Those Craigslist crazies are at it again, this time in Bushwick/East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Check this out:

CURB ALERT: 2 nice couches (Bushwick/E. Williamsburg)

Two very nice couches have been thrown out in front of 15 Thames St, in Bushwick/East Williamsburg. One is red velvet, the other is a floral pattern. They both have signs that say BED BUGS on them, but I’ve slept on both these couches in the past week and haven’t noticed any bedbugs. Please take these great couches and save them from someone else’s wastefulness.

Now, why would someone who is throwing out a sofa say that it had bed bugs, if it did not have bed bugs?

We know it is possible to be bitten by bed bugs and not react to bed bug bites, and we know it’s possible you won’t see bed bugs when they’re around.

If someone advertises that something has been exposed to bed bugs, by all means, please stay away!

If you ever doubted that we need a widespread education campaign about bed bugs, which includes a focus on how easily they spread, how difficult they can be to spot, and how many people do not react to bed bug bites, consider this ad.

Consider also it was posted in Brooklyn, New York City, where even the USA Channel’s fake detectives know what bed bugs look like.

The recent Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode featuring hipsters with bed bugs got some things wrong, but it was set in the same neighborhood (Bushwick/East Williamsburg).

The address listed in the ad, 15 Thames St., is in a neighborhood with many infested buildings, according to the Bed Bug Registry. (And we don’t know which building the sofas came out of, of course.)

Keep in mind, all infested buildings are not listed on the Bed Bug Registry.  Not by a long shot.

Needless to say, I would not take in a curbside sofa, at this point in time, whether it declared itself bed bug-free, or had no signage at all.  I certainly would not take in a sofa with a bed bug warning.  Sheer lunacy.

Caveat dumpster. That’s all I am saying.

The original ad is here, while it lasts.

A screenshot is here.

(The ad is PostingID: 1152996959 and it is copyright 2009 Craigslist.)

Thanks to KillerQueen for finding this one.

Similar Posts:

• Bard of Bushwick Frank Hoier sings about bedbugs
• The Bed Bug Registry adds new features
• Another Craigslist bed bug story
• “On the bed bug list” in Brooklyn
• New York City Housing Authority: “bed bugs = emergency” + “wait a month” do not compute

There’s a little bed bug consciousness-raising going on in this post from Megan McArdle on her Atlantic.com blog, and even more in the active discussion which follows.

MacArdle writes:

Craigslist springs up to facilitate low cost transactions between individuals: good!

The market for used furniture booms, allowing people to furnish their houses more nicely/cheaply, while giving a little extra cash to those parting with unwanted furnishings: good!

The boom in used furnitures spreads bedbugs, leading to a quasi-epidemic in some areas: eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

McArdle suggests that due to used furniture alone, the more the economy bites, the more the bed bugs bite.

Well, bed bugs were doing just fine spreading before the recent market plunges. After all, they also get to spread nicely when we spend lots of money to travel and stay in hotels, hostels, and rental houses, ride on planes, trains and buses, or go to college and home again.

Still, I don’t doubt for a minute that the recession can indeed help bed bugs in so many ways (we go for secondhand furniture and other items, we can’t afford treatment or encasements, and so on). We have commented on the potential (and reported) spread of bed bugs via Craigslist, freecycle, and other methods before.

The comments thread is even more interesting than the post itself, IMHO. I was glad to see all of this happening in the mainstream blogosphere.

I encourage you to check it out!Similar Posts:

• Round, round, get around, bed bugs get around all the time
• Pest Control Technology’s Aug. 2009 bed bug supplement
• Bed Bugs hit Johnson City Fire Station
• Bed bugs continue to multiply in Winnipeg
• Bed bugs in the media: David Cain on British radio, Dr. Susan Jones in the Plain Dealer

Curbed has also covered the Craigslist story I mentioned in this comment.

For those who missed it, let’s revisit:

There’s an ad for a studio apartment at xx-xx Broadway being offered at $119,000.

I just went to see it this afternoon. It’s disgusting. There was a boxspring in there covered in bedbug fecal matter, and evidence of bedbug fecal matter on the walls and ceilings.

The super admitted there were bedbugs there. The previous tenant lived like a “homeless guy” he said. The super tried to reassure me that he had sprayed the apartment down with kerosene, and that all the bugs were dead. Yeah right, that’s why there’s bedbug fecal matter all over the place and infested furniture still sitting there.

It was obviously a massive infestation. The sponsor is planning on doing a total renovation. But with an infestation that huge, bedbugs have surely spread to adjacent apartments and beyond. A renovation may keep them at bay, but they’ll return as neighboring apartments probably have them.

I can't believe he puts people at risk like this.

I've learned my lesson. I'm not going to suffer fools gladly anymore. If I step into a lobby and a building is gross, I'm leaving.

Do not buy this apartment. Don't even step into it, you might take a bed bug or two home with you

See the original while it lasts.

The owner/seller’s response to bed bugs was to douse the place in kerosene?

Yes, I know: “that’s what they did in the old days.” They also set their homes on fire.

This is an apartment building, people. Not a one-room shack that Pa built. Don’t do that.

Similar Posts:

None Found

It’s a dangerous time for taking in secondhand goods. These days, you don’t need to crawl the curbside looking for secondhand furniture that may contain bed bugs. Craigslist, Freecycle, and similar websites offer forums where people with stuff can connect with people who can buy it or take it for free.

Inevitably, some of that stuff is going to be from the homes of people who have bed bugs (whether they know it or not) and it’s easy to introduce bed bugs into your home in this way.

Some folks have even taken it into their own hands to post warnings about bed bugs on Craigslist, since the company is apparently unwilling to do so itself.

And so I offer you: the second bed bug story from Craigslist in one week.

Last week, we got a lesson in “how to spread bed bugs in three easy steps” via the post of a Craigslister offering nearly the entire contents of a home, while warning that the home had bed bugs, and nevertheless reassuring people it wasn’t hard to decontaminate bedbug-infested items including a futon, an upholstered office chair, a crib and — (potentially the bed bug motherlode) a captain’s bed.

This time, we see an ad for a “FREE antique couch” in “beautiful condition,” offered by a Toronto Craigslister at 3:21 pm on Sunday 8/17.

We simply can’t take it with us.

Yours if you can pick it up. Worth hundreds. Upholstery in great condition.

xxx xxxxxx Avenue.

Will be on the curb today.

Readers might have wondered why an “antique couch” in “beautiful condition” was being left curbside in Leslieville, and not moved along with other belongings? Well, it’s possible they did not have the means to move it. It happens, right?

Then we see a separate post in response by another Craigslister in the Toronto “Free Stuff” section the following day 8/18 at 1:16 pm. The title of this post is the exact address given in the first post as the place to pick up the sofa:

hi guys… we picked up that couch yesterday and by midnight — while watching tv — we discovered some bedbugs crawling along it… we have since thrown out all our furniture that was near it, doing the big clean of all our fabric… and are hoping that this will do the trick….we are in talks with our super about getting the apt. sprayed…

in 10 yrs. of being in toronto, my partner and i have never had to experience bedbugs…

Although I suppose there are other possible explanations (such as the sofa recipients having bed bugs already and just happening to notice them for the first time on their newly introduced Craigslist sofa, the day they pick it up), it really does look like the recipient got bed bugs along with the sofa.

Perhaps the unlucky sofa recipients thought it safe to accept this furniture because they figured if something had bed bugs living in it, the donor would know it was infested, and would not give it away.

As the song goes, ‘t ain’t necessarily so.

Never assume anything is bed bug-free. A good percentage of the population does not react to bed bug bites. Some estimates put this number as high as 50%.

The person donating your secondhand stuff, whether they’re a friend, neighbor, or someone on Craigslist may have no idea they have bed bugs. Maybe the sofa’s former owner was one of them.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure that’s the case here. If the recipients of the sofa saw multiple bed bugs, isn’t there a good chance the former owner did too?

Perhaps they did not know what they were.

Or perhaps they knew there were bed bugs in the home and were moving out to get rid of them, but did not understand that all of their furniture and possessions were at risk of harboring bed bugs.

In either case, ignorance is not bliss. As I said earlier in the week, these Craigslist bed bug cases emphasize the need for education: the government needs to educate the public about how easily bed bugs spread, and about how to inspect one’s home for them, and how to avoid getting them or passing them to others.

People should not be wondering, as this metafilter poster did back in 2006, whether there’s a “foolproof way” to be sure furniture items are not infested before you take them home, or to remove bed bugs from the item once you get home.

Picking up secondhand goods on the street needs to be seen as a really stupid idea, in every instance.

And Craigslist and Freecycle and similar services need to warn people, point blank, that any item offered via their service may be infested with bed bugs. Period.

There’s one good way to ensure no one gets bed bugs from an item that is tossed out or given away, and that’s to destroy it.

Remember the story David Cain told in the Bedbugger forums, about once having treated “the same Italianesque bed in 3 different properties on the same street”?

One tenant tossed out a bed bug-infested bed, the second saw it curbside and thought it looked nice, but later realized his/her error and tossed it out again. The third tenant made the same mistake as the second.

At this point, David ended the cycle with a baseball bat:

As I did general pest control in those days, I was able to rely upon my trusty rat bat to make sure that it did not find its way into a fourth [home].

Many thanks to the anonymous Toronto Bedbugger who tipped me off to these Craigslist posts.


Note: unlike the last Craigslist post, I decided not to do a screenshot of this one, since it has an address included, albeit the poster’s former address. I don’t mind linking to that on Craigslist, but I don’t want to be the one responsible for sharing someone’s address online. (So please don’t mention the address if you see it!)Similar Posts:

• Caveat dumpster! Do not take those Brooklyn sofas, Craigslist readers
• The Bed Bug Registry adds new features
• Bed bugs infest multiple areas of New York’s John Jay College (CUNY)
• Bed bugs infest New Rochelle cell block and three police cars
• Bed bugs on the rise in Detroit

Question: Do you live in Astoria, Queens and have bed bugs?

Want to move out of your bed bug-infested apartment and avoid the hassle of destroying and tossing out your infested furniture and other items, including a futon and a captain’s bed, and stuffed animals?

Want to expose lots of people and their neighbors, co-workers, relatives and friends to bed bugs?

Great!

Here’s what you do:

1. Place ad on Craigslist offering nearly all of your possessions for free.

I apologize if this is a duplicate. I thought I posted it but now I can’t find it, so I’m trying again

FREE STUFF!!!!!! I am moving Saturday morning, so everything needs to go ASAP. Please email me to arrange for pickup. This list is *NOT* inclusive. As I pack, more stuff is being added…

2. Include detailed list of items available and warnings that the items have been exposed to bed bugs in your infested home.

I have to start with the warning: the home these items come from have bedbugs. HOWEVER, many of these items were from rooms where I never saw any evidence of bugs or will be easily cleaned. I just don’t have the time to do it myself!

3. Wipe your hands clean and don’t think twice about the carnage which will most surely follow.

Yes, sure, you gave the warnings, so you’re ethically absolved of all responsibility. Have a nice day!

The truth is, everyday people take bed bug infested stuff off the curb which has warnings attached. People can be idiots.

So if you don’t destroy or debug your stuff, you are spreading bed bugs.

You’re spreading the itchiness and discomfort of bed bug bites, the cost of pest control and replacing possessions, the many hours of sleep, and hours and hours of work. You’ll likely cause others to have to move too, at great expense of time and money.

Don’t kid yourself that the warnings you gave will prevent others from suffering. If you have bed bugs in your home, people could pick them up and take them home just by coming over to get something of yours, let alone taking it in their car or into their home.

Thanks to Aly of A Little Aly-tude for the find, for warning her public, (and for the shout out!)

If ad has been removed, see screenshot here.Similar Posts:

• Never assume the tenant who complains about bed bugs is the only tenant with bed bugs
• Take a Seat project: a really bad idea where bed bugs are concerned
• Ohio fighting to get Propoxur for residential bed bug applications
• Bed bugs spread when no one who can pay for treating them is responsible for treating them
• Bed bugs on Today with Meredith Viera and Janice Lieberman, today

We know bed bugs are all over Waterbury, CT.

And all over Craigslist.

Craigslist reader BOB warned fellow Craigslisters (namely residents of Oakville and the Waterbury area) to beware:

re oakville

Reply to: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-12-20, 11:07PM EST

Watch out for bed bugs. THey are spreading fast. They are all over waterbury and the reactions are too slow. Check out http://www.bedbugger.com Don’t pick up stray furniture or people. It spreads fast takes up to a year before people realize they have a problem then if they are a tenant it takes another 2 months to start treatments then people throw thier furniture on the street. ITs a spreading nightmare and of course nobody is talking but the exterminators are making a fortune. WHy because they are impossible to get rid of. THey crawl in holes. survive or even if they get them all you probably infected someone familiar to you who reinfects you. Oh and how many family things have you gone too when they take you jacket and throw it on a bed…with everone elses Merry christmas from waterbury….and happy itching f—ing new year….BOB

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 515776675

I cleaned up a word. You can see the glorious original by clicking on the screenshot above (then choose “All Sizes” and then “Large”). The original was here and may still be.

We don’t know BOB, but we know why he’s angry.Similar Posts:

None Found

Remember this guy?

Well, he’s back. And it’s hard to believe, but he sounds even less charming than last time. He updates the world that his dorm bed bugs have come back, and he is now moving to a non-bed bug-infested apartment in Greenpoint.

(Dude, no bed bugs in Greenpoint?!? Maybe that old landlord has a bridge he wants to sell you next.)

He writes,

OK, so I HAVE bedbugs; what if you have herpes? – m4w – 29
Reply to: pers-502210415@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-12-07, 7:31PM EST

Yeah, the little buggers came back. Oh how I wish there were something like valtrek that you could use to keep them from biting, but the last group must have hatched a new batch of eggs with their dying breath (do bugs breathe?), deposited them in the cracks of the linoleum beneath my bed, and so here I am, arms covered in welts, looking like a fool while you look so elegant and kewl. But does that make me any less interesting, any less handsome, any less good in bed than the next guy you let have you? The odds are that this next guy has some crummy, there-for-life STD (herpes? hep-abcd?) that bug killer can’t get rid of, and he is going to give you something that insecticide won’t fix. So if you don’t have herpes, I am definitely the kind of man you should want to meet, even if I do have bedbugs. And by the way, I am out of the dorms soon enough. I’ve got a sweet deal from some old Polish dude on a nice sunny apartment in Greenpoint, and I’m going to be moving in with a new bed and new bedding, sterilized clothing and not much else. My new place will be as clean as a whistle and bedbug free. So why not give me a second chance, stuck up hipster girl, and let me show more of the man whose blood bedbugs covet.

Again, I think there is something there between us worth pursuing, and we should not let talk of bedbugs or blisters get between us.

* Location: Williamsboard/Greenpoint
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 502210415

What a difference ten days makes.

This may not actually be the same guy. In the first post, he spells valtrex correctly, but he botches it up in the second. And was he really a mutual fund manager living in SoHo per the first post, or a dorm-resident as per the second?

Or maybe it’s all a joke?  If so, it’s pretty lame.

You can see the original post until Cragislist pulls it like they did the other one. Or you can click the photo above to see my screenshot.Similar Posts:

None Found

New York Magazine has a new bed bug story dated November 12th (print edition of 11/19), by Melissa Kirsch.

It contains lots of solid advice about not picking up curbside furniture, being wary of Craigslist finds, and searching for fecal spots and blood stains. But it also contains some advice we don’t normally see. Especially pertinent, this comment from our friend Lou Sorkin, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. (Hear him talk about bed bugs and other pests today–Tuesday–at 10:40 on 99.5 WBAI in NYC, or listen to the streaming live audio here.)

The telltale signs of their presence are itchy welts on your body, frequently in clusters of three or more. You might see tiny red or brown marks on your sheets where you’ve crushed bugs in the night. If you suspect infestation, check under carpets and in moldings, and survey mattresses, box springs, and bed frames. Look for feces and shed skins. And look for nymphs: “Ninety-nine percent of papers written on bedbugs neglect to mention that a bedbug starts as a tiny egg and hatches from it to become a [1- to 1.6-mm.] nymph that’s translucent white,” says Louis Sorkin, entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. “If people knew to look for nymphs, they could head off the problem much sooner.” The bugs pass through six stages of development and feed at least once during each, which means you can get bites before there are full-grown adults visible. If you think you have a problem but can’t find anything, press packing tape or a lint roller underneath carpet and in the corners of beds. Nymphs and eggs will stick to it.

Lou is bringing up a really important point here: many people first see a bed bug that is a fed or unfed nymph. And neither bed bug will look much like the image of an adult bed bug typically pictured in a media story. The first five photos in our page with photos of bed bugs and signs of bed bugs convey the enormous visual difference between fed vs. unfed first instar nymphs, and between nymphs vs. adults. Since people who have not yet had bed bugs often hear of them via the two-minute segment on Fox, or an article in their local paper, it would be best if more news outlets would feature a visual comparison giving people some awareness of this range when and if they do encounter a bed bug.

The article warns people against self-treating with Raid or foggers / bombs, and talks about the importance of dealing with clothing properly, notifying neighbors, and getting a professional in.

What I found most interesting was the final paragraph, which was centered around the need for action on the part of the city:

SEE SOMETHING (DISGUSTING), SAY SOMETHING

Last week, bedbugged tenants mounted a Craigslist-based attack on their Greenpoint building, and protesters in front of the Department of Health demanded action on asthma-exacerbating roaches and rats. They’re not the only ones who think the city could do more to crush creeping menaces. “Bedbugs are a major mental-health issue. I get tired of the Department of Health saying, ‘It’s not a physical issue, so we’re not going to focus on it,’” says Upper West Side council member Gale Brewer. She (and many exterminators) advocate a campaign along the lines of the subway-safety ads to spread word about bug-suppressing preventive steps. Other strategies: certification of bedbug-specialist exterminators and bans on mattress resales. To fight other pests, exterminators would like the DOH to enforce pre-demolition extermination laws more aggressively and hire more pest-control experts to manage parks and public spaces. For its part, the DOH says it has retrained staff after the KFC/Taco Bell rat debacle and is working on plans to combat residential bedbug and rodent problems.

I am really glad that Gale Brewer, who originally proposed the ban on reselling used mattresses in NYC, is still speaking out against bed bugs and their very real negative effects on health. I hope we will get an update on the NY City Council Bed Bug Task Force that was begun over a year ago, but is yet to take action (to our knowledge).

The recommendations here–enforcement of pre-demolition extermination laws, the mattress re-sale ban, and the certification of bed bug specialist PCOs are all good ones. We’ve been talking about the need for a public education campaign (subway ads, TV ads, and so on) since Bedbugger.com started.

Finally, Kirsch said, when describing what to do when you determine you do have bed bugs,

Don’t terrify yourself with horror stories on the Internet; check informative sites like Bedbugger.com.

Informative is good: thanks, Melissa Kirsch! We’re doing our best to get information out there and help people with bed bugs stay as calm as possible, so they can fight bed bugs in an effective way.

I hope we can also have something to do with getting people involved–maybe not so calmly–in fighting for change in public policies, like the ones suggested in this article. It’s always a good time to call your city council representative, or to write to the mayor, about bed bugs. Wherever you live, whether it’s New York, Halifax, Melbourne, or Lexington, Kentucky, take a moment to tell a local politician that bed bugs had a serious impact on your life–whether it was on your family, your finances, your job, and your health.

New Yorkers:
Click here to email Mayor Bloomberg.
Click here to look up and email your city council representative.
Click here to email Gale Brewer about the Bed Bug Task Force even if you’re not in her district.

And here’s a few words from the Rolling Stones–way back in 1978–that still ring true:

Don’t you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side,
Bed bugs uptown!
What a mess– this town’s in tatters
I’ve been shattered
My brain’s been battered, splattered all over Manhattan

Pop this mp3 on your iPod and muse on how little things have changed. And don’t forget: email your city council representative and remind them there are, once more, “bed bugs uptown.”Similar Posts:

None Found

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.Similar Posts:

None Found

This Craigslist ad, posted on August 24th, asks for interviewees for a bed bug documentary:

It says,

Reply to: comm-405308738@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-08-24, 7:54PM EDT

We’re in the research stage of a documentary film
on the growing bed bug problem in New York City.
Award winning director internationally exhibited (Cannes 2007)
If you have bedbugs have survived bedbugs or know
someone who has we’re interested in talking with
you/them.

Please respond with the best way to contact you.
Your privacy respected, discretion assured.

* Location: NYC
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 405308738

I won’t make any snide comments about how advertising on Craigslist is a good way to find people who have had bed bugs. Oops! I just did! Hee hee.

Seriously, though, a bed bug doc from someone who’s exhibited at Cannes sounds good.

Thanks to Bugalew for the tip!Similar Posts:

None Found