Which brought us to the host, developer Donald Trump. “The building is going to be something the likes of which has never been done before,” he said of the soaring, sailboat-style glass tower, which recalled to this reporter the Cooper Square Hotel now looming over the Bowery.

Donald Trump Jr., meanwhile, suggested the posh accommodations would be “very comparable to the best you have in New York, and vice versa.”

Any fear of bedbugs in Dubai? (See The Observer’s Summer Phobias report on page C1.)

“Everything’s brand new out there, so I’m sure they don’t have bedbugs,” his lovely wife, Vanessa, interjected.

“Most of it didn’t exist five years ago, so there’s probably not too much of an issue with bedbugs—and certainly not the places we’re staying,” the younger Mr. Trump said.

“No, you won’t have any—I promise,” Trump père said with a wink.

Phew!

They probably don’t have any right now, if the place is brand new. But then people move in and in time, even in the poshest environment, someone is going to bring in a bed bug.

As for the future, hopefully Mr. Trump has his bed bug prevention and management plan ducks in a row.

Meanwhile, over in the Culture section of the same issue:

Among NewYorkers’ summer phobias such as public urination, lightning, and bolting carriage horses, the Observer identifies a fear of picking up bed bugs:

Speaking of Duane Reade, my girlfriend and I were there on a recent Saturday afternoon, buying a can of Pronto bedbug-killing spray. We’d just scored a couple of end tables at a sidewalk sale, and despite the fact the sellers lived in an immaculate brownstone, we couldn’t help shake the thought that any secondhand goods purchased in or around New York might be a vessel for those tiny, blood-sucking vermin that have induced psychological terror across the five boroughs.

How did it get to the point where some of us can’t even go to a flea market without worrying that it might have, well, actual fleas?

Um, well, maybe because it’s now true that they might have bed bugs!

Picking up bed bugs in an end table from a Park Slope stoop sale is not an irrational fear, and has got to be much more likely than being run down by a runaway horse in Central Park.

(If it were not so, you would be reading horsecarnage.com).

The article goes on to try and reassure us with the latest HPD statistics:

According to Neill Coleman, a spokesman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, it’s hard to assess the true threat. He said there’s been an increase in the number of bedbug complaints and violations over the past several years (in fiscal year 2004, HPD had 537 complaints, versus 8,840 complaints and 4,243 violations so far in fiscal year 2008, records show), but he also noted that bedbugs make up only a fraction of the more than 500,000 violations the department issues each year.

There are over 16 times as many official bed bug complaints as there were four years ago, and nearly half result in violations. It seems like bed bug cases are multiplying fast.

Of course, for those who assume someone with bed bugs would call 311 to report them as a housing violation, those numbers might seem “manageable.” My own observations suggest the vast majority do not call 311.

But the Observer clearly thinks there’s no cause to adjust your behavior in order to avoid bed bugs.

Still, people like Emilia Rich, 28, of Greenpoint aren’t taking any chances. Her phobia started last year when two small red bumps appeared on her arm, and a co-worker suggested they could be from bedbugs (false alarm). Now she gets freaked out whenever she sees mattresses on the curb on garbage night, so much so that she walks to the other side of the street. As for furniture, she’s sticking with IKEA.

“Buying furniture at a stoop sale?” Ms. Rich said. “That’s not even an option!”

Smart thinking, Emilia.

You don’t have to live in a state of constant panic, but avoiding New York City stoop sales during the current bed bug crisis is probably a good idea.

Not having bed bugs when you think you do is good luck, but it hardly means you should not have some concerns about picking them up.

• Eliminating Bed Bug Phobia - yeah, right
• Hotel Pennsylvania Settles Bedbug Suits for Nearly $100,000 | The New York Observer
• Columbia Spectator on bed bugs, again with the HPD statistic soup
• Lexington, KY vs. New York, NY: a tale of two bedbugged cities

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Mangycur has a full report on last week’s bed bug seminar in Greenpoint.

• HPD seminar will be coming to Greenpoint– thanks to community lobbyists!
• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case
• HPD expands bed bug seminars
• Merry Christmas; gratitude; the blasted 55-day rule

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I was not able to be there, but Miss Heather has an excellent recap on the evening.

New York vs Bed Bugs members were there spreading word on how to get some change on the bed bug issue in NYC.

The presenter was Ed Brownbear, the only HPD educator who has actually had bed bugs.

Congratulations to those who helped organize this event (Miss Heather and Ann Kansfield) and to Lou Sorkin and the NY vs Bed Bugs crowd for being there!

If anyone who was there wants to share some details, they’d be very much welcomed.

• HPD seminar will be coming to Greenpoint– thanks to community lobbyists!
• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case
• Winter scene in Williamsburg, with curbside mattresses
• Bed bugs in the New York subway, going viral

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She also reminds us there’s a bed bug seminar coming up in Greenpoint next Tuesday.

Tuesday May 6, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

The Greenpoint Reformed Church
136 Milton Street
Broooklyn, NY 11222
RSVP (HPD): (212) 863-8830

To our knowledge, it’s the first HPD seminar that was specifically requested by residents of Greenpoint, namely rock stars Miss Heather and her friend, Pastor Ann Kansfield of the Greenpoint Reformed Church, the host of the event.

If you can help Miss Heather by posting flyers for Tuesday’s event in Greenpoint, Bushwick, Long Island City, or Williamsburg, please click the link above to volunteer.

Helpful Hopelessnomo reminds us in the forums about the Greenpoint event, and that

. . . there is another one in Williamsburg in June:

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Lindsay Park Building 4 Community Center
31 Leonard Street
Between Moore and Boerum Streets
RSVP (HPD): (212) 863-8830

Even if you’re already hooked up bedbug-information-wise, Hopelessnomo reminds us,

. . . you can encourage your friends and neighbors to attend these seminars so that they can get a quick overview. Plus I imagine that well-attended seminars also send a message and HPD scheduling these classes in more neighborhoods can only do good.

Yes indeed.

Wouldn’t it be great to show that HPD needs to do more bed bug seminars in more neighborhoods? What better way of showing this than packing the rafters of the first “by public demand” HPD bed bug seminar?

Finally, Crawledon rightly reminds Bedbuggers in the same thread that you can bring your questions about bed bugs to the event, and ask the speakers, and that New York vs. Bed Bugs will have a presence at the Greenpoint event.

New York vs. Bed Bugs is the first and only organization that we know of which is working to pressure NYC to do more to help stop the spread of bed bugs, and get help to those who need it.

Find out some simple ways you can help with that by going to the New York vs. Bed Bugs website, or talking to some of the founders at this event!

• HPD seminar will be coming to Greenpoint– thanks to community lobbyists!
• Winter scene in Williamsburg, with curbside mattresses
• Greenpoint HPD Bed Bug Seminar
• HPD expands bed bug seminars

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I say yes, especially if you live in Greenpoint.  Greenpointers and their Williamsburg neighbors are seriously bedbugged.

So, Miss Heather of newyorkshitty.com and her friend Ann Kansfield (the Co-Pastor of the Greenpoint Reformed Church) worked together and got HPD to agree to come to Greenpoint.  So far, this is the second HPD bed bug seminar to be announced in Brooklyn.  (The first to happen will be on 3/12, next Wednesday, in Bushwick.)

The Greenpoint bed bug seminar will be on May 6th from 6-8pm.  This announcement comes from Ann Kansfield, via Miss Heather’s blog, so I would not call HPD to sign up just yet.

But just so you know, the location will be:

Greenpoint Reform Church
136 Milton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(718) 383-5941

And if you want to thank Miss Heather for helping rid her ‘hood of crazy bed bugs, visit her blog and leave a comment.  There’s a request for people to put up flyers for the event in the neighborhood too, so if anyone local wants to vounteer, go and let Miss Heather know.

To thank Pastor Ann Kansfield for making this possible, Miss Heather says you can email her at pastor (at) greenpointchurch (dot) org.

I hope that others will consider lobbying for bed bug seminars in their neighborhoods, and help publicize those that are happening.   Thanks to Miss Heather and Ann Kansfield for their hard work!

• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case
• Greenpoint HPD Bed Bug Seminar
• Winter scene in Williamsburg, with curbside mattresses
• HPD expands bed bug seminars

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Well, he’s back. And it’s hard to believe, but he sounds even less charming than last time. He updates the world that his dorm bed bugs have come back, and he is now moving to a non-bed bug-infested apartment in Greenpoint.

(Dude, no bed bugs in Greenpoint?!? Maybe that old landlord has a bridge he wants to sell you next.)

He writes,

OK, so I HAVE bedbugs; what if you have herpes? - m4w - 29
Reply to: pers-502210415@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-12-07, 7:31PM EST

Yeah, the little buggers came back. Oh how I wish there were something like valtrek that you could use to keep them from biting, but the last group must have hatched a new batch of eggs with their dying breath (do bugs breathe?), deposited them in the cracks of the linoleum beneath my bed, and so here I am, arms covered in welts, looking like a fool while you look so elegant and kewl. But does that make me any less interesting, any less handsome, any less good in bed than the next guy you let have you? The odds are that this next guy has some crummy, there-for-life STD (herpes? hep-abcd?) that bug killer can’t get rid of, and he is going to give you something that insecticide won’t fix. So if you don’t have herpes, I am definitely the kind of man you should want to meet, even if I do have bedbugs. And by the way, I am out of the dorms soon enough. I’ve got a sweet deal from some old Polish dude on a nice sunny apartment in Greenpoint, and I’m going to be moving in with a new bed and new bedding, sterilized clothing and not much else. My new place will be as clean as a whistle and bedbug free. So why not give me a second chance, stuck up hipster girl, and let me show more of the man whose blood bedbugs covet.

Again, I think there is something there between us worth pursuing, and we should not let talk of bedbugs or blisters get between us.

* Location: Williamsboard/Greenpoint
* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 502210415

What a difference ten days makes.

This may not actually be the same guy. In the first post, he spells valtrex correctly, but he botches it up in the second. And was he really a mutual fund manager living in SoHo per the first post, or a dorm-resident as per the second?

Or maybe it’s all a joke?  If so, it’s pretty lame.

You can see the original post until Cragislist pulls it like they did the other one. Or you can click the photo above to see my screenshot.

• only in Greenpoint: m. with bed bugs, 4 w. with “herpes”
• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case
• Bed bug news round-up: USA Today, Minnesota Star-Tribune, and the Astral in Greenpoint
• Bedbugger readers: multiplying faster than bedbugs?

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newyorkshitty.com » ‘Tis The Season: Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite!

miss heather of newyorkshitty.com shares a current photo of suspected bed bug refuse at the Astral Apartments in Greenpoint, and shares an article from exactly 121 years ago, decrying the need for “quality affordable housing”, free of vermin.

Glenwood Springs Post Independent - Valley News (Colorado)

“Tom Cornwell, president of the Colorado Pest Control Association, will be speaking to representatives from hotels and motels, … and public and housing personnel from 11 a.m. to noon Friday, Dec. 7.” Public education is the key to beating bed bugs.

Stamford, CT: The Advocate - Flooding and failing health leave residents seeking help (flood evacuees get bed bugs in hotel)

“During the spring nor’easter, a Stamford senior housing complex was flooded, and residents were forced to move to a hotel temporarily. Upon returning home, residents discovered their building was infested with bed bugs.”

Some Crazy Garbage: Away, ye critters

A blogger’s first-hand account of a Pest Control Operator’s visit. Yes, google alerts sends me multiple such posts a day from various “newbites” around the world. But this one was entertaining to read, even as it conveyed the tale of woe you have come to expect.

• Bed bugs in Philadelphia’s Art Museum area high-rises
• Bed bugs at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?

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(These kinds of scenes just put me in a poetry kind of mood.)

Two Williamsburg mattress photos courtesy of Miss Heather, our Brooklyn native informant.

What’s the opposite of eye candy?

Miss Heather directs our attention to the luxury condos in the background. For itchy young urban professionals.

Or there’s this one, on North 11th Street, Williamsburg:

Okay, the futon on the far right looks like something peed on it. But the mattress second from right, in the bag, looks new.

Bucolic with the snow, no?
I thought so.

Mattress photos above courtesy of Miss Heather of newyorkshitty.com, who does not run a bed bug blog, though, being in Greenpoint (also next door to Williamsburg), the topic does come up again and again.

• HPD seminar will be coming to Greenpoint– thanks to community lobbyists!
• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case
• When I say the title of the blog, it makes me feel like Sean Connery
• Greenpoint HPD Bed Bug Seminar

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• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-11: Lexington, KY and Toronto, ON
• Allegations of bed bugs affect tourism, according to travel agent
• Bed bugs in casino and senior apartments in New Jersey, Binghamton University (again) and another dust mite photo in the news

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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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