KONA, HAWAII — Nov. 24, 2008 — Kama’aina Termite & Pest Control recently completed work at the largest structure ever to be fumigated for bed bugs: an upscale hotel in Kona, Hawaii. The 4.5 million-cubic-foot hotel had been plagued by bed bugs for several months with no acceptable control from topical applications.

Kama’aina used Vikane (TM), a.k.a. sulfuryl fluoride, and it took 16 workers and $100,000 in tarps, water snakes and clamps. It was not easy:

This was an extremely challenging fumigation,” Miske says. “The structure was massive, there was a strong wind coming off the coastline and we had to meet an extremely tight deadline. We had to take special safety precautions to keep our employees and the public safe.”

During the fumigation, safety officers were positioned around the structure to ensure worker safety. In addition, any fumigator going more than 10 feet off the ground to lay a tarp was required to wear a safety harness and retractable lanyard.

You can read more in PCT Online and do look at Kama’aina’s photos of enormous tented structures including King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel.

Thanks to Renee for the tip.

• Bed bugs appear in a Time article on Obama’s upcoming Hawaii trip
• Bed bugs at Hawai’i’s Halawa Correctional Facility
• San Francisco woman settles bed bug case out of court for $71K
• Bed bugs infest New Rochelle cell block and three police cars

ShareThis

Obama is also scheduled to hold a fundraiser at the posh Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki that could rake in more than $500,000, reaping the rewards of being the first presidential nominee to travel to Hawaii since Richard Nixon in 1960. There’s no word on where he might be staying during his visit, but he may want to avoid that particular hotel, which suffered a plague of bed bugs in April, according to the Pacific Business Journal.

This is a past story from Bedbugger about a woman who claimed to encounter bed bugs at a function at the Halekulani Hotel, and bring them home.

You may be interested to know that, unlike the head of the Tennessee Hotel and Lodging Association who was quoted here yesterday as calling bed bugs a “non-issue” in Tennessee hotels, the Hawai’i hotel industry group is admitting bed bugs are a problem in Hawai’i, and is taking steps to improve the situation.

According to this article in the Pacific Business Journal,

The state House approved a nonbinding resolution in 2006 that asked the Department of Health to work with the state’s tourism liaison and the Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association to raise awareness on dealing with bedbugs.

A symposium on dealing with bedbugs is in the works, said Murray Towill, president of the Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association.

Great news! I am glad to hear that government and industry are admitting there is a bed bug issue in Hawai’i, and working to address it together.

There’s no doubt in my mind that bed bugs are spreading in hotels in all fifty states. Hotel industry folks everywhere should be working on stopping the spread of bed bugs, not playing ostrich and hiding their heads in the sand.

• Tennessee Hotel and Lodging Association: “Bedbugs are really a non-issue”
• Hawaiian hotel is largest structure ever fumigated for bed bugs
• Farmington Days Inn treats for bed bugs; New Mexico’s laws still need attention
• Bed bugs in hotels: how to report (and check up on) bed bug infestations

ShareThis

Yumi Suh says she and several friends spent just over an hour at the veranda room at the Halekulani Hotel and returned home with much more than they arrived with.

But what really interested me was what Suh reports as the hotel’s insurance company’s perplexing response to her complaint.

Suh claims they did not deny there were bed bugs in the room Suh and her friends were socializing in. They simply did not define it as a bed bug “infestation.”

After discovering she brought bed bugs home,

Suh immediately informed the hotel and was eventually referred to its insurance company.

“When they called me they said although they did found bed bugs because the place was not infested yet — that they’re not liable,” she said.

What is an infestation?

Houghton Mifflin defines “to infest” as:

1. To inhabit or overrun in numbers or quantities large enough to be harmful, threatening, or obnoxious: rats infesting the sewers; streets that were infested with drugs.
2. To live as a parasite in or on: livestock that were infested with tapeworms.

Since even one bed bug can be “threatening, or obnoxious,” and even one will feed off of you, then by these definitions even a few bed bugs could be considered an infestation, in my opinion.

It stands to reason that the word might need to be defined differently whether one is talking about roaches, bed bugs, or flies.

Halekulani officials declined to comment because the case is still under investigation. But in a letter to Suh, an insurance investigator wrote:

An exterminator was called in the following day to inspect, based upon your report, who then did find a small scattering of bed bugs at only one table, to the lower section of the chair.

It went on to say:

After the treatment, several other chairs at this table were then found to have a very small amount of bugs at the lower section.

“One female can lay up to 500 eggs — and up to five a day — so you only need one to infest your whole house,” said Suh.

Several chairs each had “small scatterings” and “small amounts” of bed bugs.

Can some of our bed bug professionals tell us how they define “infestation”?

Suh allegedly brought bed bugs home from the hotel:

In the days that followed, more bites surfaced and more bedbugs.
“So when the Terminix guy came and we inspect the bed we found two of the bed bugs hiding in this corner,” said Suh. “It’s right there, there’s two of them. We’re going to I think just throw it away.”

Suh spent 600 dollars to treat one bedroom. She says as an acknowledgement for her notice the hotel made a “Good Will” offer of $250 dollars to her. The offer is a thank you and is not intended to be a claim payment. “They did not apologize for the inconveniences,” she said.

“Thank you” for taking our bed bugs?!

Bed bugs were allegedly found on the undersides of what sounds like at least three different chairs, so in my understanding, it would be hard to argue they just wandered out of a guest’s purse.

We definitely don’t have all the information here, but that sounds like an infestation to me.

• Hints from Bed Bug Helloise: Hollywood purse hook, anyone?
• Tennessee Hotel and Lodging Association: “Bedbugs are really a non-issue”
• upholstered lounge chair
• scaring British children; bed bugs and renter’s insurance; bed bug reality show

ShareThis

According to a corrections officer, the problem is so bad in staff controlled areas, there was even talk of closing down one of the modules at the facility.The officer, who wanted to remain anonymous, said this is a safety and health issue. [His] employees have filed complaints but little has been done. “I observed one of the staff chairs being taken down to be disposed of in the industrial area — which was infested with mites or bed bugs,” he said.The long-time corrections officer said employees alerted prison officials when the bugs first surfaced last fall. “They came in and had people spray the staff area and obviously it hadn’t worked,” he said.      

Sounds like a “spray and pray.” For pesticides to work, you must first remove bed bugs and thoroughly clean bed bug-infested items, identifying harborages for treatment.

You can’t just spray one area where bed bugs were seen and hope for the best. Adjacent rooms on the same and other floors must be carefully inspected, at the very least.

The spokeswoman from the Department of Public Safety says officials have received four reports of bed bugs in staff controlled areas since last September, and each time the administration immediately contacted a professional exterminating company to address the problem area.      

Well, that does not sound so good. You can’t simply respond to individual bed bug complaints with targeted spraying in the “problem area”. If bed bugs have been found four separate times in the last six months, then pest control operators are going to need to carefully search and probably treat a much larger area, if not the whole facility. For every bed bug you see, many more are likely present. And they are biting, whether or not anyone notices.

Furthermore, you can’t just treat once.  Treatments need to be repeated at approximately 2-week intervals until bed bugs and their signs are all gone (and this typically takes three or more careful, thorough treatments of the entire infested area–often an entire home or workplace).  

Employees and inmates need to be alerted about the problem so that those noticing insects or skin problems will come forward. Of the administration’s response so far, in treating each time someone complains, 

The officer says that’s not enough. “If it affected inmates the state would be looking at legal issues. A few officers from what I was told have filed for worker’s comp.”      

I found this interesting, since we haven’t heard of anyone filing for worker’s compensation based on bed bugs in the workplace.

I also would not be at all surprised if inmates also had bed bugs in their cells or other areas.

The officer says employees fear they have become carriers of the bugs.”Concerns are raised from employees that are afraid to taking them home to their families — their homes.” he said. “It’s kind of like being swept under the rug and not taken seriously.”      

While you can’t be a “carrier” of bed bugs per se, you can certainly transport them from work to home and vice versa, in clothing or in your bag. Anyone who suspects bed bugs at work should talk to their employers, who should then take serious action and get good, professional help.

• Bed bugs infest New Rochelle cell block and three police cars
• Covington, Kentucky IRS building infested with bed bugs
• Bed Bugs in Hampton Roads, Virginia hotels
• NYC office of Very Important International Law Firm has bed bugs

ShareThis

• “Bombs don’t work on bed bugs.” Citation, anyone?
• Richard Fagerlund knows how to kill bed bugs in one visit
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Bed bugs in Norwood Apartments, Washington D.C., say tenants

ShareThis

• Bed bugs on the rise in Detroit
• everyone should watch this bed bug video
• Bed Bugs in Hampton Roads, Virginia hotels
• Dissolvable laundry bags!

ShareThis