When a representative from the New York City Housing and Preservation Department told attendees of a bed bug seminar last spring that five NYC subway stations had had bed bugs, Miss Heather blogged about it, and the story was picked up by the mainstream press as well as every blogger and her brother. (You can see links to some of the places the news was reported here.)

The MTA said they’d look into it and the HPD acted like they had no knowledge of this. Still, lots of people looked a little more suspiciously at those wooden subway benches, as well they ought. Experts tell us that bed bugs are prone to infest public transportation, as a general rule.

Now consider for a moment, the curbside refuse of this great city, which is also quite likely to be infested by bed bugs. Bed bugs are in every neighborhood and it seems like the incidence of tossed out mattresses and chairs has gone way up.

chairs

Originally uploaded by t. van gieson

People have always sought out “curbside bargains” like free chairs, tables, and mattresses. It’s considered frugal and green, and what could be better in the days of global warming and the crashing stock market?

I’ll tell you what’s better: avoiding bed bugs. Forget the discomfort of bed bug bites, for a moment, which many will never even notice. Those who’ve never experienced bed bugs have no idea how much money they eat up (even if you aren’t the one footing the bill for pest control) and how much of a strain the average infestation is on the environment when you factor in the extra laundry (electricity and water) and plastic bags alone. Before you even talk about replacing some of your stuff and having someone spray pesticides over and over and over.

So, I want to stress that I have mad respect for Idealist.org and their cool Idealist in NYC blog. But I have to stress, in the name of sanity, do not do as the Idealist in NYC blog tells you plans to, and try and help tired people find somewhere to sit in the subway by donating curbside chairs. Do not, as the Idealist in NYC blogger cellyham pleads says, “chip in by salvaging chairs from trash piles, cleaning them up and reusing them in one of the hundreds of stations across the city.” Idealist got the idea from this “Dude”.

Idealist in NYC blogger cellyham has apparently thought of and dismissed the potential for bed bugs:

Skeptics also point out the potential for bedbugs and other such creatures. I’ve had my fair share of experiences with creepy crawlers, and I’ll chance another encounter for a shot at comfort any day. But that’s just me. What do you think?

All I can say is, think again. Anyone who is willing to “chance an encounter” with bed bugs does not know enough about them or what they do, even in a small infestation.

Oh yeah, and the chance of bed bugs on those “donated” chairs in the subway? It doesn’t just amount to you bringing the bed bugs into your digs when you rescue the chair from the curb and clean it up at home.

It also stems from the danger of getting bed bugs that have crawled into a chair in someone’s home. The Take a Seat idea’s originator has a nice google map showing where people have placed these chairs so far, and they include some of the most bedbug-infested areas of Brooklyn and Queens, as well as many Manhattan stations.

Part of the problem with bed bugs is that most people really do not get (a) how easy it is to just “pick them up” somewhere, or (b) what a pain in the — they really are.

One thing you can do, dear reader with bed bugs, is tell all of your close friends, slowly and repeatedly, so they get it, that bed bugs are easy to get (in fact, you need do nothing, as they may come to you), that there are ways to avoid them, and that you would not wish them on your worst enemies. Tell them. Make sure no one you know thinks bed bugs are just another “creepy crawler.”Similar Posts:

• Another Craigslist bed bug story
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• A reader’s bed bug story

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

As a good-sized city, the state capitol of Wisconsin, and a big college town (which means lots of students who tend to move frequently and often try to furnish homes on a budget), you can imagine bed bugs might be taking hold in Madison. From the Capitol Times, last Thursday, on the brink of the biggest moving day of the year: a warning to watch out for bed bugs in curbside furniture and mattresses.

Warning tenants about bed bugs mainly seems to be a yearly event in Madison, coinciding with the city’s big move-out in mid-August, when thousands of people move (either to Madison, from Madison, or from one apartment to another). This article seems to be part of a yearly tradition. Everyone needs to know that mattresses, sofas, and any other items left curbside could contain bed bugs, and transmit them to your home. People also need to know that unexplained itching, bed bug bites, or even sightings of bed bugs could occur in their new apartments, and they should be on guard for these and ready to seek help.

Here’s an article from August 17, 2007 (interesting in that it claims Wisconsin’s “relatively nice hotels” were the first places in the state to be infested — an intriguing statement, if it’s true).

Here’s another piece from the same paper on August 21, 2006, which is also notable, since it reports that a family had an apartment application rejected because they were moving from a building known to have bed bugs:

One family was rejected at a Fitchburg apartment complex last month partly because they had lived at an infested apartment at 2210 Rosenberry Road in the Allied Drive area.

Both Madison City Attorney Michael May and Tenant Resource Center program director Megin McDonell say landlords are probably within their legal rights to reject an applicant for prior bedbugs.

“It doesn’t seem fair, but there is nothing in the ordinance that prohibits that screening criteria,” McDonell said Thursday.

We have not heard of this happening elsewhere, but I do not doubt it has happened.

Another source of concern in Madison: there’s an ordinance in the city which allows tenants to take care of certain repairs and deduct expenses from their rent (the Rent Abatement ordinance).  And according to this October 2006 Capital Times article, pests may be one issue tenants are encouraged to (or may think they can) resolve under this “self help” ordinance:

The intent of the new “self-help” ordinance, approved unanimously by the council Tuesday, is to allow tenants to address certain problems and, after review by the city’s building inspectors, deduct the expenses from their rent payments.

Shakira Parker said she would like to deduct the $75 she spent on insecticides to try to kill the cockroaches in her apartment in the Allied Drive neighborhood.

Several others also listed insect infestations first among the problems that landlords in the area have neglected. Tenants described sending children off to school, covered in bedbug bites.

The Capital Times was uncertain whether pest control might be among the problems tenants are encouraged and allowed to “fix” themselves according to the then-new self-help ordinance, which states that:

If, in the end, the landlord was unresponsive to a problem that the city deemed in need of repair, the tenant could be reimbursed for 125 percent of the costs.

Fixing a leak or patching a hole is one thing, but the idea of tenants self-treating for bed bugs is a terrible one. The ordinance does not allow for tenants fixing problems that could threaten safety or harm living conditions, but if tenants even think they can get reimbursed for treating their own bed bugs under the law, this is bad:

George Hank, director of the city’s inspection unit, said he was “generally very supportive” of the law, but said was concerned with how it might affect the use of insecticides.

If tenants take insect control into their own hands and believe they will be reimbursed for their efforts, he said, they might apply pesticides on top of other pesticides, possibly also duplicating efforts a landlord is already trying.

“That could create health hazards,” he said.

Yes it could. We think bed bug treatment is best done by a licensed and experienced professional who knows bed bugs, both because they can get rid of bed bugs more thoroughly and quickly, and because they know how to do it safely.

Bed bugs may be among the problems Madison landlords neglect, but they are the last problem in the world that tenants should be encouraged to try and self treat. Doing so can make them spread, and even cause harm to the individual.

For more on bed bugs in Madison, see this brochure “Don’t Pick Up Bed Bugs” from Madison’s excellent Tenant Resource Center (click here to load a PDF).

Note to Wisconsin residents: the Tenant Resource Center is a good place to look into your rights as a tenant in the state of Wisconsin, not just in Madison. Information is given here on your rights in Madison and Milwaukee, and phone numbers are provided for Building Inspectors and other resources in cities state-wide.Similar Posts:

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This article from the New York Times is about New York set designer Michele Spadaro, and how she furnishes theater stages on a budget.

What caught my eye were the designer’s comments about how she tries to avoid bed bugs in her search for salvageable items:

. . . sometimes New York thrift stores are useful. She went first to the Salvation Army at 536 West 46th Street, but its furniture inventory was exhausted. Next she tried Green Village Used Furniture & Clothing in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The 10,000-square-foot building had countless shelves of dining sets, credenzas and bed frames. Two prospects had potential but were dismissed: a white ladder-back chair had several wood plugs, and a beat-up wood-frame chair was too wobbly.

But she saw promise in a rusty wrought-iron chair with a hairpin back, its seat covered in a stained orange fabric. She said she liked simple and sturdy frames with strong lines, but that she rejects some pieces, no matter how sturdy. She never takes upholstered pieces from the street for fear of bedbugs. “In a thrift store, I ask how long it has been on the floor,” she said, explaining that the longer a piece has been in the store, the better. “This is not scientific, but obviously, if it’s not been in human contact,” she said, there is less chance of an infestation.

I would personally avoid thrift stores and used upholstered furniture altogether.

Nevertheless, I was impressed by this sign that word about bed bugs is obviously spreading. I doubt this is something set designers were concerned about a few short years ago.

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Independent Texas A&M student paper thebatt.com covers bed bugs this week. They mention the seminars in New York City, and the interesting research out of the Center for Urban and Structural Entomology (CUSE, housed at Texas A&M) on bed bugs and chicken farms. And–because it’s a college paper, perhaps–they dig right into the fascinating and violent concept of bed bug reproduction in the third paragraph.

But what I found intriguing was the following comment:

Used and freebie couches are breeding grounds for these pests and a center-piece in many college students’ living rooms. Many apartment complexes warned tenants of the commingling of on-campus and off-campus Aggies, with reference to spreading bed bugs. The Luxor Management Group told tenants to avoid visiting residence halls and “if someone who lives in the dorms must come to visit you in your residence, [we] strongly recommend that they do not sit or put their belongings on your beds or even enter your bedrooms and to just stay in your living or dining rooms.”

This management company is warning residents of off-campus apartments that they should avoid visiting students who live in dorms, and treat visitors from dorms with caution, keeping them in the living room and dining room, and their belongings off the beds.

Bed bug awareness is a good thing, but this advice is a bit off.

Yes–I would absolutely advise people to avoid putting guests’ belongings in their beds. The whole party “coat pile on the bed” (or coat pile anywhere) concept is a bad idea, and aversion to it is a litmus test for whether people have experienced bed bugs or not.

And taking in used couches and other items from the street, Craigslist, or other sources, is a bad idea. (Though surely some of the students in private accommodation have done this too?)

On the other hand, you should realize that if your friends have bed bugs and bring them to your home on belongings or on their clothing, they can infest other rooms as easily as the bedroom. Keeping friends to the living and dining room is not going to do it. Sofas and upholstered furniture are common targets, but bed bugs do also move into rooms themselves, and wooden furniture items.

Better advice for Texas A&M students is to talk about bed bugs. Make sure your friends know about them and know that experts claim as many as 50% of people may experience no bite marks and no itching–that means you can have them and not know it.

Make sure they know what unfed first instar nymphs look like (1 mm or 1/32 inch, white or translucent; not 6 mm or 1/6 inch and brown), since–as Lou Sorkin keeps reminding us–this is not what the media usually tells people to look for, but they may be all you see.

Talk to your friends about avoiding curbside furniture, lawn sales, flea markets and the like.

While Luxor Management may have the idea that students in a dorm are more prone to bed bug outbreaks than those in private accommodations, it is true that anyone can get bed bugs anytime.

And you do not have to share your bed with a student who lives in a dorm–or trash-pick furniture–to get them, as most of us will attest.

You can read thebatt.com’s article here. Similar Posts:

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