carpet, and a cabinet.

None of the items is absolutely confirmed to have bed bugs, but only one item (the desk) is assumed (rightly or not) to be bed bug-free.

There’s some advice I don’t 100% agree with:

[Timothy Wong from M&M Pest Control] —and most other sane people—advise against taking mattresses off the street, ever. They’re called bedbugs, people. Nonetheless, he says, if the box spring, frame and mattress are out together, you can assume they’re infested (while if the mattress is alone, it’s more likely that it’s just been thrown out for a new one).

Well, this may be true in some cases, but there’s also been a trend the last 5-10 years or so towards using mattresses without box springs. I know this because a Rockaway Bedding employee talked me out of a box spring when I bought a standard depth mattress for a platform bed about 5-6 years ago. Yes, he actually tried not to sell me something (it worked!)

People with platform beds, captains’ beds, or slatted frames often don’t use box springs, and these frames are popular with space-limited city dwellers. Even with more traditional frames, the newer thick mattresses make the “box” less of a necessity.

The absence of a frame, too, is not necessarily proof. Some people seem to think bed bugs are a “mattress” or “mattress and box spring” problem; they might not discard a frame right away. They might not have one. A lot of people also think, wrongly, that metal frames are “safe.” Though it is true there are some frame designs which may be more salvageable or more easily inspected than a mattress or box.

All I am saying is, I don’t think it’s good to assume a mattress on its own is a “safer” find.

The article also has promising advice. Re: the desk, Schweizer says,

Wong had suggested inspecting wood or metal items by spraying the crevices with an application duster, like Falcon Dust-Off JR ($5 at Staples). If there is a pest problem, this will force the little buggers out of hiding.

This is something people can do at home when inspecting the crevices of wooden items with a forced air canister (but be ready to kill what you scare out: have a contact killer or something-to-smash-with handy).

And the article also contains sinister PCO anecdotes, like this one from Montag Hicham (of Abolish Pest Control):

“Sometimes I ask people if they will put a sign up [on discarded furniture after I exterminate their home] and they say, ‘No! I want someone to take it!’ I guess they don’t want their neighbors thinking they’re dirty.”

Yes.

We have a lot to do as far as educating New Yorkers about bed bugs. I am glad TONY is trying to help. I hope city officials will start taking charge on the bed bug issue. Don’t you? Well, then, tell them!

In a related article, “Pickup Tips,” Schweizer talked to managers of a dozen “big-name” secondhand shops all over New York City who

…all admitted to not doing much more than eyeballing an item before reselling it.

Nice.

The only thing that may change such attitudes is a bed bug infestation on the premises — one that is unpleasant, taken home by employees, noticed by customers. And given time, the likelihood is high.

Stores with good reputations ought to care. It makes good business sense, in the secondhand trade, to care if your stock and premises have bed bugs.

Personally, I was already spooked by bed bugs and so do not want to take the chance on secondhand items (sold or foraged) that I do not know for certain to be bed bug free and/or which I can’t seal in a sealed ziploc after acquiring, and stick into a hot dryer (or hot washer and hot dryer).

Ultimately, I am not sure the message of these articles is strong enough. There just isn’t any way to know an item is bed bug free by looking at it. Even if you collect it from the inside of someone’s home, and they do not know they have bed bugs, the item can have bed bugs. I can’t stress that enough.

If you have unfortunately already experienced bed bugs, you are more likely to be in the “spooked” camp. If you haven’t, and don’t know anyone who has had them and shared their story in some detail, you may not be able to really feel this concern.

Like the secondhand shop managers, it might take a full-on bed bug infestation — which costs you thousands and takes months to clear — in order to make you worry about this.

But I hope not.Similar Posts:

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Greenpoint mattress mountain: bed bugs, perhaps?

nobugsonme — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:43:47 +0000

Miss Heather points us today to a veritable “Colossus of Abodes” in Greenpoint, one of the hip ‘hoods battling it out for bed bug capital of Brooklyn. What looks like 7 different box springs and mattresses piled at curbside.

Check it out.

And hope they don’t get covered in cloth and sold to your neighbors for $50 a set next week.Similar Posts:

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Brooklyn Eagle on bed bugs (part II)

nobugsonme — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:25:19 +0000

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s Mary Frost did a second article on bed bugs Tuesday, following up from one two weeks ago.

Readers may recall that it was just last February when another reporter from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dennis Holt, was mocking the idea that the city might spend money to work on the bed bug problem. (He was responding to the Bed Bug Seminars the Housing and Preservation Department presented in the spring.)

So it’s good to see this paper give some space to serious coverage of what is a real and worsening problem plaguing this city and many others. Mary Frost cites Rick Cooper, who calls for federal assistance for people dealing with bed bugs (a position this blog has also held since it began in 2006):

Without intervention at the federal level, Cooper predicts that some segments of society will see bedbug infestations rise dramatically. While the wealthy will have the resources to deal with the problem, bedbugs will evolve into a lower-class problem. “The past two or three years we’ve seen the number in the lower economic sectors rise dramatically.

“We’ll also see major instances in senior centers and in senior living residences. We’re dealing with people whose eyesight is not good and who may already have rashes. If we don’t have proactive and educational programs, the bugs have the opportunity to spread.”

I couldn’t agree more.

You can read the rest of Mary Frost’s article here.Similar Posts:

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Tour of infested Brooklyn apartment, bed bug commercials, from YouTube

nobugsonme — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:42:37 +0000

This YouTube video appears to have been taken by a PCO during a second visit to a badly infested apartment.

The person who posted it, iamyournot, said in the comments,

The Video doesn’t show how bad it really was, I had to stop taping because there were thousands of bed bugs running over the top of the bed, after the opening shot, the video was taken on the second visit, the room was clear by then, it took three visits to totally clean out this apartment of bed bugs.

It sounds like it was a thousand times worse in the first visit. It’s hard to believe someone could have an infestation this bad. If they did not react to bed bug bites, they must surely have seen the bed bug feces everywhere– let alone “thousands of bed bugs” running around– and wondered what was up?

I also found this lovely ad for PCI (Pest Control India):

And this one, from Suburban Exterminating:

And finally, though Harris Pest Control in Detroit makes no mention of bed bugs in their ad, this was priceless and delightful:

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