Hard evidence for a long human association turned up fairly recently, when British archaeologists excavating an ancient Egyptian village found the oldest bedbug on record: The fossilized fellow dated back about 3,500 years, to before the time of King Tut.

Bedbugs first turned up in print in ancient Greece and Rome. The Roman philosopher Pliny described the bugs in a book on natural history; Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote the pests into several plays.

Greek doctor Dioscorides found more practical uses for the critters. To heal a wound, he suggested mixing crushed bedbugs with tortoise blood. Whether or not such cures worked, they stuck around. More than 1,000 years later, some Chinese medical practitioners advised mixing crushed bedbugs with rice or lime and sesame oil to treat injuries.

This story doesn’t go much beyond mentioning how long people suffered from bed bugs before DDT was invented.

And then mentioning how we’re suffering again.

The bugs have surfaced in a new world in which they’ve spawned panic — and lawsuits. Parents have sued camps and schools, tenants have sued landlords, guests have sued hoteliers.

But there’s one group that hasn’t been complaining: exterminators, who, to an extent, owe their livelihood to the critters in the first place.

And that’s how it ends. That’s it.

Good luck, everyone!

Seriously, nothing really new here–we knew the ancients were getting their blood dined on nightly.

Actually, to their credit, many pest control industry folks don’t seem to be thrilled by the resurgence of bed bugs.

Many companies don’t want to deal with them (having plenty of other nasty creatures to deal with which are easily treated, and for which they can actually comfortably give warranties).

• ancient Bed bug tale, from the Fables of Bidpai
• Cincinnati: “best weapon against bed bugs is … education”
• How accurate are human bed bug inspectors, k9s?
• Bed bug infestations on the increase in Australia, says The Age

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Virtually eradicated. DDT. International travel. Baseboards. Yadda, yadda.

No. Not at all. Not yadda yadda.

Let’s consider the bedbug resurgence in one developed country.

In October of 1999 the BBC reported the “return of the bed bug” in the UK:

The bed bug is making its way back into domestic life throughout the UK.

The blood-sucking pest - commonly thought to have been eradicated at about the same time as Dickensian slums - is now being reported in increasing numbers of homes around the country.

Then in April 2000, a letter in the BMJ by microbiologists John Paul and Janice Bates: Is infestation with the common bedbug increasing? Dr. Paul and Dr. Bates were concerned about that possibility and noted the lack of bedbug awareness among doctors and the possible association with international travel:

From February to October 1999 specimens from four separate infestations were referred to [Brighton Public Health Laboratory Service]; this suggests that bedbugs are becoming more common.

Interestingly, in all four examples there was circumstantial evidence to suggest the transfer of bugs in luggage or furnishings.

There was an interesting reply by a retired public health physician, Dr. JK Anand, suggesting that the doctors ask the Environmental Health Officers for their infestations data.

Infestations data? Environmental Health Officers? (Isn’t the internet wonderful?)

Bed bugs in Britain:

Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius L.) still abound in some areas of the UK. The annual report of the Institution of Environmental Health Officers states that in the year April 1985-April 1986, 7771 premises in England and Wales were treated, and in 1986-1987, 6179 premises were treated for bed bugs. The Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland reported 43 bed bug infestations in 1985 and 20 in 1986. In the tax year 1987-1988, Belfast EHOs conducted 188 bed bug treatments.

At first, and second, glance this is fairly bewildering information. 7,771 bedbug cases in England and Wales in 1985-1986? That number sounds high, doesn’t it? Fourteen years before the Paul and Bates letter. Remember, in 2000 they were worried by specimens submitted to a single lab from four separate infestations.

We need context in order to understand this information about bedbugs in the UK. How is this possible? A decade before the purported start of the resurgence — according to the BBC again, in April 2004, under the headline “Bedbugs bounce back from oblivion,” more or less marking a red dot on 1995:

Since 1995 there has been an unexpected increase in reports of infestation in Britain, the US and other developed countries.

Clearly the large incidence of infestations in 1986 was forgotten by the late nineties. Were the majority of those infestations controlled? If so, how? Like everything to do with bedbugs, a great deal of mystery must be tolerated.

But, and this is finally the reason for this post, we can now point you to an article that begins to suggest the missing context and how little we know about the bedbug resurgence in the UK and, by extension, in developed countries, an article from January 1990 published in New Scientist, a truly eye-opening piece written by Fiona King. (I’m not sure how we’ve missed this article; perhaps it has not been available online until very recently. In any case, I hope to interest you in its treasures.)

For one thing, a breakdown of the 1985-1986 statistics:

The Institute of Environmental Health Officers found that local authorities carried out 7771 treatments for bedbugs in [1985-6]. Just over a quarter of these were in the North West - Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria - and 17 per cent were in Greater London. The Midlands and Northern Region - Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria - each accounted for one-tenth of the total, while the South West - Devon, Cornwall, Dorset - had the fewest treatments (0.3 per cent).

In Scotland the Royal Health Institute’s figures show that over half of the 41 treatments in 1987 were carried out in Edinburgh and Glasgow. This concentration of bedbugs in urban areas is also found in Northern Ireland, where in 1988 there were 186 treatments in Belfast compared with 7 in Londonderry and 2 in County Down.

About the data collection:

Hard facts about infestations are hard to come by. Information is usually based on the number of treatments carried out. In Britain, many companies dealing in pest control are unwilling to release statistics about which areas they have treated. The main source of information is the environmental health departments of local councils, but reporting is erratic and inspections irregular. Information about infestations is collected in different ways, and is often discontinuous because computerised databases were introduced at different times in different areas. It may also include data about other household pests such as cockroaches, ants or even mice, masking the problem of bedbugs.

And about the difficulties of inspections and the stigma of reporting an infestation:

Most environmental health departments are short of officers to carry out inspections. Usually a council becomes aware of an infestation only if someone complains - but people are often ashamed to admit that their homes are infested and they turn to the environmental health department only as a last resort when their own attempts to kill the bugs with household insecticides have failed. Many cases go undetected for years, until either the bites become unbearable or a relative or neighbour reports the problem.

There is much more. I highly recommend that you read it yourself.

The article is remarkable, among other reasons, for King’s writing about infestations in Africa and India and infestations in the UK virtually in the same breath, at one point comparing the number of bites that people living in “heavily infested premises” in North London and Natal could suffer. When she concludes that “we must find out what is the scale of the infestation” she is not writing about only one group of human beings on the earth.

But what about the United States you ask? Well, we should attempt to examine the history of infestations in the United States, a considerably more difficult project. No Environmental Health Officers tracking data, however imperfectly, here. Next time perhaps.

You may also be interested in the letters from New Scientist readers, here, here, and here. Also, don’t miss the interesting tidbit about Robert Usinger’s hemoglobin levels from feeding his bedbug colony from 1958 to 1964! Further recommended reading about bedbugs in the UK must, of course, include two articles by Clive Boase, both PDFs, which will load if you click here and here.

• bed bugs: incidence studies needed in NYC and elsewhere
• How bad are bed bugs in Toronto? Nobody knows for sure.
• Bed bugs at Berkeley will be treated with… say what?
• Washington Post prints correction thanks to bed bug activist

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• Pest Management Professional - Continued technological and educational advancement in pest detection, identification, treatment and control methods. | Web Exclusive | 10 Questions with Jerome GoddardTen Questions with Jerome Goddard (Pest Management Professional Podcast)–includes interesting discussion of whether bed bugs are potential transmitters of disease, or not. From 9/06, but new to me and maybe you too.

  (tags: interview audio bedbugs Dr.JeromeGoddard entomologist sept2006)

• PCTOnline.com :: Article :: [Focus On Public Health] Do Bed Bugs Carry Disease?Article from PCTOnline by Jerome Goddard (11/2003) on whether bed bugs spread disease.

  (tags: bedbugs disease health diseasevector Dr.JeromeGoddard PCTOnline)

• Pest Management Professional podcast | 10 Questions with Alvaro RomeroInterview with Univ. of Kentucky bed bug researcher / graduate student Alvaro Romero. From April 2007.

  (tags: podcast alvaroromero researcher)

• Pest Management Professional Podcast | 10 Questions with Rick CooperInterview with Rick Cooper of Cooper Pest, NJ–focusing on pesticide resistance. September 2007.

  (tags: rickcooper interview podcast sept2007)

• San Jose Mercury News - Bedbugs, electrical problems force evacuation of Ventura motel“A bedbug-infested low-rent Ventura motel was shut down by authorities, forcing poor families and disabled tenants to spend the Christmas season hunting for cheap lodging.” The 37-room Travelers Beach Inn hopes to reopen in a week.

  (tags: bedbugs hotelclosure ventura california travelersbeachinn motel code dec2007 2007 budgetmotel)

• Review of Judith McNeil’s The Girl with the Cardboard Port :: Sarah Chew, thestar.com.my“She recalled with humour the shock of discovering squat toilets, bed bugs, and corpse-eating rats…” From a review of an Australian woman’s memoir of life in 1950s/early 1960s Singapore.

  (tags: singapore bedbugs 1950s 1960s judithmcneil memoir dec2007 2007 bookreview)

• Rats: Hawaii’s first invasive species - The Molokai Times“In cities, rats are one of Hawaii’s biggest pest problems after ants and bed bugs, said Tim Lyons, director of the Hawaii Pest Control Association.” Bed bugs are #2? Not for long, I suspect.

  (tags: bedbugs hawai’i hawaii pests dec2007 2007 spread)

• bed bugs in Virginia Beach (again), Brown County, Ohio, and potential health risks
• New PCT podcast with Dr. Michael Potter
• Ventura County motel closure makes many families homeless at Christmas
• a bed bug story from Hawai’i; Fagerlund on aerosol bombs and pesticides

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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 at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?
• Surrey, B.C. public housing infested with bed bugs

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• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• bed bug news for 2007-11-15
• bed bugs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Cornell University dorms

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(The following is not really bed bug news, but a reminder of a time not long ago when encountering a bed bug in a place of business was a bit like finding a hair in your salad, but maybe more common.)

(These last two are not really bed bug stories, but they tell us something about how widely known bed bugs are becoming: they’re starting to mean something in popular parlance once again.)

• bed bugs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Cornell University dorms
• Bed bugs in casino and senior apartments in New Jersey, Binghamton University (again) and another dust mite photo in the news
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Bed bugs under discussion at university housing officers’ conference

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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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“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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Times reporter Chris Ayres writes from Los Angeles,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Domestic or imported, bed bugs suck.

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

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

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