Jessica Burton, who fled an infested apartment, said:

“They’re definitely in our couches, underneath the carpets, definitely in the bed, all over the bed. I was doing dishes one night, seen a couple crawling across the counter, thought it was wood tick.”  

Jessica Burton says she fled her apartment here two weeks ago because it was so filled with bugs, leaving behind virtually everything. Her baby was covered with bites. Moving in last October, Burton says no one told her the apartment had been infested previously. Downstairs from her apartment, we found the bugs everywhere.

Rich Jaffe: “The owners of this building tell me they have dealt with the bed bug problem before and they are continuing to try and get a handle on it, but it’s really tough. They even have an exterminator headed over here on Saturday.”

Unfortunately, bed bug infestations are very difficult to fight.  But they can be treated.  With such a situation, the answer will not be simple, and will need to involve landlords, tenants (including all neighbors), and professional pest control operators.  Having a city/county bed bug task force is important because the bed bug problem needs to be considered and dealt with outside of individual apartments being sprayed.  Or it simply is never going to go away. 

To their credit, local officials are very concerned about the current bed bug crisis in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky — as well as with the future projected “growth” of the bed bug problem:

In this draft report, city and county experts say, complaints about bed bugs could easily quadruple in the near future. If so, costs could reach one million dollars, locally. Problems include chemical resistant bugs and how to fund the task force attack. But for Jessica Burton, the question is where does she go from here.  

“To me, I was proud of this. I woke up every day like I’m on top of the world, pay my bills by myself, don’t need to rely on anybody, then all of a sudden, you’re like …. Wow… That’s what I feel like, wow… Like I’m walking in another world every day cause we don’t have a clue how we’re going to redo it.”

We hear stories like this every day in the Bedbugger forums — stories of people, like Jessica Burton, who are seriously knocked off-kilter by the losses incurred in treating (or in this case fleeing) a bed bug infestation.  

Cincinnati still has a lot of work to do.  But they have already held meetings for residents, declared war on bed bugs, implemented a bed bug hotline, implemented a system for picking up infested furniture, and changed their laws to class bed bugs as “vermin” (local laws about pests did not name bed bugs among pests it was against the law to harbor).   They’ve held multiple meetings of local officials, worked together with their counterparts in adjacent localities; officials in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana also held a tri-state meeting about bed bugs.  

The Cincinnati Health Department’s website features bed bugs on the main page, with links to both a 2-minute public service announcement on bed bugs (download), and a 27-minute video (misleadingly dubbed an “infomercial” in the credits) on bed bugs from Tom Hooper, a Registered Sanitarian (!) from the Cincinnati Health Department (download).  

The latter is much more informative, and (in my opinion) contains better quality information. It begins with an explanation of why people need to be worried about bed bugs (citing, among other cases, the Winnipeg 73-unit building that had been infested and treated for three years straight).  It also goes through bed bug habits, identification (including photos of German cockroach nymphs and dog ticks, which people may mistake for bed bugs), inspection, prep, and treatment.  

I don’t agree with absolutely everything in the video, for example, I’ve learned to tell people to get a professional’s or housing inspector’s inspection before they attempt to thoroughly clean and/or declutter their homes. Nothing should be moved until a professional is consulted. Also, many viewers will be mislead by the photos provided of the inspection process, since many — if not most –people will not see such glaring evidence. The information on treatment is also necessarily limited by time constraints, and sometimes a little information is a dangerous thing. I’d like to see more emphasis on professional treatment.

Despite these beefs, and the fact that it may not be the most exciting film ever shot, the bottom line is that landlords, homeowners, institutional managers, and tenants all need to be aware of this kind of information, and I applaud Cincinnati for providing it, prominently, on their Health Dept. website. I assume it is also being shown on television as PSAs generally are, but maybe someone local can confirm this.  

Interestingly, the two videos’ credits tell us they were produced by the Cincinnati STD/HIV Training Center, suggesting that resources previously used to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS are being employed to help stop the spread of bed bugs.   This use of resources implies that bed bugs are being taken seriously as a health problem.

Still, people like Jessica Burton are still experiencing the problem acutely — and it is seriously affecting their physical, mental, and financial well-being.  Bring on the bed bug plan, Cincinnati and Hamilton County! 

• Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana hold tri-state “Emergency Meeting” about bed bugs
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs
• bed bugs in Virginia Beach (again), Brown County, Ohio, and potential health risks

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The first seminar is scheduled to take place on Monday, January 28 from 6PM to 8PM at the Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion, 1^st floor conference room, Columbia University Medical Center, 1150 St. Nicholas Avenue (at 168^th Street) in Manhattan.

The second seminar is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, February 5 from 8PM to 9PM at Ricardo’s Catering Hall, 21-01 24^th Avenue in Astoria, Queens.

The final seminar is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, March 12 from 6PM to 8PM at the Hope Gardens Senior Center, 195 Linden Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Anyone interested in attending any of these seminars is encouraged to call (212) 863-8830 to reserve a space. Translation services will be provided for Spanish-speaking members of the public.

New York Times blogger Jennifer 8. Lee also reported on the seminars. She also gave a helpful insight into what happens after you call 311:

Bedbug complaints are listed as an “emergency,” which means they go to the top of the priority list. The department sends out inspectors at night, when bedbugs tend to be more active. Typically, bedbugs are listed as a Class B violation, which gives the owner 30 days to correct the problem. The least severe violations, Class A, have to be fixed within 90 days. Class C violations, for emergency conditions like no electricity or hot water, must be corrected within 24 hours and completely dwarf the bedbug complaints.

Although we knew something about what happens when bedbuggers call 311, we had not previously heard that inspections were made at night. (I’m not sure how big a help this is, since I assume inspectors aren’t coming to call at 2 am, but still, it can’t hurt.) Lee also provided an interesting quotation from a City Councilperson who had had bed bugs:

Robert Jackson, a city councilman who represents parts of northern Manhattan, said at a news conference that his family had been plagued by bedbugs when he was young.

“They used to bite us all,” he said.”We used to wake up trying to kill them at night.”

Incidentally, Jackson was born and raised in Manhattan, according to the City Council’s biography, linked from his name above. I suspect someone in the New York City Council will soon have a contemporary story of bed bugs. I hope that when they do, they will speak out.

Lee continued,

Awareness has made people paranoid of bedbugs, which is why calls to 311 have skyrocketed, though only a part of those have ended up with violation notices.

“I think a lot of people are convinced they have bedbugs when they don’t,” Mr. Aragon said.

That is another reason they are holding the seminars, he said, so that people with skin rashes know when not to call 311.

This is certainly important– people should not panic, and should rule out other causes of itching. Knowing what different stages of bed bugs look like is key.

However, I have to admit that– having heard some 311 stories myself, and knowing how difficult it can be to find bed bug samples– I would suspect at least some of the 5000 people who called 311 last year and who were told they did not have bed bugs, did have them. Although some of the 7000 calls were doubtless panic reactions, I would not be surprised if more than 2000 were actual bed bug cases. I would like to know what constitutes evidence of bed bugs for the inspectors, and how they are trained to detect infestations. We’re told some PCOs do not visually inspect for bed bugs, finding this too difficult, time-consuming, or pointless.

Hopefully anyone who did have bed bugs, but whose HPD inspection turned up nothing, eventually found evidence and called again. However, we know that when people call for help and don’t get it, they often try other means the next time–like paying for their own treatment, or self-treating. (If neighbors are infested, both methods can fail miserably.)

The Times Ledger community newspapers also reported this week on the planned seminars.

The meetings, one of which will take place on Feb. 5 in Astoria, are a response to the rise in complaints that city residents have filed against the insects, according to City Council Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria).

“It’s a problem that until recently even I wasn’t aware of. You expect something like this in a third world country but not in the capital of the world,” he said.

They cited incorrect statistics on the number of complaints citywide:

In 2005, there were only 62 bedbug complaints, which soared to 366 last year, according to the city. Astoria had the third highest number of complaints, Vallone said. Although bedbugs do not transmit any diseases, they are still pose a health crisis for city residents according to the councilman.

“Other cities don’t consider bed bugs a crisis but when people aren’t sleeping they can develop physical and mental problems,” he said.

Perhaps the paper meant to cite statistics for Astoria? The city reported much higher numbers of complaints in 2007 city-wide. The press release about the seminars says,

In Fiscal Year 2007 alone, the City’s 311 hotline received nearly 7,000 bedbug related complaints and HPD housing inspectors issued over 2,000 violations to building owners all across the City. By comparison, Fiscal Year 2004 saw only 1,800 complaints and less than 400 violations issued.

We should remember these are only the people who called 311 to complain about bed bugs, which it appears most tenants and no coop or condo owners do. The numbers also leave out the NYC housing authority residents who had bed bugs last year. Douglas Feiden’s December report in The Daily News reported that there were

… 1,708 verified bedbug cases in 277 public housing projects this year [2007], the city Housing Authority says.

The city and the media leave us to do the math: New York City knows of approximately 3700 tenants who had bed bugs last year. They have no data on non-NYCHA tenants who reported bed bugs to their landlords directly, nor those who called pest control operators themselves, nor on co-op, condo or other homeowners.

From where I sit, hearing the stories of New York bedbuggers daily–and knowing only a small percentage call 311 about their bed bug problem–this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Vallone is also wrong that other cities don’t consider bed bugs a crisis. Lexington, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Ohio, and San Francisco, California, are all US cities that are taking bed bugs seriously. Though responses have been limited so far, some of these cities have expended more money and energy per capita on bed bugs than New York has, by far.

And outside the US, Vancouver is also taking bed bugs seriously with a number of responses. Toronto is currently figuring out what to do.

Also this week, the New York Press blogged about the bed bug “education campaign”, and used one of Bedbugger mangy_cur’s excellent bed bug photos. Congratulations, mangy_cur!

They also linked to a thread in our forums, which we do appreciate (thanks, Emily Meredith of nypress.com!) though it’s always a little embarrassing when people arrive first via a forums thread, like a new guest coming to visit for the first time off the fire escape and through the kitchen window. But we welcome them nonetheless.

Update 1/21: CBS on the bed bug seminars; includes interview with Lou Sorkin who stresses that people need to look for the tiny, translucent nymphs which will be more common than rust-colored adults.

• Lexington, KY vs. New York, NY: a tale of two bedbugged cities
• Tomorrow’s bed bug seminar in New York (Tuesday 2/5/2008)
• Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington in NYC: latest bed bug lawsuit
• Columbia Spectator on bed bugs, again with the HPD statistic soup

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