In the last few years, bed bugs have been making their way into Providence homes, with little official response. But on Jan. 16, the Rhode Island Department of Health ran its first training session about how to handle the pesky critters. More than 100 people were in attendance, including landlords, students and employees at homeless shelters, according to Dhitinut Ratnapradipa, program manager for the Health Department and a Brown clinical assistant professor of community health.

The Health Department is organizing some meetings for people concerned and wanting to know more about the problem. But the health dept. does not provide pest control services.

Luckily, Brown student Samantha Marder was tuned in to the problem: how do poor people fight bed bugs, especially in Rhode Island, where if only one unit is infested, the tenant is responsible for treatment?

“It was clear that there was no concerted, organized group in Rhode Island that would be taking charge of this,” said Samantha Marder ‘09, who attended the training session.

Marder first heard about Providence’s problem with bed bugs over the summer when volunteering at Hasbro Children’s Hospital at Project HEALTH’s Family Help Desk, which assists low-income families with housing, food, employment and other issues affecting their health.

A volunteer at the Family Help Desk since her freshman year, Marder said until this past summer, the organization had encountered many of the problems that come with low-income housing, like cockroaches, rodents and lead poisoning - but not bed bugs.

Marder not only gets the problem, but she has a good idea how to help.

Marder has an idea for a “low-cost team of exterminators,” possibly staffed by student volunteers.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management runs a program in extermination that requires only 24 hours of training, Marder said.

Marder said she wants to create an organization that would cover the cost of extermination even if the tenant is not able to immediately pay. The group would wait to be reimbursed after finishing legal proceedings to hold the landlord accountable, recognizing that they might not ever be reimbursed, Marder said.

The problem with the Rhode Island policy on who pays for treatment is that if a unit is (apparently) the only one infested, the tenant may wait forever to treat. They may have no money, and they may simply wait until they’re not the only infested unit, so the landlord becomes responsible.

This isn’t good for the tenant, the neighbors, or the landlord, financially or otherwise. From a purely practical standpoint, it is a bad rule. Unfortunately, Rhode Island isn’t the only place with such a law. (Many areas of Canada, for example, have similar rules regarding tenants and pests.)

Marder said most families just move out - only for another family to move into the same, bed bug-infested housing.

“A lot of the landlords have little income themselves and want to help but can’t,” Marder said.

Marder’s idea is still in the thinking stage, but I think a non-profit bed bug pest control service is a great idea under the circumstances, assuming issues like liability can be sorted out.

It is unfortunate when non-profits have to provide services that (in my opinion, at least) the government should be ensuring people have access to, but in the short term, it helps solve a serious problem.

• New Britain, CT: how can building managers turn a good building bad? Ignore the bed bugs.
• Washington YWCA infested with bed bugs: more elderly, low-income residents being left to itch
• FAQ: My landlord hired a PCO who comes twice a month, and we still have bed bugs
• apartmentratings.com on bed bugs; realtor warns clients about bed bugs; tenant.net on bedbugs; more video from Cincinnati

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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.”

• New bed bug legislation: House Bill 565 from Ohio on bed bug treatment
• 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

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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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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!
• Bed Bug Helloise is shocked…
• The strange case of bed bugs in Bushwick
• What means this *TIPPING POINT*?

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Calvin Merritt’s problems at Hillrise Apartments are pretty simple.

“Mostly bugs, roaches and all that…”

The “all that” is bed bugs. Dead ones were easy to find under Calvin’s mattress, and piles of them behind the bed. When exterminators come in to spray here, their work’s easy to see, pesticide stains run down Calvin’s walls. Calvin pays 313 dollars a month for this one bedroom…what little furniture he had was mostly pitched, because it was infested.

Calvin Merritt, Resident: “I done lost everything got here, my couch, my other chairs, all the stuff I had was new, I had to get rid of all of that.”

At the other end of the hall, Jeanette Jessie doesn’t have any bedbugs, but she worries about them just the same.

Jeanette Jessie, Resident: “They just spread them from one end of the building to the other, this is crazy, get this place cleaned up, spray it at one time and get rid of this mess.”

It sounds a bit like the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in Washington DC, Halcyon House in Denver, and Warren Towers in East Moline, Illinois. Elderly people, disabled people, and anyone in low-income housing is being dealt a raw deal when it comes to getting rid of bed bugs. Let’s face it, bed bugs are expensive to treat. They’re also a rather sudden problem no one was expecting and no one has budgeted for.

Bed bugs are difficult to treat, too. Traditional treatments require multiple pest control visits at short intervals. Residents must prepare for treatment, which can be a lengthy process and costly too (especially for those on a fixed income).

However, make no mistake: non-aggressive treatment (treating only some of the infested units, treating at too-long intervals, or not coming as many times as needed), waiting for tenants who might be unaware they have bed bugs to report them, and not providing assistance with preparation costs and physical labor–all of these reactions from landlords and housing managers mean that bed bugs will be around longer, spread into more units, and cost much more to get rid of.

It just does not make sense on any practical level to not be aggressive, thorough, and quick to treat bed bugs in a building you are responsible for. It is simply a display of ignorance about the nature of this beast.

We can’t entirely blame landlords for this ignorance; none of us were expecting bed bugs. But we need to educate the public about the signs of bed bugs, and we need to educate professionals in all walks of life (from those who provide housing, to hospitality services, to health care, education, and on and on) about the need for a bed bug protocol which includes both proactive searching for signs of bed bugs, and swift reactions to any bed bug signs or sightings.

Too many people seem to be hoping they’ll just go away. Good luck with that. In the meantime:

Channel 12 reports,

Officials from the Cincinnati Health Department tell us they’ll soon be taking a closer look at conditions in the apartments.

I love the Cincinnati Health Department. But you knew that.

• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Cincinnati fights bed bugs, declares some success
• Cincinnati: “best weapon against bed bugs is … education”
• Bed bugs in a senior apartment building in San Diego

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They’ve started a bed bug hotline for “tips and information,” and people are asked to completely encase infested items in plastic before disposing of them. Residents can call to have infested items picked up curbside by a dedicated sanitation crew that knows what they’re picking up.

Dale Grigsby, Cincinnati Health Department: “Get the stuff as clean as you can, cracks and crevices of the mattresses and box springs, the best thing you can do is wrap them, completely encase them in some sort of a plastic, zippered liner, bed bugs can’t feed if they can’t get out, and that’s where they harbor.”

I note that even though Cincinnati officials remind us that bed bugs do not spread disease, the Cincinnati Health Department is a key player in this campaign.

Residents are also being warned about the dangers of used and rented furniture.

And one woman’s story reminds us how easily bed bugs may travel home with us. Pamela Mackey believes she got them from a hospital where she spent two days at her husband’s bedside; apparently, it came home in a sealed envelope:

After staying by her husbands bedside for a few days at University Hospital recently, Pamela Mackey says she returned home, and opened the admissions packet to find something she didn’t want to see.

Pamela Mackey, Bond Hill: “Took out a letter and unbeknownst to me there was a little critter…and my dismay I crushed this little critter and blood everywhere.”

Mackey says the critter was a bedbug, and while she contacted the hospital to tell them she’s still…

“Angry because I had brought something into my home that previously had not occupied my space.”

Click to view the video. For anyone in Cincinnati who’s reading this, you probably know more than we do! But just in case, the bed bug hotline for Cincinnati residents only is (513) 591-6000. (If you’re not in Cincinnati, please don’t use that number. Seek the services of a qualified PCO, read our FAQs, and come to the forum if you have questions!)

I am very impressed with the way the government in Cincinnati is trying to work on this. I seriously hope that the news reports will focus on treatment options, as well as furniture disposal, which seems to be a major focus. It is essential to get a hold on bed bug refuse in order to halt the spread. However, good bed bug treatment, from experienced PCOs who know bed bugs, is also essential. It’s important that people know how to find a good PCO, and also know about the dangers of self-treating this difficult pest situation. Other tips might also help Cincinnati residents solve their bed bug issues more swiftly.

Cincinnati is still the only city in the US that is taking action on such a large scale. And there is still so much more that can be done. Mayor Bloomberg, are you listening? I’ll bet you a bucket of diatomaceous earth that New York City’s got more bed bugs per capita than Cincinnati. It’s a bet I hate to win, but I think my odds are good. Why are we waiting, New Yorkers?

• Bed bugs taking over Wales too; hospitals and bed bugs
• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Cincinnati: awareness spreading, funds needed to fight bed bugs
• More from Cincinnati: senior housing complex

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“Bed bugs,” said Diann Waters, bed bugs in home. “All over my baby.”

Diann Waters may tell her son, “don’t let the bed bugs bite” before he goes to sleep, but it looks like they did anyways.

“He done scratched them and stuff. They from bed bugs.”

Waters lives in Over-the-Rhine. Recently, she spotted insects on her furniture.

“First thing that came to my mind was that I got to get it out of my house,” said Waters. “I had to throw my furniture away. My daughter seen a bug and I figured that’s what it was, but it had eggs all the way around the lining of my furniture.”

Waters isn’t alone. Neighbors say a woman threw out a mattress and rug because it was infested.

Hopefully now the people of Cincinnati will be getting some real help. The article also hints about some of the alliances forming in the fight against bed bugs:

Carles Tassell is involved with an apartment association that’s joining forces with the city to form a task force to fight the pests.

“Bed bugs don’t care what race you are, how much money you make,” said Charles Tassell, Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Association. ” They care that you’re human. They are equal opportunity pests.”

I was curious about that group, so I googled them. Turns out, they are a trade association of apartment buiding owners and managers, and developers in the multi-family housing industry.

(Was that a pig with wings that just flew overhead?)

Yes, not only did the Cincinnati public health official declare bed bugs a public health issue, but the multi-family housing landlords’ trade group is signed on to fight bed bugs. While all this seems like a logical, obvious step, on the one hand, you have to recall that elsewhere in the country, Mayors are turning a blind eye to bed bugs and landlords are trying to discuss ways to avoid paying for treatment. Smart landlords will understand that beating bed bugs and halting their spread helps business. And turning a blind eye is disastrous.

Since this group is part of a national one for owners and developers of multi-unit dwellings, perhaps other cities may follow suit.

The news video suggests people tossing out bed bug-infested furniture put a sign on it. While it’s true that this can help, it is not as effective as destroying the item. Taking a box-cutter and slashing sofas and mattresses, is one way to make sure no one uses the item. If you are tossing out a piece of furniture like a dresser or desk, Bedbugger S. suggested removing one part to the garbage pile at a time, until each piece is carted off. (So people will find, for example, a table leg, rather than a useful table.) This will work if you are not trying to get rid of items all in one day.

But remember: though articles and videos like this portray it as the normal response to bed bugs, tossing things out is not usually a great solution: in most cases, it won’t get rid of bed bugs, and it also spreads them to your neighbors, meaning they come back. Instead, a good PCO can treat most furniture along with your home, and they’ll tell you if “tossing out” is needed, and how to do it safely.

The video also mentions that in addition to a furniture pickup hotline for infested refuse, the city is working on a system of “citations” for landlords who won’t treat the problem. Click to watch.

• This is bad: bed bugs crawling everywhere. Video at 11.
• Dayton and Middletown, Ohio: avoiding bed bugs is difficult
• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Cincinnati fights bed bugs, declares some success

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Yesterday, Joe Wessels of the Cincinnati Post reported that city officials were forming a commission to fight the problem:

The Bedbug Remediation Commission, a five-member panel of local health, social service and elected leaders, is in the process of forming and will try to find ways to better educate the public about how to combat and prevent bedbug infestations.

“It’s just crazy that we have that in our city in the 21st century,” said City Council Member Chris Monzel, who is working with West End state Rep. Dale Mallory to establish the panel. “We need to do whatever we (the city) can to eliminate this.”

That’s exactly what we think too–something must be done. Surely something can be done? And yet local, state, and federal governments have been so slow to take action.

What made Cincy’s politicians take note? According to Wessels,

Workers for the Council of Aging have refused to make home visits to some seniors’ residences because they are infested. The workers complained they were being bitten and unwittingly carrying the parasites back to their own homes.

Residents of a Race Street building plagued with bedbugs have taken to sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the structure to keep from being bitten while they rest. The pests are so thick in the building that Tuesday they were seen during the day, extremely rare for the nocturnal creatures.

“Bedbugs do not typically live outside,” said Erich Hardebeck, vice president of Covington-based Permakil Pest Control, who was called in by rehabbers of a neighboring building to see if the bugs had spread to it.

Cincinnati’s bed bug problem sounds bad, but the things that are happening there are happening everywhere that bed bugs are taking over.

What exactly are the city’s statistics on bed bugs?

Cincinnati Health Department officials said they had received 179 bedbug calls through July 20, including 28 from West Price Hill, 21 from East Price Hill, 21 from Westwood and 10 from South Fairmount. Calls have picked up recently from Over-the-Rhine and the West End.

There is plenty of evidence that NYC’s problem is every bit as bad, per capita, and possibly much, much worse. NYC says only around 1190 actual cases were identified by the housing department based on complaints to 311 in the period from Summer 2005-Summer 2006. It’s striking that no one has cited any statistics for the period from Summer 2006-2007; one can only imagine they are much worse. At the same time, as I’ve written many times before, Mara Altman, in her odious Village Voice story last December, cited the head of one local PCO who claimed to get 85 actual bed bug calls per day (at the end of 2006). Clearly, 311’s statistics are just the tip of the iceberg, as Cincinnati’s probably are too.

Cincinnati’s government officials are smart: they see things are bad, they see them getting progressively worse, and they’re going to get some folks together and work on it.

New York City’s City Council also has a “Bed Bug Task Force.” However, except for a hearing about the issue of reselling used mattresses, we have not seen any public discussion on this issue yet. Except for a fact sheet on the health department’s website, which tells people to clean and that they may need a PCO, NYC has not admitted that bed bugs are a problem, let alone a serious one. They certainly won’t admit it’s a public health problem.

Let’s compare with their counterparts in the Cincinnati-Hamilton County area:

“We believe strongly that the insect should not be allowed to crawl over children while they are sleeping,” said Chris Eddy, Hamilton County’s environmental health director. “We took the position two years ago that (bedbugs) are a public health crisis. We believe that we need to be able to use the nuisance complaint code to get rid of these.”

Bed bugs are a public health crisis? Darn right they are. But sadly, few other public health departments are making a statement like this. And they should be–talking about bed bugs, and taking action on bed bugs.

How did this happen in Cincinnati? Last month, there was a Town Hall Meeting. The Enquirer reports in another article that, in a very effective move, one woman apparently turned up carrying a bag of dead bed bugs from her apartment:

City Councilman Chris Monzel and State Rep. Dale Mallory, D-West End, are working on the issue after hearing at council’s Health Committee on Tuesday what Monzel called “heartbreaking” stories.

One woman, he said, brought a plastic bag of dead bugs to a town hall meeting last month about the problem.

After talking to an exterminator, representatives from area apartment associations and the Council on Aging of Southwest Ohio, Monzel said he decided to try to improve enforcement of city regulations or beef up ordinances to stress that the bugs have become a public health problem.

I am absolutely in love with Cincinnati City Council right now. They actually heard heartbreaking stories three weeks ago and they are doing something? Break out the vikane and the UHauls, kids, and let’s move over there: Cincinnati is a good town.

Hey, I love New York too, but it’s been a year since Caitlin Heller, Bugsinthehood, and several others spoke at a NYC City Council Hearing related to the bed bug issue (which was, sadly, officially only about the resale of mattresses issue). You bet your patootie they had some heartbreaking stories. Where’s my Bed Bug Remediation Commission? Where’s my admission that our city has a serious problem?

Could it be that NYC fears that to admit their problem publicly would mean a loss in tourism revenue? Is this really the only reason we aren’t seeing any action around here?

What is being done in Cincinnati? The Post makes it clear that public education is part of the plan. The Enquirer says the plans also include a hotline residents can call so that infested furniture is picked up quickly. The Bed Bug Remediation Commission also plans to “plan to work with second-hand stores to make sure they’re not reselling infested mattresses and furniture.” Above all else, improving enforcement of existing regulations, and “beefing up” ordinances where necessary, is exactly what is needed to help curb this problem. Bravo, Cincinnati!

Bed bugs are not going to go away overnight, but for goodness’ sake, do something.

• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• New York vs. Bed Bugs: NYC is the underdog!
• Cincinnati: awareness spreading, funds needed to fight bed bugs
• Last week’s Town Hall Meeting in Cincinnati

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A teacher (Sonya Johnstone) who was attending the conference saw what she thought were bed bugs in her bed. The next day, she met up with a colleague who had broken out in red welts.

The two compared notes about their rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn.

“I told her about my room, so we checked hers and sure enough, when we flipped up the mattress by the headboard, we saw a bunch scurry off,” Johnstone said, describing the area as sprinkled with black pepper-like feces.

“When you look at the granite counters in the hotel and how nice the room is, you would never expect to find these things here.”

And then a third conference-goer, staying 7 floors away in the same hotel, had what sound like serious bite reactions.

The women were on the hotel’s fourth floor, but a colleague from the 11th floor showed off tell-tale bite marks “all over his body — across his stomach and back,” Johnstone said.

The Hilton’s Saskatoon general manager Lynn Flury said there has been no confirmation the sightings by guests are indeed bed bugs.

“In one room there is something, but we are still waiting on a report,” she said, adding nothing was found in the complainants’ rooms. “It could be little black beetles that hide under flower pots have found their way in.”

Bed bugs also closely resemble wood ticks, she noted.

Little black beetles? I am sorry.

As far as I know, neither beetles nor wood ticks hang out in groups under mattresses.

“It’s a tricky thing. If it is (bed bugs) we will take aggressive steps, even if it means shutting down an entire floor to do it,” she said. “We take this very seriously.”

The hotel has a regular intensive cleaning process that involves using a black light to search for things not visible to the naked eye. At the same time, Flury said, “we don’t live in a perfect world.”

I know that the customer is not always right (truly, they’re not!) but when three hotel guests present with stories of bed bugs in the bed, and obvious welts, I would think the manager would spring into action.

And Sonya Johnstone knows a bit about bed bugs. In fact,

Johnstone is certain the crawlies were bed bugs. She recently watched a CBC Marketplace segment on the insect, she said, in which she learned to identify the flat, brownish-red bugs and where to find them.

Yes, I can hear the hotel manager’s eyes rolling into the top of her head, “You saw a news report, huh?”

It’s true that a little knowledge is often enough to make one look for bed bugs, but not always enough to help them identify them properly. But actually, the CBC video is highly educational. It’s also in-depth and 15 minutes long: there’s a lot of footage.

The more people see bed bugs of all life stages, in videos and in photos, the more apt they are to recognize them.
My sister-in-law found a bed bug in a store changing room after seeing the in-depth bed bug segment on Dateline. If you truly know what they look like, they don’t look like ticks, or flower pot beetles. But the key is, you must know what they look like.

My advice to you, dear reader, is to circulate that CBC video. Watch it. Get your non-bedbugged friends to watch it, especially before they travel. Get your teenager going to camp or your kid going off to college to watch it. It shows how to inspect a bed for bed bugs. And it shows the effects of bed bugs, which will help your loved ones understand what you’re going through. The aim is not to freak people out, but to educate. It used to be normal to check for bed bugs when sleeping away from home. Unfortunately, it should be the norm now too.

I firmly believe that if Sonya Johnstone, and you and I can learn to identify bed bugs from photos and video, and learn how to find them in a hotel room, then so can hotel staff, restaurant staff, day care staff, people working in travel, and so on. Everyone can and should learn about bed bugs and the signs of bed bugs. And yes, it is true you can be bitten and still have lots of trouble finding bed bugs. But in most cases where people suffer significant bites in hotel rooms, they later inspect and find bed bugs or clear signs.

And hotel chains, take note: customers are not idiots. Yes, sometimes people think they have bed bugs and don’t. But three guests, in three rooms, and on two widely separated floors, with similar stories? This is something to take seriously. I hope hotels realize that members of professional organizations do have sway over where their conferences are held.

• Bed bugs where you do expect to find them: Boston Globe on hotels hiring bed bug dogs
• Disney guests paid off to keep quiet about bed bugs
• HPD expands bed bug seminars
• Bed bug travel pracautions getting around

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