He also discusses the upcoming PCT bed bug seminars where he will talk about the history of bed bug management (did you know that in the 1600s, people were talking about bed bug prevention?), new research about bed bugs, and innovations in bed bug management.

Gabcast! PCT Podcasts #53 - An Update on Bed Bugs from Dr. Mike Potter
Click the play button below to listen.

• New Yorkers: Lou Sorkin on the radio Tuesday at 10:40 am
• entomologists podcasting; bed bugs and disease; another bedbugged motel closed; Singapore, Hawai’i
• PCTOnline on its bed bug seminar last week
• Bed bugs being raised at Virginia Tech urban pest management labs

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Stern stresses the need for a residual placed down after Cryonite in order to deal with bed bugs not knocked down by the process; one person in the forums has claimed to have had multiple Cryonite treatments and a persistent infestation.

Some additional non-pesticide options not mentioned are Vikane gas and the careful and diligent use of a steamer (preferably a dry steamer, to avoid mold and fungus growth). Steam is a lot of work, and most effective in experienced hands, but can seriously reduce your bed bug population. Coupled with dusts and pesticides, it is a viable option.

Thanks to the anonymous Bedbugger who pointed us to this video.

Click here to watch the film.

• The iceman cometh.
• The Wall Street Journal on “new” bed bug-fighting tactics
• bed bugs on NPR again: “Bed bugs spiralling out of control all over” according to Richard Cooper
• Cooper Pest evaluates ozone treatments for bed bugs, finds current methods ineffective

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In this discussion, David Segal continues the argument he made in the Washington Post last week — that bed bug coverage is overblown in both its quantity and in its hyperbolic nature, when compared with the actual incidence of and difficulty of experiencing bed bugs.

He actually starts by making a valid point– that we need an academic study of how many bed bug cases there are in reality. I would agree with that in a New York minute. As Segal puts it:

. . . the problem with this story has always been that the stats on it are incredibly squishy. There’s just never been a good academic study that has explained exactly how bad the bed bugs really are.

Absolutely — not since Toronto (2003), anyway. And apparently never in New York. We need one ASAP.

However, I don’t agree with his assessment which follows:

David Segal: So every journalist and and almost every story that you see relies on one stat over and over again. And that is the number of calls to exterminators. And there’s a couple problems with this.

The first one is that it’s always tricky to get a sense of the scale of any problem from a party that has a financial interest if that problem gets worse. It creates at minimum the appearance of a conflict of interest.

This is a valid point. However, the stats most NYC journalists cite (and some of which which Segal cites) did not come from pest control operators but from the City of New York.

David Segal continues,

The other problem is that there are so many people who think that they have an infestation of bugs and are being eaten by bugs that psychologists have a name for it. They call it delusional parasitosis. In New York City there were two and a half thousand complaints to the housing authority in the last few years about bed bugs and the check out every one of them. And 500 turn out to be real so you have it seems two or three people who think they have a bed bug infestation and don’t, for every one that does.

Bob Garfield: So what you’re describing is literally a form of hysteria.

Whoa, Nellie! I have to cry foul here.

First of all, Segal cites NYC Housing Authority data here and in the Washington Post Article. This is itself a skewering of the statistics, since NYCHA only deals with infestations in public housing projects, with their own inspectors and their own pest control contractors. All other tenants’ infestations would be included in the data used by the Daily News — which cites much higher numbers of bed bug cases given by the NYC Housing and Preservation Department (NYCHPD) — the ones who take their stats from calls to 311 which lead to housing violations, based on HPD inspections. This agency reported approximately 6000 calls and over 2000 bed bug cases in the last fiscal year. Perhaps Segal does not understand the distinction between the NYCHA and NYCHPD data; he never mentions the latter. I assume, however, that he is not trying to mislead people (as he accuses the hyperbolic media of doing).

Anyone who looks into this issue for a while would realize that even the NYCHPD statistics are seriously flawed — they can only be considered to grossly underreport the actual incidence of bed bugs. I know this to be true: few New Yorkers call 311 to report their bed bugs as a housing violation. Many do not know to do so, and most who are aware of the option would not think of reporting their landlord either because everyone knows that when you have a problem in your apartment, you ask your landlord to fix it, or because (rightly or wrongly) they fear repercussions for doing so.

It is true that I know this only anecdotally from the hundreds and hundreds of NYC bed bug sufferers I have encountered, but I defy David Segal to prove otherwise. PCOs may certainly be overestimating the number of cases they treat, but I guarantee you the NYCHPD statistics grossly underestimate the size of the problem. They also leave out New York’s many co-op, condo, and house owners, who also get bed bugs but would never call 311 to report them.

Furthermore, there’s no evidence for Segal’s idea that more bed bug coverage = more false alarms, based on the NYCHPD data cited by the Daily News and other sources. As I wrote in my response to Segal’s Washington Post piece on 2/26,

Comparing fiscal year 2006 with fiscal year 2007, according to the stats above, the percentage of 311 complaints which are actual infestations verified by NYCHPD went up (from 25% in FY 2006 to 29% in FY 2007) — which may mean there were fewer false alarms in 2007 than 2006 (and/or, possibly, that there were more experienced inspectors, who were able to detect more infestations in the second year than the first).

Since there was undoubtedly more (and more hyperbolic) bed bug news coverage in fiscal year 2007 than FY 2006, it is not likely from this data that more news coverage correlates with more false alarms.

Finally, and most importantly, when “two or three people” call for a bed bug inspection and only one has bed bugs, it is not fair or accurate to assume that the others have delusional parasitosis, an actual medical condition. It is more likely, in my experience, that either: (a) they do not have bed bugs but some other likely explanation that is health- or pest-related (scabies, fleas, folliculitis, and very occasionally mites, also come to mind); (b) they do not have bed bugs but have heard of them, and perhaps have been exposed to them at a hotel or friend’s home, and are genuinely concerned they might have them; (c) they have bed bugs but the NYCHPD inspector does not find them. (We hear variations on all of these, every day at Bedbugger.)

Regarding scenario (c), PCOs and entomologists will tell you that bed bugs are difficult to detect, especially in their early stages. Yet bed bugs will bite from day one, and it is conceivable that at least some of these apparent “false alarms” are just undetected bed bug infestations.

I am sure it’s true that more news stories do lead to more people calling pest control operators for bed bug inspections, but it would be reasonable to assume that some of these people who read stories and call do also have bed bugs (and might not have realized this had they not seen a news report), while others will have false alarms.

Incidentally, University of Kentucky entomologist Michael Potter, who — as a tenured professor of entomology — will be making his salary whether he causes people become “hysterical” about bed bugs or not, has been cited as saying that up to 50% of people do not react to bed bug bites even if they are bitten. I am much more worried about all the people who have bed bugs and have no idea, and do not know to call for inspections, rather than those who wrongly suspect bed bugs and call.

Bob Garfield later asks Segal,

Have you gotten any kind of backlash over this piece at all? Have people who have actually been bitten by real live bed bugs called you and told you “how dare you!” or anything like that?

David Segal: A lot — and I’ve had a ton of email from people who hope that I get bed bugs, who have had bed bugs, who say “you’ve no idea what you’re talking about! It’s a total horror, and the more coverage about this the better.”

And I’m just waiting for the highly ironic infestation to begin in my own home.

I am one of those who would never wish bed bugs on anyone. However, I would concur that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Since David Segal lives in New York City, one of his friends or colleagues is bound to have an infestation any day now. Perhaps they’ll set him straight.

• Washington Post prints correction thanks to bed bug activist
• How bad are bed bugs in Toronto? Nobody knows for sure.
• Columbia Spectator on bed bugs, again with the HPD statistic soup
• Shout out to bedbuggers in San Francisco

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The article conveys the scope of the problem and the speed at which it seems to be spreading:

To get a full sense of the bedbug boom, ask any pest control expert. [Carlo] Panacci, for one, used to have a 1-800 number for his company, Cain Pest Control, but cancelled it because he was getting overwhelmed by cries for help from people in B.C., Newfoundland and everywhere in between. He now averages about eight to 10 bedbug inquiries a day. “I got so busy with bedbugs I gave up on raccoons and squirrels,” he says. Doug Wadlow, who runs Orkin Pest Control in Edmonton, says bedbug calls are up 300 per cent from 2004. Meanwhile, John Mitten, branch manager of Poulin’s Pest Control in Vancouver, says bedbugs will total 25 per cent of his firm’s work this year. That’s up from 13 per cent in ‘06. Some U.S. companies are getting as many as 50 bedbug calls a day. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see which way this is headed,” says Michael Potter, an entomology professor at the University of Kentucky and one of the world’s top bedbug researchers. Potter describes the spread of bedbugs as “a bit like a communicable disease.”

Although he acknowledges that bed bugs “don’t transmit disease,” the author nevertheless seems to get that bed bugs do have an adverse effect on mental health. Anecdotes convey the strain of a bed bug infestation, as well as the anxiety people feel even after the bed bugs are apparently gone–the fear they might still be there, the nervousness.

One study of pest control professionals found that 60 per cent of clients are more upset by the discovery of bedbugs than ro­­dents, termites or roaches. It’s no wonder bedbug support groups and message boards have popped up on­­line.

Indeed.

Intini also conveys the anxiety of professionals who fear bringing their work home:

Even pest control ex­­­­perts suffer the occasional anxiety attack. “A couple of times, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, felt some­­thing crawl on me, and just freaked out,” says Goldman. “It turned out to be my wife’s hair.”

Intini notes that “If anyone should be frightened of bedbugs, it’s those in the hotel business,” and describes some of the steps hotels are taking to avoid bed bugs, and to get rid of them.

A new statistic from Dr. Potter on bed bug-reactive people (ie those with itchy bite marks):

“I’ve been in places where the wife is getting slaughtered and the husband, who is sleeping in the same bed, doesn’t react at all,” says Potter. As much as half the population, he says, won’t show any signs.

We’ve seen statistics as high as 70% bandied about, but I’m willing to go with Potter’s 50%. (Of course, it’s hard to know: some who are non-reactive may not be bitten.)

And finally, somber words from Dr. Potter:

And, says Potter, “it doesn’t look like there is a silver-bullet bedbug eliminator coming down the pipe any time soon.”

We have heard this before, but wait, there’s more:

Even if one did, he says, the liability of spraying beds and couches with it would restrict its use. “Bedbugs live in all the places that we’ve been training the pest control industry in the last 20 years not to spray,” says Potter. “Back in the days of DDT, it was recommended practice to spray the pillows, the entire mattress. Nothing wasn’t dripping when you walked out.” Before then, bedbugs were a whole lot more common. “I’ve read diaries from the ’30s where they wrote about springtime bedbug cleaning,” says Potter. “They’d throw boiling water on the walls, pour oil into the crevices of the wood floors, sleep for two weeks and then start the process again. It was part of life.”

I found this helpful in elucidating why it isn’t just about bringing back a banned pesticide or creating a new one; the whole culture on pesticides has changed since we last had to deal with bed bugs in North America (on a large scale, anyway).

All in all, nothing terribly new, but lots of good soundbites, and all in all, a good consciousness-raising piece.

Nice work John Intini and Maclean’s!

Read the article here.

• FAQ: Are bedbugs a health issue?
• Berkshire Fringe show conveys “the neurosis, the exhaustion, the paranoia, the fascination” of bed bugs
• New PCT podcast with Dr. Michael Potter
• Bed bug dog Joni: fighting bed bugs in New Zealand and Australia

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First, Donna Freydkin published twin articles in USA Today on Tuesday: one about her personal experiences with bed bugs, and one about others’ experiences. There was also a sidebar alerting people to the dangers of curbside mattresses, the problems of foggers, and other important stuff. Especially interesting, since USA Today is distributed free in hotels around the USA, is this warning to travelers:

Be careful where you put your suitcase when you travel. “These guys are fantastic hitchhikers,” says the University of Maryland’s Michael Raupp. “If you have a luggage rack with metal racks, put your suitcase on that.”

Check behind a hotel headboard. That’s one of their favorite spots, Raupp says. Pull back the comforter and sheets and look for the fecal stains on the mattress seams and ticking. Shine a penlight behind the headboard and look for dark fecal stains.

There are some points in the article that are not fully explained and might mislead people (for example, drying for ten minutes on hot will not be enough if the item being dried is wet, an important bit of information if anyone is actually going to treat their clothing based on such a recommendation). Also, many pros recommend not getting rid of your mattress or box springs. Doing so when unnecessary is a good way to give your neighbors bed bugs; a good mattress encasement will usually be enough. However, despite these details, Ms. Freydkin did speak with Dr. Michael Potter, whose unofficial fan club is right here. And bed bug news in such a popular paper is always good.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Minnesota Star Tribune asks, “How safe are your kids at college?” and among the many other concerns addressed, bed bugs:

Look for evidence of bedbugs — fecal staining that resembles an accumulation or a scattering of pepper — around baseboards, along cracks and crevices and furniture in rooms where people rest, such as bedrooms or TV rooms.

Prevent infestation: Resist the temptation to scavenge mattresses, sofas or other furniture set out by curbs or behind stores, said [University of Minnesota Assistant Professor of Entomology Stephen Kells]. They can harbor bedbugs. Don’t encourage cockroaches. Keep counters clean and remove garbage regularly. Wipe surfaces and sweep floors frequently. Pick up papers, boxes and other clutter that gives cockroaches places to hide.

Ask about infestation: Ask the landlord the last time the place was evaluated for infestations and if the building is on a regular control and prevention program, said Kells. Remember, treating just one apartment for infestation is ineffective. The whole building needs treatment, combined with prevention tactics.

Good advice.

Finally, from the good-blog capital of Brooklyn, Greenpointers has posted an image of an ad that appeared on Craigslist Monday, in which current or former tenants of the Astral put up a bed bug warning to potential tenants.

The ad (NYC ad #469469878) reads:

This is a warning: two former tenants of the astral (the large beautiful building in greenpoint on the corner of java and franklin) have moved out due to a BEDBUG infestation, and it is rumored that the entire floor is moving out because of the same problem.

Make sure that you discuss this with your realtor/potential roomate before moving in!

This is a serious posting, not a prank–I thought it was something people should know before moving in, to protect themselves! I would want to know.

You can go to Greenpointers to see an image of the actual ad. (Clever bloggers: Craigslist usually removes these kinds of ads tout de suite.)

We’re not breaking the news on the Astral-bed bugs allegation. But Curbed, NewYorkShitty, and the BedBugBlog commenters have that covered. The building also has two entries on the Bed Bug Registry. Rumor has it Mae West once lived in the Astral.

• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Sunday, Buggy Sunday
• When I say the title of the blog, it makes me feel like Sean Connery
• Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”

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Times reporter Chris Ayres writes from Los Angeles,

Five decades after being declared officially dead, the most toe-curling of all America’s critters has returned, with a spate of bloodsucking attacks on unsuspecting victims as they sleep. The culprit is Cimex lectularius - otherwise known as the common bedbug.

“The most toe-curling of America’s critters?” As I understand it, bed bugs came to North America with the early European settlers.

Until recently it was known happily to Americans only from nursery rhymes. Not any more. Up to 5mm in length, wingless, nocturnal and covered in microscopic hairs, the bedbug was supposed to have been eliminated from the US by the pesticide DDT, which was later banned by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1972 because of the damage it caused to fish, birds and other wildlife.

But now the insect is back, and its sudden return has been proclaimed “one of the great mysteries of entomology”. Over recent months bedbugs have been turning up in hospitals, nursing homes, cinemas, dry cleaners, schools, public housing and even some well-to-do residential homes.

The article goes on to refer to Michael Potter’s words at the recent bed bug seminar in New York, Potter’s YouTube video, and Maya Rudolph’s lawsuit.

What about the lawsuit filed against the exclusive Mandarin Oriental in London, by a visiting businessman who was allegedly bitten extensively by bed bugs there?

Comments to the article from two Londoners and one London Pest Control Operator (David Cain, who is a participant in our forums) attest to the fact that bed bugs are indeed a serious problem in the UK. While the article does not claim bed bugs are not a problem in the UK, it also does not mention that they are.

Bedbugger.com’s cluster map (click here) shows the location of our readers in the UK, since June 2nd. We can assume our readers are people concerned about or seeking information about bed bugs. From what I can gather, most of our readers have, or recently had, bed bugs. As do the cluster maps of readers in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia (other places where people with bed bugs are most likely to log on to the internet and seek out our site about bed bugs that is primarily in English), our cluster map of the UK and Ireland shows bed bugs concentrated most heavily around cities. If you’re good at geography, you can imagine the city markers in these maps.

As I said in a comment which hasn’t appeared yet on the article’s site, London PCO David Cain is the only PCO I know of who specializes only in bed bugs. We hear from folks in the UK often. Rather than focusing on an exotic story of Americans being bitten by bed bugs and suing each other left and right (cue eye rolling and comments about silly Yanks), the Times should be paying more attention to its own bed bug epidemic which, while not reported on very often, seems to be significant and causing much genuine local distress.

There has been some coverage by the Oxford Mail, Norwich Evening News (original article no longer available), the BBC, the BBC again, thisislondon.co.uk, and this one about lorry [truck] drivers allegedly catching bed bugs on ferries between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

And, from the “Misguided Attempts to Solve Problem” file, let’s not forget this favorite from South London News online: “Bedbugs forced me to kip [sleep] in a cardboard box.”

It is not surprising that many of those articles on bed bugs in the UK talk about bed bugs as a “foreign” problem–something you might bring home from your summer holidays in (as in this example from an earlier Times column) Australia. Well, they are–in the UK as well as the US. But it is also very likely you got them from your neighbo(u)rs, and that they were born and bred close to your home.

Domestic or imported, bed bugs suck.

It seems to be a trusim about bed bug journalism: everyone thinks the bed bug problem is really bad somewhere else.

• The NYTimes is back on the bed bugs story
• Are you in the UK? Got bed bugs? Or have you had bed bugs?
• In London? Got bed bugs (or think you do)?
• the hotel industry lies: bed bugs in hotels as rare as Asian flu (i.e. Bird flu)

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“If there is a classic example of why you don’t eliminate entire classes of pesticides,” Potter said, “bed bugs are it. We’re in a heap of trouble in terms of the products we have available to fight this pest,” citing several classes of chemistry that are no longer available (e.g., organophosphates, carbamates, etc.) and the growing threat of pyrethroid resistance. As a result, he said, “I don’t see how this problem is going to get better. I think it’s going to get chaotic. This is the most challenging pest I’ve encountered in my career. We’re in big trouble.”

Also of note, Potter’s discussion of pesticides used for bed bugs, historically, and now. A lot of this we know, but probably not in this detailed way:

Potter kicked off his 90-minute presentation with a brief history of bed bug control, pointing out that 30 to 50 percent of structures in much of pre-World War II Europe were infested with bed bugs, so it’s not a new problem. In those days, public health officials in both the United States and Europe used a range of chemicals to control the ubiquitous pest, including cyanide, mercury, benzene and kerosene, even going as far as to soak beds with “high test gasoline” as recommended in a 1926 U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin.

Fortunately, today’s treatment techniques are much more targeted, not to mention environmentally sensitive, involving a range of options including heat treatments, vacuuming, steam treatments, fumigation, and cold, as well as the use of insect growth regulators, dusts and pesticide sprays. In addition, inspection dogs are being used to identify bed bug infestations in structures and mattress covers are growing in popularity among PCOs and the hospitality industry. In fact, a number of the aforementioned technologies were on display at the seminar, including representatives of McGlaughlin Gormley King, Residex, Steri-Fab, Hi-Tech Cleaning Systems, Zoecon Professional Products/Wellmark International, Whitmire Micro-Gen Research Laboratories, Mattres Safe, ThermaPure Heat, Protect-A-Bed, Temp-Air and Florida Canine Academy (BedBugDog).

It wouldn’t be a bed bug seminar without some marketing, eh?
Check it out!

• Thermal treatment for bed bugs: bake the little B@#$%^&s!
• The first “bed bug seminar” hit New York City last night
• New PCT podcast with Dr. Michael Potter
• Potter’s Studies on Suspend, Kicker, Phantom, Bedlam, Sterifab; new information about bed bug behavior

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Can I just be blunt here? I like it when reporters, like Earnest, talk to Dr. Michael Potter of the University of Kentucky. They often seem to know what is what.

Bedbugs hitchhike on humans or in luggage and burrow into bedding, books, sofas and just about any cozy place, even picture frames. Once they establish squatter’s rights, evicting them isn’t easy. Or cheap. Casting them out of the average house in Southern California can cost thousands of dollars and require multiple visits.

“The last customer we dealt with compared it to having her home destroyed by fire or flood,” said Sean Murray, manager of exterminator Orkin’s branch in Pasadena.

Thank you for skipping the BS about bed bugs not being a real health concern. Would you like your home destroyed by fire or flood?

Okay, reader, that may sound extreme. But consider this: floods and fires, like bed bug infestations, come in all sizes. None is a cake walk.

[Consider the example of one] West Hollywood teacher. She had just outfitted her apartment with a new bed, sofa and window treatments when a mysterious rash blanketed her body, sparing only her face, hands and feet. Her students took note. “It was like, ‘Miss, you’re scratching again,’ ” she said. “It was just such a nightmare.”

Doctors were stumped by her condition, which continued to worsen. When she noticed fluid settling in her ankles and at the back of her neck, she went to a hospital emergency room, where she got relief for her symptoms in the form of a cream that she slathered all over her body, including under her fingernails.

It took “divine intervention” — actually, the Internet — to pinpoint the cause. She clicked on “bedbugs” and raced to inspect her bed, first finding black marks on the mattress, then the bugs themselves. She tossed out her down pillow, sheets and every blanket.

Fluid settling in her ankles, wow, that sounds almost like a health condition, prompted by a bed bug allergy!

Another woman, in Pasadena, fought bed bugs for a while and then eventually moved because of them:

There wasn’t much to pack. She had thrown out beds, dressers, clothes, shoes, an alarm clock, a television set and five boxes of books. Stuff that was too precious to dump went into storage to give bugs time to die.

“The losses are astronomical,” the woman said. Worse yet was the psychological toll. “I didn’t sleep for five weeks. I don’t believe I’ll ever be the same.”

Now she’s a bedbug expert, having given herself a crash course on insects she considers “biblical.” It particularly creeps her out that they like to stay close to their hosts.

“Host is the word,” she said, drawing it out. “They are parasites.”

Information, typical stories, and not one single word trying to diminish the economic, emotional, psychological — or even “health”– impact of bed bugs. This article, I like.

• bed bugs in Greenpoint (NYC), Stamford (CT), Glenwood Springs (CO), and the Internets (.com)
• Burned by bed bugs? A cool vacation idea…
• Booklice vs. bed bug nymphs
• Hotel Pennsylvania Settles Bedbug Suits for Nearly $100,000 | The New York Observer

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