Kells is at least one of the entomologists working on making an effective bed bug trap.

Alas, “we’re quite a distance off” from a monitoring trap, Kells said.

Eventually, it will be a wonderful invention.

It was interesting to hear how Kells got into bed bug research:

Kells first encountered a bedbug in about 2000 while working in the pest-control industry in Canada.

He dipped it into insecticide. The beast lived for four days and laid eggs.

“At that point, I knew we were in trouble,” he said.

Kells decided to study the insects further in an academic setting. He came to the University of Minnesota 3 1/2 years ago and set up a lab devoted to bedbug research.

About 2,000 bedbugs live there, housed in jars, where they crawl around pieces of filter paper that vibrate and twitch with their constant motion.

They eat Red Cross-donated human blood that’s beyond the expiration date, heated to body temperature.

Kells built a special platform he calls a bedbug arena, where he can observe the behavior of individuals when exposed to stimuli like heat. Part of his research is funded by the Propane Education Research Council, which wants to know whether propane-heaters can be used to kill the insects.

Another set of experiments involves attaching bedbug antennae to tiny electrical probes to see what kind of chemical compounds the antennae are tuned to receive. This might help develop the lure — maybe the carbon dioxide that sleeping humans exhale or the fatty acids on our skin — for a bedbug monitoring trap.

I am trying to envision the little tiny electrodes on the little tiny antennae. I also was fascinated by the bed bugs eating expired Red Cross blood, since all the other times we’ve read about researchers feeding their own bed bug colonies (as Lou Sorkin does) or having their grad students do it. I suppose it would be difficult to support 2,000 bed bugs.

The article also talks about the differences between captive bed bug colonies, and “wild” bed bugs, and it cites Harold Harlan, former Army entomologist (and author of the Armed Forces bed bug guide), as the source of Kells’ colony:

Bedbugs are a lot more resistant to poisons than they used to be. It takes 1,200 times the amount of insecticide to kill recently captured bedbugs than it takes to kill individuals from bedbug colonies that have been in captivity for more than 30 years, Kells said.

That captive colony was maintained by Harlan, who collected about 600 individuals from a barracks at Fort Dix, N.J., in the early 1970s. They were a novelty at the time, Harlan said. Over the years, he kept the colony alive in jars, letting it grow into the thousands, by allowing the bugs to feed on his legs.

“I’ve had them escape a few times in my house,” he said.

He had to leave the colony untended for a year when he was deployed in Vietnam and couldn’t find anyone willing to be a food source. When he came home, enough had survived to rebuild the population. Now his pets have become a resource for researchers.

I have a hunch this is where we got the information that bed bugs could survive, unfed, for a year. (We still aren’t sure where the “18 months” rule came from.)

Thanks to all the bed bug researchers, and universities, foundations and private companies that fund their work.

And thanks to the Pioneer Press for an informative article!

• The Wall Street Journal on “new” bed bug-fighting tactics
• Lou’s bed bug bite photos
• FAQ: I stayed somewhere that had bed bugs. What do I do to keep from taking them home?
• University of Florida tests bed bug dogs

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. . . a survey of 121 pest managers undertaken last year by Sydney entomologist Stephen Doggett found that, across Australia, bedbug infestations had risen by a dramatic 4500% since 1999, with the biggest rise in Victoria.

And, though Australia is the home of Doggett’s Bed Bug Code of Practice, and therefore many of us think of it as a place of enlightenment as far as recognizing the seriousness of bed bugs and the proper ways to deal with them.  Nevertheless, the problem is still growing there. For example,

Exopest director and entomologist Simon Dixon said his Melbourne-based company treated 46 commercial and domestic bedbug infestations in 2007, compared with 35 in 2006 and 10 in 2005.

Other exterminators have noticed a similar rise. Melbourne Pest Control director Mark Chell has fielded nine calls about the problem in the past two weeks. In 2007, he treated about 12 to 15 infestations a month; in 2006, it was only five a month.

You’re thinking 46 a year sounds not so bad. But a rise from 12-15 a month to 9 in the last two weeks seems like a rapid rise. And these are individual PCOs. Add them all together and it’s one big problem. I have been criticized in the past by at least one professional as being alarmist for referring to a bed bug “epidemic;” unfortunately, I still believe that critic was wrong. I’m going with medical entomologist Doggett’s assessment: it’s not just an epidemic, it’s a pandemic:

The bedbug problem is part of a worldwide pandemic, according to Mr Doggett, the author of the Australian code of practice for bedbugs infestations. The code was updated last year as a result of the rise in cases.

The insects have built a strong resistance to traditional pyrethroid insecticides, and pest controllers have to deploy almost 1000 times the concentration of insecticide used on other creepy crawlies, he said.

And “extreme infestations” have been noticed among socially disadvantaged groups, involving thousands to even tens of thousands of bugs in a single dwelling.

Mr Doggett said these occupants usually do not have the money to pay for bedbug control or sometimes are unaware of the bedbugs.

In one case, he was called to a guesthouse in Sydney where a man who suffered from cognitive difficulties was found to be living in a room infested with tens of thousands of bedbugs.

“He would have been losing a significant amount of blood each night (and) he was probably anaemic,” Mr Doggett said.

I hear these extreme stories from NYC PCOs and entomologists too.

If you read about the “extreme infestations” and think, “Poor guy. Well, I’d put a stop to it before it got that bad!” — think again: we’re all connected, and this serious case will lead to many more cases. We need to locate and stop infestations before they grow to this point. For the sake of that sufferer, and also that of everyone around him.

• bed bug life cycle photo
• Stephen L. Doggett’s A code of practice for the control of bed bug infestations in Australia (2nd Ed.)
• Sydney, Toronto, NYC: a tale of three bed bug cities
• New NYC DOHMH factsheets on bed bugs

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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?
• Bed bug dog Joni: fighting bed bugs in New Zealand and Australia
• Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher has some progressive ideas about bed bugs
• I asked New York’s Mayor Bloomberg what he is going to do about bedbugs

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Scientists say bedbugs bed down in chicken breeder houses | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Arkansas entomology professor C. Dayton Steelman, who collects laboratory samples, says bedbugs hide during the day but come out at night to feast in breeder houses where hens lay eggs for hatcheries.

“They’re usually in there by the thousands, maybe even millions, before they’re detected,” he says.

The scientists believe the breeder houses are “geographic epicenters” from which the bugs migrant to other parts of the country by traveling poultry workers and by other birds, such as swallows that nest in the houses.

The problem of detection makes sense. It’s hard for us to see bed bugs, so why not the people who take care of breeding chickens? And, of course, there’s no pushy chicken calling up the landlord saying, “I am being bitten by something! You must fix this!”

We started hearing about this research a few months ago, and it is very exciting. I’m still wondering if there’s a connection between live poultry houses in NYC as a contributing factor in the resurgence of bed bugs here (which hopelessnomo draws our attention to in the comments thread I just linked to).

The good news is there are implications about how to stem this problem:

The bugs aren’t as plentiful in houses that produce eggs sold in grocery stores because the chickens in those houses are kept in cages suspended over the floor and the bugs can’t jump that high.

Standard chicken houses with birds bound for processing plants also aren’t easy marks for bedbugs because the chickens cycle through quickly, and the houses are cleaned after each cycle.

Inaccessibility (”isolating the bed”) and cleaning, two methods humans use too.

• Bed bugs, chickens and DNA: a Q&A with Dr. James Austin
• Texas A and M researchers: chickens and bed bugs?
• “I can’t live they’re until they’re gone” — English woman says of bird bugs
• Consumers, before you hire one, find out what that bed bug dog can do!

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Here she tells the story, and asks a few questions of attorney Steven De Castro (who’s been involved with bed bug lawsuits) and local entomologist/ Bedbugger hero Lou Sorkin. She talks about the signs and symptoms of bed bugs, but not really any suggestions about what to do to avoid taking them home.

If you recall, in September 2006, NY1 covered the city council hearing in New York (on bed bugs and the reselling of mattresses). They illustrated the opening with a nice, big photo of a dust mite. The segment below occurred within six months of that incident (I don’t know exactly when, but it was uploaded to YouTube in February). Suffice it to say, they’ve come a long way in those six months.

(I am not sure how we missed this when it aired, but it’s new to us, and maybe to you too!)

If the embedded video won’t work for you, click here.

• Bed bugs. Are. Not. Dust Mites.
• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• Arctic Monkeys bitten by bed bugs
• bed bugs, news at 11

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

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

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

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

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

SEE SOMETHING (DISGUSTING), SAY SOMETHING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• NYC Bed Bug Task Force / City Council Update
• Update on New York State bed bug legislation (parental notification re: bed bugs in school)
• Finally, somebody does something: Cincinnati’s new Bed Bug Remediation Commission
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…

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WCPO.com’s Lynn Groud reported on the event last Monday. Hundreds of bed bug sufferers turned out. One speaker said:

“For many older adults, they are a 24-hour a day problem. Their homes are so infested they are visible during the day, crawling on the older adult, crawling on the walls,” said one speaker.

City, county and state leaders answered questions, acknowledging that bed bugs are multiplying and moving in to more and more homes at an alarming rate.

“Some of the bed bugs will go into the mattress, they will put their eggs into the mattress,” said Ken Hippner, of Command Pest Management. “So, we go out and kill what we can see – then go weeks or months later – and the eggs hatch and have new bed bugs emerging.”

But hiring an exterminator can cost hundreds of dollars – and many at the town meeting were hoping the city would offer more help.

“That’s what I want to know,” said Collins. “Are they gonna come out and do this free, because I can’t afford it and neither can these poor people.”

That’s what we want to know too!

WCPO reports that the Cincinnati Bed Bug Task Force “are planning an emergency meeting and hope to come back in December with more solutions.” Lets hope financial assistance for landlords and homeowners is at the top of the list.

Click to watch WCPO.com’s video or read the article.

However, one reader, entoman, apparently attended the event, and had this to say:

entoman said:

November 6th, 2007 at 10:19 am edit

The Bed Bug Town Hall meeting was very confusing. Obviously the people on the Bed Bug Task Force did not compare notes before they presented their information. The Commissioner of Cincinnati Health Department stated you do not need a professional, you need an integrated plan that would include the use of soap and water. Another official stated temperatures of 98 degees will kill all bed bugs. Even another stated that pesticides do not work. Hamilton County Health Director said to sleep with the lights on (this would prevent bed bugs from biting). He also said to use 90% isopropyl alcohol (there are legal issues with this in Ohio). The information pamphlets that were handed out contradicted all of this and said home remedies do not work.

The only positive thing is that Susan Jones from Ohio State is on the Task Force. Dr. Jones is known for her research with termites but is starting to get into bed bugs. Hopefully she will be the voice of reason.

As I said in the other thread, I really appreciate having the perspective of an actual attendee (and one who is, judging from his pseudonym and his comments, an entomologist). The recommendations quoted above are a reason why government officials need to have all their ducks in a row, when it comes to speaking to the public about bed bugs. Bed bug experts need to be involved in the planning, and officials need to get their story straight as far as what to recommend and what not to recommend. Having pamphlets that recommend one thing and speakers suggesting the opposite is not going to help attendees fight their bed bugs.

Public education around bed bugs is needed for consumers, but to make a difference, and avoid confusion, we have to start by educating the people who are working in government and social services.

• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana hold tri-state “Emergency Meeting” about bed bugs
• Finally, somebody does something: Cincinnati’s new Bed Bug Remediation Commission
• Cincinnati city/county combined bed bug task force drafts bed bug plan, not a moment too soon

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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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“There’s a lot of folks who don’t bother to call us. They’re embarrassed. The social connotation goes back to the early 1900s; they were associated with slummy places. And that’s not the case now,” said Michael Waldvogel, an entomologist with the N.C. Cooperative Extension. The bugs are a problem all over the country, experts say.

Waldvogel says he has gotten reports of bedbugs from across the state — some tied to vacationers bringing them home from beach houses or hotels.

Perhaps a few of them can also be tied to the reselling of used, unsanitized mattresses in Charlotte, N.C. This woman claimed to purchase a heavily infested bedroom suite from another N.C. retailer. Judging from these two stories alone, we can see how easily North Carolina, or any other state, would acquire a bed bug epidemic.

Getting back to the article,

… getting rid of [bed bugs] isn’t simple. Waldvogel advises hiring a skilled professional, in part because it’s important to consider carefully what chemicals to spray in living areas such as bedrooms.

“The person who treats your home should spend more time with a flashlight than a sprayer,” he said.

We’ve heard that advice before, but Bedbuggers tell us this PCO is a rare find indeed.

At Bayer Environmental Science in Research Triangle Park, entomologists are working to develop new techniques and make existing products more effective against bedbugs. Training is a big component of Bayer’s work, said Byron Reid, product development manager.

“There are thousands of pest control professionals out there who have never had to do the bedbug job,” he said. Bayer runs a training facility for pest control operators in Clayton, N.C., where it can re-create bedrooms and apartments to train in proper techniques.

If they want additional training grounds, maybe Advanced Hotel Services in Charlotte could just hand over a list of hotels who purchased mattresses from them while they had 600 unsanitized used hotel mattresses in stock. And then the hotels could hand over a list of people who stayed in the rooms in which those mattresses are used.

I bet some of them are suffering pretty badly right now and would not mind some PCOs coming in and learning bed bug-fighting techniques in their homes. Break out those flashlights, fellas!

• inspectors find 600 unsanitized mattresses at Charlotte, N.C. used furniture store
• Stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment in Charlotte: let’s start the blame game
• Mr. K, a North Carolina bed bug dog, in action
• Bed bugs: what’s really working?

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Dear Pennypacker Resident:

After reading the Crimson opinion piece from October 22, 2007, “I’ve
Got an Itch”, it seems worthwhile to review where things stand after
the incidents of skin complaints two weekends ago at Pennypacker.

At that time, three individuals came to university health services
(UHS) with similar symptoms. After being evaluated by a physician at
After Hours Urgent Care, the possibility of scabies was considered.
Discussion with proctors at Pennypacker revealed that there were at
least 5 or 6 students at Pennypacker with itching skin and rash, though
only three of them wished to be examined.

Given the symptoms, also under consideration was the possibility of bed
bugs, though the skin findings were not classic for this diagnosis. A
scraping from the skin of one student was done to look for mites, but
these were not seen. It’s important to note the presence of mites on a
skin scraping absolutely confirms the diagnosis of scabies; if they are
absent, though, the diagnosis is not excluded. Frequently, the
diagnosis of scabies is difficult to make, and it takes several
examinations of a patient over time before other possibilities are
excluded. This is because the rash associated with scabies can be
fairly non-specific, and the “burrows” are often not seen.

But the three students’ rashes had cleared up within three days, leading an entomologist to speculate that scabies was not to blame:

Four days later, Dr. Michael Alpert, an entomologist from the Harvard School of
Public Health came to Pennypacker and talked to three symptomatic
individuals and concluded that scabies was unlikely, given the rapid
clearing. He speculated that the causative bug could have been
mosquitoes, though he never saw the bites when they were present. The
physician who did see the bites, said that the appearance of the bites
was not consistent with mosquitoes, and that their locations on the skin
was more consistent with scabies. As is frequently the case with rashes,
the simple symptoms can lead to a variety of diagnosis, and it
is often difficult to tell, in the absence of definitive testing, which
one is correct.

This memo above to students was from Doctors Sohayla Gharib and Gregory Johnson of the Harvard University Health Service, who also had this to say,

If the diagnosis was not scabies, it is
possible that there was another insect involved, though it does not
appear to be bedbugs (because there are no ongoing symptoms and there
was no evidence for bed bugs when the pest control team evaluated the
dormitory), nor appear to be mosquitoes. Whatever the ultimate source,
it is now eradicated from Pennypacker thanks to your response and
cooperation.

Let’s all hope that Pennypacker is itch-free for some time to come.

Get the full story from IvyGate.

Also, here’s a Columbia University gossip blog, BWOG (put out by writers from the student magazine) alleging bed bugs are in Schapiro 12 (student housing at Columbia University):

According to Bwog,

Now that a few students have been bitten severely, Housing has finally admitted that there are bedbugs. Two rooms have been fumigated, one of them twice. Unfortunately, Housing still refuses to clean the hallway and carpet even though bedbugs can easily travel from one room to another. Housing, you’ve really let yourself go on this one…

• Johns Hopkins suggests SCRATCH method for diagnosing insect bites in kids
• Bed bugs at the College of New Jersey
• teaching doctors to diagnose bed bug bites
• FAQ: What are bed bugs? Do I have them? What else could be causing this?

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