The context is that interviewer Tony Phillips is apologizing for not having more suggestions for Cho’s stay in NYC:

Tony Phillips: So I wish I could have been more helpful with the New York tips, but I do want to leave you with this: stay out of Bushwick. It’s this trendy ‘hood in Brooklyn and I’m quite sure people will try and drag you out there, but stay away. There’s a huge bed bug problem. It’s all over Gawker today.

Margaret Cho: What? They have bed bugs? What the hell are bed bugs?

Tony Phillips: It’s very Ashley Judd. They’re these little bugs transmitted through bedding and they suck your blood. I mean, share needles, fine, whatever. But who the fuck is sharing bedding?

Margaret Cho: Your trick is going to bring a pillow. Nuh-uh, that’s nasty.

Tony Phillips: It’s fat Janet nasty.

Margaret Cho: And so New York. I can’t wait.

Some observations:

On the one hand, there are still people who do not know bed bugs exist. (People who are fairly tuned in to the media and who live in major cities, mind you.)

On the other hand, there are people who know nothing about Bushwick except that it is infested with bed bugs. (Not exactly accurate, but a testament to the power of a Gawker article.)

What’s most striking, though, is that everyone talks about the bed bugs as if they are elsewhere. Watch out for bed bugs in NYC? Tony, my friend, watch out in Boston.

• Some recent press about bed bugs
• New York City is behind in the bed bug wars
• Bed bugs in the New York subway, going viral
• Hawai’i PCO says bed bugs are an epidemic there

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Remember in the olden times (like, more than eight months ago) when a news article would mention bed bugs, and then there would either be a whole detour about how bed bugs are coming back, or worse, a photo of a dust mite? (For examples, see this Children’s BBC article from 2005, or Fox News video from January 2007, which is visually chock full o’ bed bugs, until about 3/4 of the way through, when they mysteriously start tossing in still photos and video of dust mites!)

Well, now bed bugs are simply mentioned in articles, as if people know exactly what they are and how they’re spreading. It’s refreshing, and scary too, non?

The frontmen of the bands The Arctic Monkeys and The Rascals stayed in a bed bug-infested French farmhouse while collaborating in the studio next door, as reported by The Sun and New Music Express.

The Sun reports their album is as yet unnamed. Any suggestions, Bedbuggers?

I like “Bed and Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.”

• bed bugs, news at 11
• Bed bugs. Are. Not. Dust Mites.
• Travel reporter gets bed bugs after hundreds of hotel stays
• This may be Leicestershire, but that is no bed bug

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Elderly, disabled fight filth, bedbugs

Court case drags on as residents cope with filthy building

By Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News
June 15, 2007

“This is never going to end,” Kevin Grimsinger said as he exited a Denver courtroom in his wheelchair Thursday.

The 39-year-old, who lost his legs to a land mine while serving in the U.S. Army in Kosovo, and his fellow residents at a downtown affordable housing building have wrangled with corporations as their rooms became infested with bedbugs and trash collection was interrupted because contractors weren’t paid.

For almost a year, the elderly and disabled residents of Halcyon House have been left wondering who is responsible - Urban Inc., the Greenwood Village management company, or American Housing Preservation Corp., the Maine-based company that owns the building at 1955 Arapahoe St.

They were hoping for some answers Thursday when the manager of Urban Inc. appeared in court after being cited by the city for lack of pest control. But the case was continued until June 28, so an attorney representing the building’s owner can be present.

“It’s just like a continuous running circle,” said Grimsinger as he maneuvered his wheelchair down a narrow hallway of Denver Environmental Court.

In the meantime, the Denver Department of Environmental Health may issue additional citations to Halcyon House’s owners for unsanitary conditions, said Bob McDonald, division supervisor for Public Health Inspection.

Actually, it’s been 16 months so far (read on). And here we see another variation on the blame game: this time the question of who pays for treatment. It sounds like this kept things tied up while bed bugs bred and the problem spread.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which subsidizes 70 percent of the residents’ rent, knows about the bedbug problem, said Marcie LaPorte, director of the Denver Multifamily Hub.

“A worse-case scenario would be to not pay the subsidy part of the rent, but we would like to do everything we can before it gets to that point,” LaPorte said.

Cutting off the subsidy would only worsen the situation because there would be less money for the upkeep of the building, said Cris White, chief operating officer at the Colorado Housing and Financing Authority, which ensures residents qualify for the assistance.

Mark Shulman, managing director of Urban Inc., said the “challenges at the Halcyon House are many.”

Chief among them is the widespread bedbug infestation, which prompted the city to take the matter to court.

“There was simply no funds for which to pay” the pest-control company, Shulman said. The company that owns the building stopped providing the money in late April, he added.

American Housing Protection Corp. did not a return a call for comment Thursday.

Denver Environmental Health officials said Urban Inc. resumed pest-control operations after they were cited May 14. But since bedbugs can never be completely eradicated, the spraying has to continue indefinitely to keep them under control.

Grimsinger said if things don’t improve, residents will picket in front of their building.

“We deserve the same treatment as anybody else in this city,” he said.

To say that “since bedbugs can never be completely eradicated, the spraying has to continue indefinitely to keep them under control” is not accurate in itself. Bed bugs can be eliminated from an entire building. To do so using routine sprayings is very difficult. It may have been possible to eradicate them using traditional methods (sprays and dusts) if the PCO had known what they were doing and treated aggressively enough and regularly enough and had the residents been educated about the process and the do’s and don’ts. At this point, the building may need to be treated with Vikane gas (if this is legal in Denver). If Vikane is not legal there, perhaps thermal treatment is possible.

To make matters more interesting, here’s a tidbit the article leaves out. Back in August, the Denver Post reported that this affordable housing building is owned by a group of investors (American Housing Preservation Corp) that includes Shaquille O’Neal.

In August 2006, the Denver Post also said:

Eric Pusch, a resident who uses a wheelchair, said it is “such a tragedy to wake up in the middle of the night and briefly turn on my television and, from the light of the television, I can see the bugs swarming all over the pillow next to me. I might reach over and try to brush them off or smash them, and a blood spot is left.”

Ellen Dumm, spokeswoman for the city’s department of environmental health, called the company cooperative and said the owner has been using an extermination company to get rid of the bugs.

Mark Shulman of the Greenwood Village-based property-management company Urban Inc. said the level of treatment the company has been maintaining is “status quo,” but it became apparent last week that it needed to eradicate the bugs and move to another level of treatment.

Shulman said the owners are pursuing an aggressive treatment proposal, going apartment by apartment this week, evacuating and treating entire floors.

“We recognize the problem,” Shulman said.

Efforts to reach O’Neal through his agent or the Miami Heat basketball team were not successful.

Either the problem was “recognized” too late, or the treatment was not aggressive enough. For whatever reasons, all in all, these people have had bed bugs since February 2006 (16 months), and the disabled residents are now living with more bed bugs than ever.

Yeah, yeah, I realize it’s complicated. But still.

Shame on the owners, and the city, for not making this right. Shame on the US government, too, for not seeing this as a problem for which they need to fund solutions. Because we are going to see this more and more: whatever the situation was in this case, there will be homeowners and landlords who can’t pay for treatment, or can’t pay for effective treatment. We can’t let people live with bed bugs indefinitely. And here’s the thing, the more people living with bed bugs, because of nonexistent or poor treatment, the more people will get bed bugs. They spread. Lawmakers and people who can take care of their own pest control costs may shake their heads and say, “too bad.” But it is not someone else’s problem, it is everyone’s problem. They will spread to anyone. We all have much more contact with one another on a daily basis than some of us would like to admit.

A warning to those who shake their heads and sigh, “Not my problem”: if you let poor people live with bed bugs, then bed bugs will, eventually, appear in your bed, to quite literally bite you in the ass.

• More bad news about Denver’s bed bug-infested Halcyon House
• More bed bugs in Nashua, NH: rooming-house tenant goes to court
• 25 Grant Street in Denver, Colorado: bed bugs for two years
• More on Denver’s Halcyon House and bed bugs

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Two months ago, as you may recall, loyal Bedbugger S. wrote to Maxwell to correct some misinformation in the Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure book, which suggested something to the effect that keeping a clean home would prevent bed bugs. (I have the book, but not handy, so I can’t quote right now.) Maxwell graciously posted a long message from S. which detailed both the causes of bed bugs (i.e. you don’t get them because your home is not clean) and the total nightmare involved in getting rid of them, especially in multi-unit buildings. We appreciated Maxwell devoting a post to S.’s letter, and we also appreciated that he linked back to us.

So imagine our surprise when the following appeared on the Apartment Therapy NY blog yesterday:

Bedbugs Take Manhattan!

This is breaking news. Within one of the homes previously toured on AT (don’t even try guessing), a bedbug has been found (see above) within the past 24 hours, after more than a week of reported bites…

Apparently the news is sobering. Nighttime bites were growing within an apartment that is chic, beautiful and CLEAN. The owner has not been traveling lately. No besotted overnights with traveling salesmen had been happening (lately). The building has no other reported sightings. This bug was found by leaving the lights out all evening and then snapping them on to catch this nocturnal creature.

Pulling the bed away from the wall helped to avoid any bites last night.

The apartment is getting bombed tomorrow.

We’ll be there.

Okay, if you snap the lights on and find a bed bug, then odds are, you have a lot of bed bugs. Why? Because bed bugs feed for 3-10 minutes. You don’t feel them doing so. So the odds of turning the light on at precisely the right time are slim.

Also, moving the bed from the wall (and keeping the lights on, for that matter) will do little to help you avoid bites. (Moving the bed from the wall is good if you have protected your bed per our FAQs).

I was struck by Maxwell’s reluctance, still, to understand that clean spaces are not immune to bed bugs. Period. Yes, chic or drab, clean or dirty, zen master or pack rat, you can get bed bugs.

That said, I am glad that Maxwell posted this entry. Very glad, because people obviously are not getting this message: bed bugs do not discriminate!

I am not sure if the AT tour home was really “bombed” or not, but if so, unless the entire structure of the building was completely evacuated of all living creatures, and then tented and treated with Vikane gas by professionals, then the “bombing” probably did not work, and may well have made the problem much worse, by spreading the bed bugs.

I am also glad Maxwell promises to “be there” for treatment, since further coverage will be a good thing. I look forward to all follow-ups.

I invite AT readers to check out our FAQs, especially those in Bed Bugs 101, especially, “Think You Have Bed Bugs? Some Do’s and Don’ts.” Perhaps we should change the title to something like, “If you ever get bed bugs, this is the information you need to know in advance.”

Because once people see a bed bug, freak out, and run for the DIY bug bombs, the horse is seriously out of the gate.

Update (6/15): On Thursday, a day later, AT gave an update on “Amanda’s” situation:

The drama unfolds. Where to begin? Let’s see, Amanda (the one with the bedbugs - not her real name) informed us today that she was both grateful and worried by all the comments on the thread yesterday.

Last night she went to bed with all the lights on, fully clothed, with a sleep mask and bug repellent applied liberally (now that’s a picture we want). She received no new bites, and now she has a question for all of you…

The original pest guy quits: Your comments were excellent and she felt that it was a good point that bombing MIGHT make the problem worse. So she asked they pest guy who was coming tonight. He was so offended that she doubted his prowess, that he quit over the phone, sight unseen. Then she had to find someone else.

Amanda takes your advice: Left empty handed, Amanda took YOUR advice and called up Stern Environmental (210-319-9620) and arranged for them to come over on Tuesday. They recommend that she wash all of her clothing and fabrics first.

Second thoughts arise as the price goes up: The pest people charge $650 for their services and now she faces the prospect of spending the entire weekend washing all of her belongings, which is going to cost at least $600 (she has a lot of clothes).

Now the folks in her office are arguing that perhaps she should WAIT and SEE if there’s really another bedbug before going through with all this and paying over $1000.

So tonight, she wants to ask all of you whether she should go to bed regularly tonight and see if any new bites appear OR sleep fully protected with lights on again and go through with washing all her belongings and treating her apartment on Tuesday???

There’s even a scary “Choose Your Own Ending” poll, where readers can vote for Amanda waiting-and-seeing while sleeping un-armored, or Amanda springing for full treatment and doing all the hot wash / hot dry stuff. You know where my vote ended up. But readers are (as of this writing) split on that.

I encourage you to go to the site and read the comments, which demonstrate not only how much misinformation still abounds, but also, how much wisdom. I was really glad AT readers convinced her not to have the place “bombed” and to get someone in who knows more about bed bugs. I look forward to following the drama as it continues to unfold.Check it out.

Another update (6/15): a third bed bug post today from ATNY:+ no progress, but Amanda now thinks her neighbors who travel a lot may be the source. They’re on vacation till next week.

She has not sprung for the exterminator, but asked her landlord about the neighbors. Ding! Ding! Ding! (That’s the sound of bells going off!) She is renting, people. She does not have to pay $650 for the PCO. Her landlord does. She still does not know this. Hopefully she will see my comments clarifying that fact which I’ve now left for two days running.

We provide the FAQs, folks, but people have to read them.

• ApartmentTherapy’s fourth post on the Amanda bed bug case, since Wednesday
• Amanda at Apartmenttherapy.com, part 5
• Apartmenttherapy.com: Amanda update (#7)
• craigslist: An Open Letter to my Bedbugs

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I’ll count it as a “tipping point” that bed bugs are now the fodder of talk show opening monologues. I am still waiting for Maya Rudolph to appear in a smart Saturday Night Live sketch about them, but I suppose she is still healing. I do understand.

If the embedded video above does not work for you, please click here.
Thanks to the clever reader who tipped me off to this!

• Bed bugs in Detroit and Troy, Michigan
• ApartmentTherapy’s fourth post on the Amanda bed bug case, since Wednesday
• More bed bug stories from Cincinnati; also, pig spotted in sky over New York City
• Letter from a reader: 4 months after exposure and two treatments, bites persist

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A neighbor first had bugs and hired her own pest control operator two years ago. Recently another neighbor “fled” her apartment. This is all a reminder that dealing with your own problem, in a multi-unit building, is not enough. Trying to fight bed bugs on the down low, by hiring your own PCO as this woman did, or self-treating (as many people do) can mean your neighbors are exposed. If they get bed bugs, you’ll get them back. So make sure your landlord or co-op or condo association knows about the problem and deals with it as a building issue. The odds are, after all, that others in the building had them before you.

I hate the idea of anybody getting bed bugs. I really hope that Markowitz will take notice of what his infested neighbors go through, and will help bring the NYC government on board with helping stop the epidemic. Maybe he’ll be able to mention to Mike Bloomberg that it’s not just a matter of getting someone in to spray, but a big ugly hassle, or worse. And maybe he’ll also imagine what it would be like in a building where everyone is poor, afraid of pissing off the landlord, and unable to pay for what needs to be done. And, God forbid, in a building where the landlord just does not care.

• FAQ: Do I have to tell my landlord / co-op board / condo association / residents of attached house next door?
• More of the exclusive David Cain interview at newyorkvsbedbugs.org
• The Huffington Post on bed bugs
• FAQ: My landlord hired a PCO who comes twice a month, and we still have bed bugs

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Just five months after a certain Village Voice columnist made readers feel all creepy and start looking for bed bugs everywhere, as if paranoid, a music review in the same paper about an indie band called White Rabbit implies that bed bugs are becoming a rite of passage–another facet of urban life to be overcome by young hipsters going places. Ben Westhoff writes,

A sextet of twentysomethings who publicly admit to liking ska, the White Rabbits moved here from Columbia, Missouri, less than two years ago and have since become municipal rock stars, if the vast expanse of bobbing brunette ponytails at their live shows is any indication. All this despite an exploding tour-van tire, an outbreak of bedbugs in their Bushwick loft, and the unfortunate influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald and J.D. Salinger in their songwriting.

They’re not yet a rich and famous band, so the White Rabbits went through what we all did, and I know it sucked. Yes, I know having bed bugs sucks for the rich too, but if you can afford to fly heads of PCO firms across country to personally treat your beach house, or you can flee in the night to a new $13,500 a month loft, like some celebs with bed bugs, it’s probably a bit easier than it is for some of us.

Mind you, it could be worse. Think of that bloke in the Flaming Lips who wears the plush bunny costume. What if they got bed bugs? Now, getting rid of bed bugs when you can’t toss your bunny costume in the dryer has got to be rough.

• The Bed Bug of the Future
• The bed bug droppings hit the fan
• Maya Rudolph’s former loft (again): bedbugs ADD value!
• Cincinnati government discovers bed bugs are not easily treated, news at 11

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Kiki Fug out celebrating her birthday in NYC, but, look at the feet! WTF? Did she have bedbugs? And did the bedbugs start at her feet and then realize she’s too disgusting and stopped dining? Gawd, that’s weird.

Like Bed Bug Helloise, I think this sort of gossip is kind of mean. But I was fascinated by the commentary: this gossip blogger not only knows about bed bugs, but s/he knows the bites don’t only come in the form of dime-sized welts. Will s/he please contact my dermatologist directly???

For what it’s worth, petichiae (sp?) were one of my allergic reaction symptoms, but I’d expect to see bites elsewhere if this were the case. No, I don’t think this is bed bugs.
Given what is probably her most famous screen role, my vote would be spider bites.

• Kentucky Department of Public Health steps up its bed bug fight
• So the Craigslist guy is escaping his bed bug-infested dorm for… Greenpoint?!?
• Another bed bug documentary — this one being made in NY
• Curbed “outs” bedbugged condo development; gossip blogs, bed bugs, and denial

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What I especially liked about the ABC report was the newsreel which included news on the lawsuit, as well as wonderful interview-let with a Chicago dermatologist (the article says “skin specialist”):

“I think I have seen a small increase,” said Dr. Clarence Brown, Rush University Medical Center.

Dr. Brown, a skin specialist, said that those who have been bittern have itchy swollen bites for days, especially along their veins. Many people have trouble understanding it’s bedbugs.

“They’re confused, actually, why do I have this rash? It itches so much. Where did it come from? They are skeptical when you convey that you are convinced that this is actually insect bites and that bedbugs might be one of the possibilities,” said Dr. Brown.

Yes folks, contrary to what many Bedbuggers have experienced (i.e. doctors who insist we don’t have bed bugs), this doctor has trouble convincing his clients that they do. I guess that’s progress.

I know Jess has a few things to say about the goings-on in Chicago, so I’ll hand over to her.

• Good news, Chicagoland: you might have itch mites
• teaching doctors to diagnose bed bug bites
• Barona Resort and Casino bed bug lawsuit
• landlord’s duty to tell prospective tenants about bed bugs?

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The exterminator, when he arrived, had just come from East 81st Street.  “From East 57th Street and up it’s plagued by bedbugs,” he said.  “And they’re all over the Upper West Side, too. People expect them in another neighborhood. But it’s not about hygiene. It’s about who has the money to travel.”

Jeff Eisenberg, the president of Pest Away Exterminating, said:  “Most calls come from Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue   from people of means. I get tons of calls from Park Slope and Cobble Hill.”

Many of us know that bedbugs are a problem in the city, but we’re in denial. It just seems too horrible, too outlandish to think we could actually have them. I live on a pretty street in a well-maintained brownstone. My husband is a senior manager in a corporation; I teach at a university. I really believed that my neighborhood was somehow exempt.

Bonnie Friedman demonstrates that when well-known people, like writers, get bed bugs, they have a chance to share the story more widely. Nice work, Bonnie! I have not seen Maya Rudolph talking about this, nor many other people. (When you have a court case, you can’t really talk about it, I know.) But I hope they’ll start to, because we need that. It does wonders for getting people to take this seriously.

I am tagging this article as a “Tipping Point”, because I think Bonnie Friedman’s Od Ed may set off a torrent of people talking about their bed bugs. Bonnie isn’t a celebrity, but she is a writer and professor. And writing this article in the Times reaches a lot of people. I hope they will follow her lead. And I hope that when celebrities get bed bugs, assuming they’re not on a lawyer-imposed gag order, they will speak publicly. Bonnie knows bed bugs are not a sign of shame, or evidence you’re dirty. That director in Malibu cited in last week’s LA Times article isn’t talking. Why not?

Oddly enough, the lamp I had put out on the curb, wrapped and marked “Do not take – infested with bedbugs,” vanished in minutes, probably to be sold at a flea market. Black garbage bags filled with clothes and stuffed animals were slashed, their contents removed.

And after all my work, I couldn’t discount tales of apartments being treated four, five, six times.  “This is a much different bedbug than even 10 years ago,” Mr. Eisenberg explained, noting that bedbugs have become resistant to the pesticides that are normally used to eradicate them.  “Ten years ago, it was easier for me to get rid of them.”

It really is worth the extra work of destroying stuff on the street so others can’t use it. But sometimes this is impractical. We need education campaigns so that people will know not to pick things up when marked. And we need those darned orange bed bug warning stickers.

It’s clear to me that the city needs to educate people about this plague and make prevention a priority. This problem isn’t confined to homeless shelters; it’s everywhere. Travelers need to be told how to prevent bringing bedbugs into their homes. New York should follow Boston’s example in issuing stickers to place on discarded pieces of infested furniture to discourage others from picking them up.

As we’ve been saying for ages…

• NYC Bed Bug Task Force / City Council Update
• Another Jersey building goes whole hog for Vikane; but will they follow up with the necessary preventative education?
• NYC schools closer to having bed bug legislation
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?

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