Her interviewee, Chip Giller of Grist.org, suggested going to Craigslist or freecycle.org to offer your mattress to others.

Grist says in the related article their website,

In most areas of the U.S., you can’t recycle your mattresses, and they’re even hard to give away — charities like Goodwill often refuse to take them. Old TVs can be tough to unload too. But if your items are still in functional condition, consider that other R, “reuse,” instead of just “recycle.”

One of the best ways to give new life to your old belongings is through the Freecycle Network, an online community with chapters all over the U.S. and around the world, through which people offer up items they no longer want and other people happily snap them up. (Read an article about Freecycle’s founding.) The online bulletin board Craigslist, which also has hundreds of local versions, has a section where you can offer things up for free too. You can get rid of just about any usable item (and some items you didn’t even think were usable) via Freecycle and Craigslist, and you can find great free stuff too.

While this may seem like a good idea, these days mattresses you see curbside (and there is one pictured in the Grist article linked to above) are often there because people had bed bugs and threw them out. While tossing out mattresses and furniture is not usually necessary (or even a good idea), it is a really common reaction to discovering bed bugs.

While Giller and Viera might assume that people would not offer their bed bug-infested mattresses on these online communities, the sad fact is that you can easily have bed bugs without knowing it–a significant percentage of people do not react to their bites. (I’ve heard estimates from 30% to 70%, but I don’t think there is good data on this yet.) Mattresses and furniture items do not always look infested. And bed bugs are spreading at an alarming rate, all over the US, from New York to Cincinnati, San Francisco to Boston, as well as in other countries.

This is probably why Goodwill does not accept used mattresses. (It’s likely they have enough trouble keeping bed bugs out of their shops and warehouses due to donations of furniture, clothing, and other items they do accept.)

While I strive to be as Green as I am able to be, I can tell you that getting bed bugs can do some serious damage to the environment, in the form of tossed out, destroyed, and replaced items, the use of plastic bags to isolate infested materials, the unusual amount of laundry, not to mention the spraying of pesticides.

A typical bedbugger’s XL ziplocs used during an infestation would probably make for a nice little landfill mountain. Bed bugs are not easy to get rid of, and spread easily to neighbors and others. One bed bug-infested mattress can lead to many people getting bed bugs and tossing out lots of otherwise-good stuff. So encouraging people to reuse and share mattresses, when this can spread bed bugs further, just does not make sense. The best thing for the environment would be for fewer people to get bed bugs in the first place.

Avoiding someone else’s Craigslist or Freecycle mattress is a good idea, because you cannot be certain it came from a bed bug free home, and neither can the person who donated it.

Caveat dumpster, and Caveat Craigslist.*

If you’d like to drop Today a note about this concern, as I did, you can email them: today@msnbc.com

*Yes, I know my Latin is not grammatical. It should be Caveat Dumpster-Diver. And Caveat Cragislist-user. But it’s catchy don’t you think? ,

Thanks to poorBugger for mentioning this segment in the Forums.

• bed bugs in the media: the Today Show, Tuesday morning
• Craigslist bed bug warnings
• Dayton and Middletown, Ohio: avoiding bed bugs is difficult
• More bed bug stories from Cincinnati; also, pig spotted in sky over New York City

ShareThis

An exterminator for All-Rite says it is ok for her to return to her home.

“Really and truly there is not a lot of reason to move out to tell you the truth,” Charlie Asberry of All-Rite Pest Control explained.

“You run the risk of moving a problem from here to another unit,” Asberry said.

Demus has thrown out two couches and a mattress and plans to get rid of their clothes as a result of the infestation.

“Yes, he said I could come back in here, but honestly would you want to come back?” Demus said.

While the PCO is correct, it is hard not to empathize with the tenant. Who wouldn’t want to escape? In fact, if she leaves, without a human acting as “bait” to draw them across the poison to their deaths, the bed bugs are likely to hide out waiting for another source of food to move in, or to flee to neighboring units in search of food (or both).

Interestingly, these articles rarely mention the need for follow-up treatments spaced around two weeks apart–and necessary until no bed bug bites, bed bugs, or signs of bed bugs are found. They also almost never mention that all adjoining units (above, below, and all sides) must be carefully inspected by the PCO.

This article is no exception, leading one to hope All-Rite did inspect all the neighbors, and that they will be back in two weeks for more. Perhaps that part of the story does not make for interesting journalism, but it is important that the public become aware of these concerns, should they one day find themselves on the other end of a bed bug’s proboscis.

But the most interesting part of this article was that the local health department is asking people to call to report bed bugs:

If you live in an apartment complex and suspect there are bed bugs. You are urged to call the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department at (859) 231-9791

That, my bedbugged friends, is very good news, but not particularly new news. Lest we forget, Lexington-Fayette County Health Department was one of the first in the US, if not the first, to declare bed bugs a problem, over a year ago. There is probably more that the health department could do, however. For example, their brochure (available here) recommends washing bedding and clothing or throwing it away. Why suggest throwing away washable clothes and sheets? It also does not state clearly enough that mattresses and other furniture can usually be treated, and usually do not need to be thrown out. Or that throwing them out may lead to further spread in your building. (Perhaps we should say, here at Bedbugger.com,“Caveat dumpster”?)

• Bed bugs and the disabled
• bed bugs clear Port Jervis, NY Hospital’s mental health unit
• Bed bugs usually plague a city for a few weeks before being eradicated. Really, Waterbury Health Department?
• Bed bugs at Maryland’s Hashawha Environmental Center

ShareThis