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.

• Tripadvisor: 8% of survey respondents encountered bed bugs at hotels
• Time for action: support the Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act 2008 currently in the U.S. House of Representatives
• Allegations of bed bugs affect tourism, according to travel agent
• Lavender oil won’t do it: do any “natural remedies” work for bed bugs?

ShareThis

We’re familiar with bed bug dogs, here at Bedbugger, but it is interesting to read of the situation in NZ.

“She’s not big, she’s clean and she’s a clever dog,” Mr Morley said of the three-year-old. “She can get into little places and sniff inside mattresses.”

Well, I bet she’s less clean when she comes out of some of those mattresses.

Yesterday Joni worked through 20 rooms and even detected bedbugs that were behind a headboard fixed to the wall.

When she finds something, she will tap at it with her paw before Mr Morley asks her to check again with her nose. After bedbugs are found, each surface of the room can be treated with steam within a day whereas chemical treatments could see a room shut off for many days. Mr Morley says the combination of Joni and steam produces a 98 per cent success rate. Manual treatments have a 20 per cent success rate.

I found this interesting, and I’d like to hear more about companies working with a combination of dogs and steam. What it sounds like Morley is describing is a situation in which the dog pinpoints the exact location of bed bugs (or eggs, which the article tells us she can also detect), and then that area is carefully steamed (I assume with a dry steam machine). Steaming that pinpoints a specific area does seem both more reliable and easier than steaming the whole area, hoping to strike bed bug gold.

I’d also like to know what that 98% success rate represents: I assume it means 98% of cases need not be serviced twice. (Or does it mean most cases eliminate 98% of their bed bugs? Big difference, no?)

This does sound promising, though as a customer, I would not mind if they then employed a bit of residual or mechanical (dust) killer to seal the deal. When it comes to killing bed bugs, I don’t think there’s such a thing as overkill.

It sounds like Joni does a lot of sleuthing looking for bed bugs in hotels, and a regular run through with the bedbug dog and an industrial steamer would be greatly reassuring to me as a prospective hotel guest.

In Australia, similar dogs are used to sniff out termites, which mainly affect the coastal urban areas of the country. Joni was trained in Queensland, one of five dogs around the world trained to sniff out bedbugs.

I think this may be based on outdated statistics, since I know of at least five bed bug-sniffing dogs currently working in the United States! Nevertheless, it does sound like bedbuggers in New Zealand and at least some parts of Australia have or will soon have access to this service, which is spreading quickly, as is (unfortunately) the need for it.

• Bed bug dogs in the news
• Consumers, before you hire one, find out what that bed bug dog can do!
• University of Florida tests bed bug dogs
• Results of University of Florida tests on bed bug dog effectiveness are out

ShareThis

Terry says, “A pest control program for bed bugs is very detailed. You’ve got to get all the crevices. We are doing a little more than we really need to, but it’s to make sure we don’t have a problem in the future.”

That means Terry’s son, Tony, has to bag contents of every locker in the school, and then spray those contents with an insecticide.

Tony and his mother are wearing only gloves now, but when the heavy fumigation gets underway, they’ll be wearing face masks, too.

I am interested in these methods, since I have not heard PCOs here talking about spraying into bags of belongings. Perhaps a PCO would tell us what this might be.

I initially thought it was a good thing that Bracken County Schools were taking bed bugs seriously after finding a bed bug in school, since cities like New York City are so slow to take action against similar situations. My initial positive sense was based on Bracken County’s willingness to treat schools for bed bugs. I thought that their treatment of every school in the district was based on a sense that bed bugs must be more widespread than in just this one school.

Now, however, I am becoming more concerned about the community’s response, especially their apparent obsession with pinpointing its source. It betrays a lack of education about bed bugs and their behavior, which appears to be a prevalent problem elsewhere too.

Parents in Brooksville are divided about the schools closing an extra day just for bed bugs.

Elizabeth Aulick, a mother of two Bracken County students says, “Yeah, it does concern me, but the letter I got said they only found one bug. If it’s one bug isolated to one child, keep him home for a few days.”

A mother of three Bracken County students, including one at the Middle School says, “I guess it’s a little unexpected. I never expected something like this, but I guess it’s a good thing. Just to be on the safe side. It didn’t both me, I said, ‘Well, that’s fine.’”

The school fumigation in Bracken County is getting the full support of the county health department there.

I am glad the health department in Bracken County recognizes bed bugs as a concern, since many don’t. However, I have to say that what’s being said about the child in this case is absurd.

People in Bracken County must not associate the schools’ bed bug issue, if they indeed have one, with this one student who may have had the bed bug on his things or on his clothing. Bed bugs can live and breed in schools or in school buses or public transportation, and they can crawl onto students at any of these locations (as well as many others). As we have taken pains to explain in the past, the presence of a bed bug on a person or their things absolutely does not prove the person brought the bed bug in.

All parents, including those of the child who was bitten by the bed bug, must search at home and have a qualified PCO inspect if anyone is complaining of bites or if they see any bed bugs or possible signs. However, it is crucial that parents and school officials realize that bed bugs are not lice, and do not live on people. They crawl on, feed, and run away. If a bed bug is found on a person in a school, it does not mean the person brought the bed bug to the school.

I would assume the Bracken County School officials know this, since they are treating every school, and not just the one the bed bug was found in. And yet it does not sound like the parents or media have been picking up on that fact.

If the child did indeed have had an infestation at home and brought them into the school, then his family, too, caught them from somewhere. They spread easily. And everyone should be alert. Everyone should be asking where this family might have picked up bed bugs: parents’ workplace? YMCA? School? Bus? Motel? Because where they got them, you can get them too.

However, the child should not be blamed, nor should he be kept home. People with active infestations need to take some steps to avoid spreading bed bugs. Treating the child himself as if he were contagious is an ignorant mistake.

• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs
• NYC Bedbuggers: time to have some local politicians over for a bite or two
• New York City public schools continue to be treated for bed bugs
• Spring break bed bug warnings!

ShareThis

UPPER WEST SIDE—It seems there is a little detail about the condo conversion at 30 Lincoln Plaza that may have been overlooked: “You failed to mention that the building is infested with bed bugs…the management has confirmed this and is handing out pamphlets and they have even had a bedbug sniffing dog in some apartments..who knew! I would think this situation is going to really boost sales on those $1,185,000 647 sq/ft one bedrooms.” Bedbug sniffing dogs?!? Excellent. [CurbedWire Inbox]

While it’s always surprising to find out another building has bed bugs, it’s a good thing that the building management is aware and is taking action. I hope they undertake aggressive treatment throughout. (Imagine, hypothetically, the legal activity that would ensue if some units were infested but did not identify the presence of pests, were not treated, and were sold infested.)

This item from Curbed.com reminds me that a lot of the interesting bed bug “news” in the last four days has been leaked via gossip blogs: legal gossip, real estate gossip, ivy league college gossip (although this one probably had another itchy culprit).

Unlike “real” news–which is covered in the newspapers, and on TV and radio–like the spread of MRSA drug-resistant staph bacteria, which tragically killed a 7th grader in Brooklyn, bed bugs aren’t yet confirmed to cause disease and death. They have been unofficially confirmed to cause distress, stress, anxiety, sleeping trouble–and in rare cases, allergic reactions so severe they can kill. But nothing compared with the threat of deadly MRSA. I saw an ABC news segment here in NYC Friday night–kids at the school that youngster attended, were carrying bottles of purell, and startled parents and teachers were looking on in amazement as they reported washing their hands after using the lavatory (ABC7 produced multiple clips in which the students admitted this was new behavior.) The segment also featured a poster on the door of the school, and though it was not shown close-up, I am pretty certain it warned that the school had been exposed to MRSA and that people had to take precautions not to catch it.

Since bed bugs aren’t on the same level of threat, the reasoning seems to go, we don’t need to actually warn people about bed bugs in specific locations. And so “bed bug reports” are confined to the realm of gossip blogs.

Yes, it is true that hotels, real estate developers and brokers, restaurants, theaters and other businesses that are reported to have bed bugs in the mainstream media, will face worried customers and may lose business. The hotel industry in NYC, in particular, will be hard hit. One can only assume Mayor Bloomberg chooses to avoid confronting and admitting the true number of infested homes and businesses in this city (which I first considered in this post), because it would scare off tourists, who contribute so much to the city, as well as negatively affecting real estate, and maybe even how people spend their leisure time (and money).

But it does not follow that if we do not discuss bed bugs, publicly, then they will go away. The opposite is true: as long as businesses are in denial, or putting up a bed-bug-free front, the problem will keep spreading at an alarming rate, and eventually, I believe, the hit on businesses will be greater.

• Maya Rudolph’s former loft (again): bedbugs ADD value!
• More students at college finding bed bugs in their dorm rooms
• Bed Bug Helloise is shocked…
• The strange case of bed bugs in Bushwick

ShareThis

His lease was terminated Sept. 27, about a month after he said he posted fliers alleging that bedbugs had invaded 11 apartments, including his own. A hearing on the eviction notice will take place Oct. 26 at Superior Court in Morristown.

Rutgers Village, in an Oct. 2 court filing, placed the bedbug blame squarely on Veghte.

The apartment complex alleged that Veghte, on or before Sept. 17, “either intentionally or through gross negligence, created an infestation condition within his apartment” that he initially failed to report. The landlord also alleged that Veghte refused to cooperate with extermination efforts.

How could Veghte have “intentionally” caused a bed bug infestation within his apartment? Does this mean he sought out bed bugs, brought them in, and infested his home?!?

How could he have “created” the infestation through “gross negligence”? While it is true that someone might have bed bugs for a time and not report them, thus allowing the problem to escalate, we know that different people react to bites in different ways, and bed bugs can be hard to find. Unless they are crawling over the walls all day, it seems like it would be nearly impossible to prove how long someone had them and known about it.

Failing to report the infestation promptly is another matter, and we really do not know what went on there.

Parsippany housing coordinator Rena Plaxe said she was contacted by Veghte several times but did not intervene in the dispute. Plaxe said it appeared that the landlord had acted reasonably.

“From what I understand, he found a bedbug. He put it in a Ziploc bag. He took it to the management office. They set up an extermination process for his apartment, but he’s been unable or unwilling to properly prepare the apartment. Therein lies the problem,” said Plaxe, adding that the landlord was able to do only “a cursory treatment” as a result.

It does sound as if “unable” to prepare is more likely than “unwilling” to prepare. Read on:

Veghte, a former truck driver who said he had not worked since 2002 due to three herniated disks and osteoarthritis in his neck and back, said he was unable to remove items from cabinets and closets as requested by the landlord to aid in extermination.

“I’m disabled. I asked them for help,” Veghte said.

What should disabled people do, if they ask landlords for help with prep and do not get it? Who can they, or the landlord, call?

And why would a landlord evict a disabled person who could not do their prep? Veghte claims there’s more to the story.

Rob Jennings reports for the Daily Record that Veghte feels he is being evicted because he told neighbors about the bed bugs via a flyer he distributed on August 25th. He received the eviction order on Sept. 27, and the building sent tenants a letter about bed bugs on October 10th. Regardless of anything else that happened, the building clearly did not warn Veghte’s fellow tenants about the possibility they were infested until six and a half weeks after Veghte distributed the flyers. They had to have known of this possibility since at least late September, at least two weeks before October 11, since the man was evicted then.

Assuming Veghte did distribute the flyers without notifying the landlord of his infestation directly, which was not a good idea, several weeks at most could be proven to have passed between his knowing about the infestation and his notifying the office as per Plaxe’s description.

His lease was terminated Sept. 27, about a month after he said he posted fliers alleging that bedbugs had invaded 11 apartments, including his own. A hearing on the eviction notice will take place Oct. 26 at Superior Court in Morristown.

Veghte’s being represented by Legal Aid.

This is not the first time someone has been evicted for not doing the prep required for treatment. Last December, multiple families (including one with a disabled son) were evicted from an Edmonton, Alberta building for not properly preparing for bed bug treatment. Read more about that here. In that case and this one, the evicted individuals claimed to be unable to complete all the steps of required preparation. These can vary depending on the PCO. In the Edmonton building, the tenants complained of not being able to move furniture and other items, and not having anywhere to move them to. As the article implies, they may not have fully understood the reasons for prep, or how to go about it.

In the current New Jersey case, Veghte is disabled. Although I understand that landlords do not feel they can do tenants’ prep, it simply is not acceptable that disabled persons, or for that matter, elderly people, busy single parents, or anyone else who has difficulty doing required preparations, should be evicted. Preparations can be time-consuming and demanding on one’s energy and physical abilities. If people need help, then there must be government agencies who will provide assistance in cases where people simply cannot do the physical labor, or do it quickly enough.

Make no mistake: tenants must report bed bugs promptly if they are aware of them (and whether Veghte did or not is uncertain), and prep needs to be completed properly before treatment. Not doing so puts neighbors as well as the property in jeopardy, and I am not supporting anyone who fails to do those things. However, people who need help with prep must get this help. We cannot expect disabled or elderly people, or those with other legitimate limitations, to simply find help somehow. As a society that does not evict people for being physically challenged, we simply have to provide help.

If this man is really being evicted for not doing prep, his eviction amounts to discrimination, and it’s just plain wrong.

Let this story be a warning to tenants: notify your landlord promptly, and in writing, the minute you suspect a bed bug infestation. People whose first instinct is to simply self-treat could conceivably be accused of not reporting an infestation. In NYC, landlords are often happy to try and evict you, since they can raise the rent for the next guy. Don’t give them any excuse for doing so.

And a warning to landlords: make sure your tenants understand how and why they need to prepare. Many good PCOs will give a talk at the building for tenants about the hows, the whys, and the wherefores. Education is key here. However, you have a responsibility too–to let tenants know of neighbors’ infestations. If you don’t, you may be sued, like this Chicago landlord. All’s fair in love and torts.

And a warning to the rest of the world: we must find ways to help people who cannot prepare for treatment.

Or there are soon going to be a lot more disabled people, elderly people, and parents of young children on the streets. What a shame.

• More from Edmonton bed bug evictions case
• Bedbug evictions: Edmonton tenants evicted because they did not prepare for spraying
• Still more from Nashua, New Hampshire: fewer bed bugs at 23-25 Temple St.
• Bed bugs & tenant organizing: don’t take this lying down

ShareThis

Here is my rant on NYC statistics, for those who have not read it before. (Everyone else, skip down past this block quoted section!)

The city says approx. 4600 called to complain about bed bugs and approx. 1190 had bed bug violations in the period from Summer 2005 to Summer 2006. These statistics are often cited in the media as evidence the bed bug problem is not that big.

As I’ve said many times before, we know the number of infestations must be much larger, since just after the time frame in which those 311 stats were added up, local PCO Pest Away claimed to be getting 100 calls a day, of which 85% were legit bed bug cases, in a Village Voice article last year.

As I speculated then, 85 cases, x 5 days a week x 52 weeks a year, and that’s one local PCO identifying 20,100 cases in a year. Though this is a particularly large PCO, there are hundreds and hundreds of other PCOs treating for bed bugs in this city. Clearly those 311 numbers are far from the size of the epidemic, and that’s even after we account for homeowners and those in public housing, neither of which would call 311 to report bed bugs.

There endeth today’s rant.

The most obvious evidence, for me, that the vast majority of people with bed bugs in NYC do not follow this route is based on our readers who email me or who comment here and in the forums. My generous estimate is that the percentage of tenants with bed bugs in NYC who call 311 and report it is under 5%. If I were a betting gal, I’d put money on that.

We hear from several new Bedbugged New Yorkers every day. Since October, when the site was born, only a handful of people have told us they called 311. (Several of those have said they called 311 and had been given the runaround, or had not been sent an inspector. One person reported the inspector came but would not enter the home. The other day someone said the 311 receptionist simply told him/her to wash their clothing and sheets carefully. Um, thanks Mayor Bloomberg.) We have a FAQ on what is supposed to happen when you call 311, based on research I did, but it would be great to hear from more people who did it.

A reader going by the moniker “realitybites” is a New Yorker who did call 311 recently. S/he only did so because his/her landlord was refusing to treat properly. I asked his/her permission to repost this from our forums, since it is such an interesting story. Six days ago, realitybites wrote:

I recently found bedbugs (caught one off the bottom of my mattress with a piece of scotch tape.) Called in a PCO immediately, very professional, friendly. I found out while waiting for him that my neighbors all have them, and that my super (!) has complained numerous times to the landlord who refuses to do anything. I called 311 to report building is infested. Got into a big argument with landlord about hiring a PCO for the whole building. He said absolutely not, never. I told him I called 311. That got him about as far as telling the other tenants to throw out their mattresses and get some bug spray. (He told them he would reimburse them for the bug spray, how generous!)

Yesterday (five days later), realitybites gave an update:

An update on this story. After the landlord received the official acknowledgment of complaint from the city, he went through several reactions. He was angry, tried to make me feel guilty for reporting the infestation, tried to tell me it wasn’t his problem because it wasn’t his fault. He told me I had “no right” to report on him.

This isn’t going to sound like a true story after this, but it is. After several angry confrontations, he came to my apartment the other day. He said he wanted to see “evidence.” I showed him the bugs I had caught and taped to a piece of paper. Then he told me he would pay for the exterminator I called, and also retain him to treat the entire building. Then he started asking me questions like, “so what does it feel like when you get bitten?” and “how did you find them?” and so on.

Then he confessed he was afraid HE MIGHT HAVE THEM TOO. (He lives in a different borough.) I am glad he came around, not sure if it was because of the city’s pressure or his own worries (did he carry the infestation to his home because he didn’t treat our building?–something for landlords to think about.)

While few landlords are likely to “see the light” to this degree, and this swiftly, it is important to remember that landlords, too, are caught off guard by bed bugs. They, too, are victims of this epidemic, and in many cases, they stand to lose a lot financially because of them, just as tenants do.

The first response of many people to the idea of spending lots of money to treat a problem you never heard of before, or which many people assume is not a big deal, is to be evasive. Another is to panic. (We know many tenants panic, and so why not landlords who have to treat entire buildings?)

Once landlords understand what a big deal this is, they may well come around. As awful as it can be to go through treatment, a smart businessperson will realize they have to be aggressive in treating bed bugs. Treating all infested units, and inspecting, and preferably treating all units adjoining infested units (top, bottom, sides), is the best way to get this problem out of your building. And yes, they can come back.

Therefore, smart landlords will want to provide educational materials to tenants about the signs of bed bugs. It is a great idea for landlords to get a local community organization (maybe a local city council member, or community agency) to host a meeting where a PCO who knows bed bugs can speak to tenants about behavior which may lead to repeat infestations: shopping in secondhand stores and flea markets, picking up furniture or other items from the curb, and traveling without taking certain precautions, all make this easier.

Most of all, tenants need to know the signs. Those who never saw a bed bug, a bed bug bite, a fecal speck or fecal stain, egg, or cast off shell, need to learn the signs, as well as the basic facts about bed bugs (the main one being that you may have bed bugs even if you never see or feel any bites).

Until the City of New York wises up about the real size of this problem, and starts providing more public education of its own, it is up to the rest of us–tenants and landlords too–to (in the words of Bugalina) “Spread the word, not the bug.”

• Bedbugs called “a new kind of roach”; building managment lies
• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.
• Escaping tenants leaving crumbs, marking the bed bug trail
• Lexington, KY vs. New York, NY: a tale of two bedbugged cities

ShareThis

But why don’t people call 311?

Although technically anyone who is a renter and has bed bugs can do it, most people don’t. Why? Well, most of us are used to calling our building managers, superintendants, etc. when a problem of any kind arises. It even seems like the courteous thing to do–to tell the landlord, rather than simply ratting them out. And so most of us would only report bed bugs in our homes if the landlord has been notified by us and is either doing nothing, or slow to take action, or taking action which is not solving the problem.

We have not had a lot of reports from readers who called 311–in fact I can remember a couple in hundreds and hundreds of readers who described their NYC bed bug sagas on the site, the yahoo group, or the forums. This is merely one reason why I insist that NYC has far, far more bed bug cases than the “official” tally the city produces. The city is basing its sense of the scope of the city’s bed bug problem only on renters who call 311, which is why they report fewer than 4600 complaints and over 1100 actual cases in fiscal year 2005-2006. These figures leave out renters who complain to landlords directly (which I would venture is the vast majority), all tenants of NYCHA (public housing) buildings, who are supposed to call their building staff (not 311), all co-op and condo and other homeowners, and residents of hospitals, college dorms, in addition to hotels and hostels.

Leaving aside for a moment the need for tenants’ cooperation with treatment (which is vital), many tenants have landlords that do not do anything, take half-arsed steps (for example, inspecting and treating only the “complainer’s” unit), or hire PCOs who do not solve the problem (either because they don’t know what to do, or in many case because the landlord won’t authorize and pay them to do everything they need to, like come multiple times, or treat multiple units). And even when this is the case, and treatment does not occur or fails, it seems like most people still won’t follow up with 311. We hear that for many it’s due to fear of getting a bad reference when they next move (and let me tell you, at this point, they usually really want to move.)

I wish the city had some way of collecting data on infestations that could record every infestation. It need not be terribly complicated (for example, as Toronto did in 2003, they could require PCOs to disclose locations of all treated homes to the city). If this were implemented, we’d know how big the problem really is, and maybe the city would have to do more to help fight bed bugs. Ah, maybe that’s why the City of New York doesn’t want to know how many people really have bed bugs!

Anyway, what happens when you call 311 to report bed bugs?

I have obtained some reliable information on this.

When you call 311, the HPD will let the owner of the building know of the complaint and assign it a number.

An HPD inspector will come to your home.

S/he’ll check key areas where bed bugs may be hiding, but s/he won’t touch or remove any of your stuff. S/he may ask you to move things, lift cushions, blankets, etc.
If the home has evidence of a bed bug infestation, the inspector will issue a violation, but s/he won’t do this based on bites, on the basis that you may have been bitten elsewhere. They also cannot diagnose based on the smell (which is probably a good thing, since so few people claim to have smelled “the bed bug smell”).

The bed bug violation is based on Administrative Code section 27-2017 (which related to owner’s responsibility for keeping homes free of certain insects including bed bugs). The owner will have 30 days to correct the problem, and they have to certify that it’s been corrected two weeks after the 30 days are up. They may ask for 30 days more. (This is reasonable, since bed bugs usually take three or more treatments).

Here’s where it gets interesting: if there are several infested apartments in the building, HPD sends the violation to the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene (DOHMH), and DOHMH issues an “Order to Abate.” This orders the landlord to deal with the problem throughout the building.

I am really not sure what this means in practice, but it suggests that if you have bed bugs in NYC, and your landlord is not treating them swiftly, or thoroughly, then it might be in your interest to not only call 311, but ensure other infested tenants do too. It might be well worth your while to talk to others at length about bed bugs and the signs of them (besides bites, which many people with bed bugs apparently do not suffer from). Because if you are going the 311 route, and the inspectors find bed bugs in several units, the problem may well be addressed more thoroughly and more swiftly. I’d love to hear from people who networked with fellow tenants in this way.

I also have some concerns about the actual inspections. We have heard many stories of well-experienced PCOs who’d treated many bed bug cases, and still often find it challenging to locate bed bugs. Parakeets recently attended a bed bug conference where the story was shared that multiple experienced bed bug PCOs could not find the bed bugs they knew for a fact were in a particular room. Knowing that a careful inspection can take a lot of time (and might require the inspector to actually touch things himself or herself), I am concerned about how thoroughly HPD’s bed bug inspections are carried out.

I hope that the HPD is making sure its inspectors are being trained on subtle signs of bed bugs (like the “poppy seed” fecal specks, and tiny or larger blood spots on sheets–which can be a pinprick where you bled, or a bed bug sized one where a bug was squashed). This is important, since many people do not see bed bugs or do not see them often, no matter how many times they overturn their mattresses, part their sofa cushions, or fling back the sheets. It stands to reason that housing inspectors are probably trained to recognize the most obvious signs (as PCOs without bed bug experience doubtless are)–the classic fecal stains on a mattress, fecal stains on a headboard, actual bed bugs clinging to a mattress–the signs we see on websites in photos.

Click to see the host of University of Kentucky entomologist Michael Potter’s photo: the Purdue University page on bed bugs

Ask around on Bedbugger and you’ll find out that in so many cases, our mattresses did not look “like that.” Our sofas did not look “like that.” We don’t find insects hanging around in daylight and we don’t know why they’re called “wall lice” since we don’t see them scurrying or hanging around. Many do, but it is not the majority in my experience. We go to dermatologists because we don’t know we have bed bugs for a very long time. Those who are allergic are in many cases going to file a complaint long before signs are obvious or visible without a whole lot of searching.

I’d welcome your thoughts on the HPD process as described above. If you filed a complaint with 311, please tell us what happened. If you didn’t, tell us why not. Let’s make a statement here about what’s wrong with this system. Of course, if you feel like it worked for you, I’d love to know that too!

• FAQ: My landlord hired a PCO who comes twice a month, and we still have bed bugs
• New Yorkers: a real-life “I called 311 to report bed bugs” story
• Village Voice’s Runnin’ Scared blog on bed bugs
• Nashua, NH Health Officers on prowl for bed bugs

ShareThis

Unfortunately, as Geralda Miller of the Reno Gazette Journal reports, the advice being given to tenants is not great:

“They’re an indoor critter,” [Jeff Knight, Nevada State Entomologist] said. “Get rid of the mattress. Get rid of the infested bed frame and thoroughly treat everything else. Bedding has to get a hot wash and dry.”

Those were the instructions [Building Manager Rhonda] Mathews said she gave her tenants.

“Get rid of them or they’re not living here,” she said.

Mathews said she has spent more than $100 to treat each infested unit and the 10 surrounding ones.

Knight said it is important that pest control companies do a thorough job to get rid of the bugs.

The Washoe County Health Department gets “one or two” valid complaints of bed bugs a month. PCO treatment for bed bugs cost the building manager $100 per unit. I know the cost of living in Reno is lower than in NYC, Boston, or San Francisco, but this seems very low. I hope the PCO is trained to treat bed bugs specifically, which may not be the case in a place with very few cases.

If the state entomologist is really telling folks to simply throw away mattresses and frames, and wash bedding (what about all the other clothing and linens in the home?) then they may be seeing a lot more cases soon. Because others will pick up those discarded items. And because clothing and other items can harbor bed bugs, allowing them to continue breeding and spread further.

Across the country, in New Haven, Channel 3 reports that residents of 15 Housing Authority apartments have been relocated to a hotel while their apartments are “fumigated” and “decontaminated.” The terminology there may well relate more to common ideas about pest control practices (killing bugs = “fumigation”) rather than the actual techniques used.

I was very excited to read the following words:

[Channel 3 Eyewitness News Reporter Erika] Arias reported that the Housing Authority is taking the outbreak seriously. [Resident Alberta] Silverspoon said that as soon as she alerted the authority, immediate action was taken.

Quick and drastic action on the HA’s part seems good. But they need to be cautious now: there’s significant danger residents will have moved the bed bugs to the hotel, and they can certainly reinfest their homes when they move back in, so I hope the Housing Authority knows what it’s doing and takes some time to educate and provide necessary supplies (XL ziplocs, mattress and pillow covers, even laundry services for evacuated items) to make sure this doesn’t happen.

It makes me wonder, are hotels going to start asking if prospective customers are bed bug refugees?

The New Haven Register also covered this story. Here, we learn the building is called Crawford Manor, is on Park Avenue, and has 109 units (only 15 identified as infested).

However, this second article was more disturbing. It suggested housing officials were rushing to blame the infestation on one tenant:

Housing Authority Executive Director Jimmy Miller said Wednesday the problem began in a unit of a female tenant who is known to carry her belongings around in bags and owns a few cats. He did not identify the tenant. The city’s anti-blight Livable City Initiative Bureau is being asked to condemn the unit, he said.

“It’s a very serious thing and it’s quite an undertaking,” Miller said.

Miller, who has been running the agency for about 18 months, said this is the first occurrence during his tenure. He did not know of any others in recent history.

“It’s not something that would go unnoticed. You do get bites from them,” he said.

Actually, some claim that most people are not allergic and so do not react (in other words, they neither see bite marks nor experience any itching). Even if “most” is inaccurate, it’s certainly true of “many.” There’s a wide range of reactions from serious allergic reactions that land people in hospital, to dime-sized welts and severe itching, to what looks like mosquito bites, to tiny red dots, to nothing.

So if HA officials are basing their ideas of how bed bugs spread from one unit to another, or which units are infested, on whether people experience bites, their data is liable to be inaccurate. There will doubtless be bed bugs in other units, not reported, maybe not even noticed.

The housing authority was alerted when tenants from another unit detected the bugs and reported the problem.

Miller said the authority has not identified the cause of the outbreak, but officials believe the infestation spread as the female tenant moved bags around common areas or as visitors entered and left.

“They don’t usually travel person-to-person and they don’t normally travel more than 100 feet,” he said.

The housing authority first had to have the female tenant’s unit cleaned and her furniture will be destroyed.

Thirteen other tenants were housed temporarily in area hotels Tuesday night and about half were able to return to Crawford Manor Wednesday. Authority staff gave them meals and made sure everyone on medication stayed on their regimens.

Crawford Manor is a mixed-population development. Miller said it is going to cost the authority approximately $80 per unit to decontaminate the entire building. It was unclear Wednesday how much alternate lodging, meals and staff overtime would cost.

The tenant in the unit that set off the infestation was relocated from Brookside, one of several housing complexes on West Rock targeted for revitalization.

Miller said the authority will be implementing a policy for sterilizing tenant belongings before relocations occur.

“We’re on top of it,” he said.

Good to know they’re on top of it. (I’m impressed by the $80 per unit cost. But the city probably has a contract of some kind.)

I hope they also educate themselves and tenants about how bed bugs are picked up and spread. Because although bed bugs may not walk more than 100 feet, they will hitchhike on anyone: any tenant, visitor, or employee could have brought them in.

I am troubled by the way in which New Haven housing authorities want to pin the blame on an easy target: a woman who has cats and carries her stuff around in bags.

First, the fact the woman has “a few cats” is irrelevant: we can get bed bugs from the abandoned nests of bats, birds, and even rats, but they do not come from cats. If a human is present, they don’t even want to bite the cats. So I am not sure why people are obsessed with the woman’s cats, as if they were a factor. Presumably the cats living in a high-rise do not go out, so they did not pick up hitchhiking bed bugs and bring them in.

Second, it is clear that if someone did have bed bugs and carried their stuff around in bags, they’d have more chance of carrying bed bugs to more locations than a person who, for example, traveled light. But it really does not matter whether the “bags” are laptop cases, Prada bags, messenger bags, or shopping bags.

It is true that clutter allows bed bugs to easily hide and breed. But it does not cause them to appear.

This sounds to me like a witch hunt: “15 units are infested, one is the home of a woman who has a few cats and carries stuff around, therefore, let’s blame her.” It’s easy, but it’s not necessarily scientific. Even if her unit now has more bugs than any other unit, I am not sure it could be proven she brought bed bugs in, or that she was “bed bug ground zero.”

She may be the source in this building, she may not. But the real problem with pinning the blame on someone is that it makes others feel they’re off the hook. The truth is, whoever brought them into the building, caught them somewhere. It’s an epidemic. Maybe they caught them in New Haven, maybe they brought them in from a vacation, school, workplace, or hospital. The person who brings them into the building is not the cause. Moving them out does not prevent reinfestation. And they also implied that “tenant zero” was relocated there from another (presumably infested) HA building.

More to the point, did 15 people from this building just infest a local hotel? I’d like to know what precautions were taken to avoid that situation. This is the problem with the blame game: everyone who has bed bugs got them from someone else (unless they got them from a bat, a bird, or a rat). Who are you gonna blame?

We need public education, assistance for people in low-income housing (with supplies and treatment costs–besides the PCO), and prompt PCO treatment.
We need government awareness, better policies, funding, and willingness to act (New Haven got a lot of that right).
We need bed bug aggregate pheromone traps, more and better pesticides and other treatment methods (thermal, cryonite, etc.).
But we don’t need the pointless and inaccurate blame game.

• more on bed bugs in New Haven: they’re only using steam cleaning?!?
• New Haven housing officials confused: why can’t they get rid of these bed bugs?
• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Housing Authority vs. Bed Bugs
• Bed bugs bite in White Plains, NY public housing

ShareThis

On sale here!
Dr. Winston O. Buggy’s bed bug elixir.
This material will kill em, kill the eggs, shine your multi-colored hobnail boots, and it smells good too.
Sounds too good to be true?
Well, it is.

At the outset, we professionals felt that the materials that were available for general pest control to treat roaches, ants, etc., would work just fine for bed bugs. They hadn’t been around for a while so they should be easy to knock off. Well, as most of you can attest to, not so. Gentrol insect growth regulator was at first thought to be a long-term addition to the arsenal, but here too the buggers came out ahead in the long run. In fact, treatments for bed bugs are among the more complex ones, it is like treating for termites or the elimination of established urban rodent colonies. But it’s made even more problematic because of the bed bugs’ close proximity to people and their personal belongings. Since W. O. Buggy’s elixir is not available (and mind you it did not contain DDT), the question is what is available and where are we today in terms of bed bug control. There are several ways to attack this problem as well as several different types of materials. And it is important to understand that no one material, treatment or approach will do the whole job.

First question: why do you think you have bedbugs? Remember several things can appear like or cause “bites”: soaps, allergies, meds, mites, mosquitoes, fleas, heat, etc. At this point, you should conduct an inspection. You will need a flashlight, toothpick and magnifying glass. I recommend the Rim-Free Lighted 2x Magnifier from Radio Shack, primarily because the angle and LED hit the spot, great for furniture and other seams ($10). Open the door, turn on the light, then proceed to stick that toothpick everywhere it can go and examine these spots. High, low, behind and under moving back carpets checking between clothes turning over couches and beds all this has to be done. One spot of note in older apartment buildings are steam risers which are found in the bathroom usually next to the hamper.

Did you find anything? What is it? keep a sample in a pill case or some other escape-proof container in which it won’t get squished. If it is positively identified as a bed bug, try like the dickens to figure out how you got it. Because this will be an important barometer which can establish a time frame, important so as to avoid re-introduction, let you know if perhaps it’s a good time to get a new boy or girlfriend, and if its possibly time to rush to that suitcase stored in the closet which has bed bugs trapped inside since your last excursion and treat or discard it.

If it is identified as a bed bug you need to follow the mechanical steps of control; perhaps these were highlighted best by Dr. Potter in a recent Bedbugger post.

With that out of the way, you may and probably should go chemical. First off if a product is non-toxic, it means it doesn’t kill– so lets get rid of that word because we obviously want it to kill the little suckers. Soaps are for dirty bugs (and perhaps Jess) and you really have to coat them: fine for your garden aphids but for a cluttered home, I think not. Enzymes are good, they kill on contact as well as most products and they have a low toxicity to non-target organisms. It also allows for repeat applications, but remember they only kill what they contact. Same with some of the alcohol products such as SteriFab. Of course, here you can get an unwanted synergistic effect if you do the treatment by candle light (Don’t! It’s Flammable!) and alcohol stains, well actually removes the finish and bleaches.

Next we have the traditional chemical approach. With the exemption of a few specifically exempt status products, pesticides must be registered for use with the EPA and must have an EPA registration number on the label. The label itself is a legal document which will list the pests that the product can be used for and the manner in which it must be used. While no pesticide is completely safe (remember we are using it to kill things), the real danger is in the misuse. If a product such as Tempo WP is labeled to be mixed with a gallon of water and sprayed into cracks and crevices, the risks it presents are limited.. But if you take that same pack and pour it around or use it as a dust the inhalation hazard is significant. Unfortunately, it may even appear to be working at first because it may actually be repellent for a while but in the meantime you and possibly others are inhaling it. I have seen this practice repeated with flea powders and a whole range of products which when used improperly increase the chance of exposure, and hence the hazard.

So what is available? Well, as mentioned in my first piece, misguided legislation have forced many products out of the market. Some due to legitimate concerns, some due to a lack of true scientific evaluation and feel-good politics, and some because they simply could not afford to maintain registration due to increased requirements. A prime example of this is Ficam, a material which is used elsewhere with a degree of success, but here in the US is no more. The same in fact would have been true of Drione, one of the remaining effective dusts. Prior to the bed bug outbreak this product was due to go by the wayside simply because of economics, and now it is probably one of the good long-term materials when used properly in wall voids, outlet covers and cracks and crevices. For best results try applying it with a blush or other brush.

Now that summer is upon us, heat and humidity in some parts will cause an increase in bed bug activity. But in the world of control it is our friend, and the bed bugs’ enemy. While steaming is here and will continue to improve as more work is done, heat treatments of items and apartments will also increase as technology improves. The technology is here, it is just not cost-effective yet. Mattress covers specifically for bed bugs are also coming of age. They now come in different qualities. There are some decent heavy vinyl ones for under $30 and some more comfortable ones at $70 and up. I suggest you reinforce contact points such as bed frames with duct tape. With these covers you must remember to leave them on for a full year. While there are many improvised bed bug traps like the use of carpet tape and current glue traps, they are passive and you hope that the bed bug finds it and crawls into it as opposed to going under it, as they so love to do. Within the year, new traps will be coming out utilizing a synthesized aggregate pheromone. FYI, these are already used for a number of pests including roaches. And as time goes by newer and improved versions will come out but these will remain a monitoring tool and not a cure.

So perhaps the take-home message here is that to be successful you will have to use several materials and methods and use them in a systematic approach to get and stay bed bug-free. At this point, I would like to include a link and while you may not chose to, or be able to use the mentioned products and I’m not recommending you do, it does provide a good blue print for a control program.

Perhaps one of the most encouraging directions bed bug control has taken is in the area of education. I believe, along with others, that the increased informational flow in regard to bed bugs through both print and web media has played a significant role in reducing the time it takes many people to properly diagnose the cause of their problem. By reducing this time frame they end up treating the infestation early and are more likely to achieve lasting control quicker. It is also my opinion that this site is the best broad-based site that I know of, in part due to administration as well as a cadre of dedicated, intelligent folks.

• Bed bug trap on its way, finally
• Another bed bug trap in the works
• Dissolvable laundry bags!
• How can I catch a bed bug? How do I know I have bed bugs?

ShareThis

Nine-pound Nudie’s feet skitter across the concrete floor as she speeds by, keeping her tiny nose to the ground. She scurries around the perimeter of a bed, then hops on top.

“Find your B’s, find your B’s,” handler Jose “Pepe” Peruyero commands. Within seconds, she’s pawing furiously at a spot on the bed as if trying to dig through it.

She’s found her “B’s” — meaning bedbugs. She gets a handful of kibble, a hearty “Good girl!” from Peruyero and a kiss on her scruffy head.

Nudie is a bedbug-detecting Chinese crested terrier mix trained by Peruyero’s J&K Canine Academy in High Springs, part of a 3½-year collaboration with University of Florida entomologists.

They’ve worked together to gauge the accuracy of more than 17 termite-detecting dogs since 1998, but early next month will be the first time they’ve added bedbug-sniffing dogs like Nudie to the mix.

About 20 dogs will be tested for their termite- and bedbug-detecting accuracy during the Southeast Pest Management Conference May 6-9 on the UF campus. UF entomology graduate students run the tests.

Though the bed bug dogs are not a “silver bullet” for finding bed bugs, they can often find them where humans can’t easily do so:

“We’ve been working to try to make sure that there are quality dogs out there to detect termites, and now bedbugs,” said Phil Koehler, an entomology professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “Both those pests are very difficult to detect in structures.”For instance, he said, researchers have found as many as 15 bedbug nymphs in the slot of a drywall screw.

That’s the sort of stealth that makes bed bugs so hard to find. Humans need all the help we can get, so bring on the trained bed bug dogs, and bring on the tests of their efficacy.

Thanks to lmk for the tip!

• Abbey the Bed Bug Dog: news report
• Results of University of Florida tests on bed bug dog effectiveness are out
• How accurate are human bed bug inspectors, k9s?
• Consumers, before you hire one, find out what that bed bug dog can do!

ShareThis