Got bed bugs? Bedbugger.com » consumer warning

Today show recommends sharing used mattresses on Craigslist, Freecycle

nobugsonme — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:00:32 +0000

On the Today show this morning, ~~Katie Couric~~ Meredith Viera said, “You can’t live in New York without finding old mattresses and TVs along the curbside because people don’t know what else to do with them. But there is someone who will take them.”

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.

Men’s Health on bed bugs: “The Dirt on Hotel Rooms”

nobugsonme — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:01:14 +0000

Men’s Health magazine on bed bugs, this month: it’s just a brief snippet in an article of travel tips, but it hits home:

Some Souvenirs Have Legs

Hotels are a haven for bedbugs. Pest-control companies say hotels account for more than 37 percent of their bedbug business, according to Pest Control Technology magazine.

I don’t think I’ve seen that statistic before.

The solution: Search for your hotel on bedbugregistry.com. Scan mattress and couch creases for the reddish brown bloodsuckers and their black droppings, says Jason Rasgon, Ph.D., a public-health professor at Johns Hopkins. At home, dry your clothes on high for 45 minutes to kill stowaways.

Note: many dryers would take longer than 45 minutes to get wet clothes really hot and dry (I’d say “bone dry plus 20 minutes, on hot”. Dry clothes, on the other hand, can do with much less time.

More tips on avoiding bed bugs when you travel here.

It’s always good to see bed bugs in the media. Especially when it’s a warning, and not someone’s Tale of Bed Bug Woe.

Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”

nobugsonme — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:52:35 +0000

We Bedbuggers know that bed bugs can be very difficult to find, even for trained Pest Control Operators. Time and again, people with bites are told they do not have any “evidence.” Since other conditions and pests can cause similar symptoms, it is of course important that other “signs” are present–but too often, actual bed bugs are not among them. Many PCOs still will not treat without an actual bug.

So it was with interest that I read Thursday’s press release today from the National Pest Management Association, one timed as to use Halloween as an opportunity to remind people about “ghoulish” pests they should watch out for, namely bats, rats, and bed bugs. And they give several suggestions to consumers:

While these pests can provide their fair share of scares, NPMA recommends tips for homeowners to limit their trick-or-treaters to neighborhood children, and not the local pests, this Halloween:

1. Keep an eye out for tiny blood spots left behind by bed bugs. They can be found throughout the house, and are not just limited to bedrooms.

2. To keep rodents out ensure that all holes larger than a pencil are sealed and inspect the perimeter of your house for possible pathways inside.

3. Put screens over laundry or attic vents to prevent rodents and bats from entering the home.

4. An active infestation should not be controlled with do-it-yourself measures; contact a licensed pest professional.

Numbers one and four are of particular interest.

Number one implies that the only sign one might easily find are “blood spots” around the house. I think what is meant are not what we Bedbuggers call blood spots–little red stains where humans were bitten and blood came out, which are generally found on sheets–these are not found as frequently as what we’ve been calling “fecal stains,” or “fecal spots,” which are dark stains (like the classic mattress stains), or “fecal specks”, dark specks which can be anywhere from red or rust colored to black, and may be poppy-seed sized, or larger, or smaller, and harder or slightly damp. Both fecal stains/spots and fecal specks are made up of your blood, but their consistency and appearance vary. We suspect this variance may relate to local climates, humidity, etc.

Obviously, the NPMA is not going to go into that level of pooh-detail in a general warning. My point is that the warning did not warn consumers to watch out for bites, or for bed bugs themselves, but (if I am indeed interpreting them correctly) fecal spots. That sign, is often the only sign, or one of two (if coupled with bite marks and itching), that people have, for a very, very long time.

The media has traditionally warned people to look for bites and bed bugs. This is, I think, the first time I have read industry professionals telling people to look for this more subtle sign. And only this sign.

Coupled with suggestion number four, “an active infestation should not be controlled with do-it-yourself measures; contact a licensed pest professional,” the question arises as to what happens when the licensed professional cannot easily find bed bugs, as is often the case.

We hear from Bedbuggers whose PCOs treat anyway, because they now know finding an actual bug, bed bug shells, or eggs, or even really obvious fecal stains, can be very tricky.

But I think we still hear from many more Bedbuggers whose PCOs will not treat, who tell customers they “don’t have” bed bugs, or who recommend that in the absence of clear signs, they use pesticides on their own (in direct conflict with NPMA’s fourth recommendation here). That suggestion is surprisingly common–and raises the question as to why a PCO would recommend a customer starts spraying Suspend or Bedlam, if they don’t actually have bed bugs.

The press release reminds us that the pest control industry is quickly adapting, as are we customers, to a “new (to us)” pest that can be surprisingly stealthy. I recognize this press release was just a general warning to consumers to be alert for bed bugs, and I truly hope the NPMA is discussing the difficulty of finding bed bug evidence, and the broader definition of what that might consist of, with its members. Bedbuggers will tell you that even thorough, careful searches by professionals may yield nothing in terms of obvious signs, or that many PCOs that search cannot recognize or don’t want to count fecal specks as “signs.”