Thanks to Franco Casini for this excellent set of comparisons between bed bug cast skins (on the right) and other types (on the left).

Photo credits: Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved, Franco Casini, www.pest2000.it

You can click here to see a larger size.

Update (5/8/2009):

Franco has also generously shared a photo comparing nymph cast skins:

Many thanks to the photographer Franco Casini, a.k.a EffeCi in our Bedbugger Forums!Similar Posts:

None Found

That’s the title of a video on YouTube that Paulaw0919 pointed me to today.

In the video, three young people who say they live in several apartments at 46 Westland Avenue (including the basement and apartment 4) appear in the video, along with three cavorting rats, and some cockroaches.

The tenants speak of being bitten by bed bugs and seeing them, and display what appear to be many bed bug bites on each of them. Two (at least) claim to be students at Boston’s Berklee College.

This is the building on ApartmentRatings.com and The Bed Bug Registry.

I hope the tenants have called Boston’s Inspectional Services Division, who put out a Bed Bug Advisory flyer (click here for a PDF) which states:

If your Landlord fails to take proper action as required by State Housing Regulations, contact the Housing Inspection Division at: (617) 635-5322

If the tenants have already contacted Boston’s ISD, I hope they will do so again.

Finally, a disclaimer: we have no way of verifying if these claims are truthful or not.

And a warning: there are no actual bed bugs shown in the video, but it is pretty disturbing nonetheless. Unless rats are your thing.

Similar Posts:

None Found

Back in 1929, Athens was apparently crawling (sorry) in bed bugs.

What to do?

Time magazine reported on one way of cutting down the population. (Warning: you have to skim past commentary on “ignorant and indolent” bedbugged Europeans to get to this.)

Last week one who has been vexed by Athenian bedbug pricks, Dr. N. T. Lorando, chief physician of the Evangelismos Hospital and Near East Relief at Athens, published in Scientific Monthly a learned treatise on bedbugs and biological bedbug hunters.

In the U. S., Dr. Lorando’s research reveals, red house ants attack bedbugs, dismember them, carry off body fragments to their nests. Florida peasants advocate introducing the ants artificially to homes.

Cockroaches are also voracious bedbug hunters so. in some places, is the kissing or assassin bug.

Disclaimer: no, you do not want red house ants, cockroaches, kissing or assassin bugs in your home. Centipedes also eat bed bugs, but they can sting if perturbed, so don’t call in troops of centipedes. None of this is a good bed bug treatment plan.

That out of the way, this is the juicy part:

But the insect of choice, in Dr. Lorando’s experience is Thanatos flavidus Simon, a spider. Bedbugs will run from an irate human, but they apparently have no fear of Thanatos flavidus Simon. He catches the bugs by their backs and sucks out their blood and juices until only a shell remains. So efficacious is Thanatos flavidus Simon that he thoroughly cleaned an Athenian suburb where bedbugs were so thick that householders were obliged to sweep them off the floors and sidewalks. Dr. Lorando reports that the spider is not poisonous to humans, is less objectionable about the house than are ants, cockroaches or kissing bugs.

Why can’t I find any photos on google images of, or other relevant links to “Thanatos flavidus Simon”?

Perhaps some of our friendly, neighborhood entomologists can tell us if something was spelled wrong by Time.

Could Thanatos flavidus Simon really have “cleaned an Athenian subsurb” of bed bugs?

Could this spider be of any use today?

I have a hunch we first have to find out what moniker he’s really using…

Time was referencing this article, which I am currently tracking down:

LORANDO, N. T., 1929: A biological method of destroying bedbugs. Sci. Monthly 29, 265-268.

Thanks to spideyjg, apparently an arachnid fan, for sharing this link in the forums.Similar Posts:

None Found

This ABC7 news article says comedian Mark Malkoff has moved into a Paramus, NJ Ikea store when his Queens, NY home was evacuated for “fumigation:”

When Mark Malkoff thought about where he could stay while his New York City apartment was being fumigated for cockroaches, he quickly ruled out friends’ places (too small) and hotels (too expensive).

Instead, the comedian and filmmaker decided to move into an Ikea store in suburban New Jersey, where on Monday he unloaded two suitcases into a spacious bedroom at the store.

His wife went to stay with relatives.

So this is a question for all the PCOs out there. Do apartments get evacuated so that you can treat for cockroaches?!?

I must have bed bugs on the brain, but when I hear someone from Queens is being “fumigated,” I assume they mean pest control treatment, not fumigation per se, and I also wonder if it’s not our smaller, rust-colored friends.

See the ABC7 news item here.

Mark is blogging his big blue box experience here.Similar Posts:

None Found