Blogger Maud Newton notes that writer John Cheever was no stranger to Sneaky Simes, the bed bug. She directs our attention to this biography of Cheever, and notes that

At the end of 1939, Cheever returned from a summer job to the “‘grey light of New York apartments.’” Soon he was living on Bank Street “despite having to sleep in the bathtub to avoid bedbugs.”

When not in the tub, he passed the time “lying in bed between stories, smoking and scratching his bedbug bites,” and indulging “in idle reveries about the kind of bon vivant he saw himself becoming.” By September 1940, “the bedbugs had become ‘ravening’ and carpenters descended on the place and began ‘pulling things apart.’” So he set off to join his wife-to-be in New Hampshire.

Nor was this Cheever’s last experience with the plague, which was prevalent in Manhattan even after the war.

Read the rest at Maud Newton: Blog.Similar Posts:

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Bed bug

Originally uploaded by Francesca Tronchin

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This morning, a bit of history: the Post Office London Directory in two volumes, 1939, discovered at the New York Public Library. (Sorry for the graininess but let’s just say this was an accidental find — the camera phone was the only option.)

Note the advertisement around the edges: We Destroy Rats, Mice, Beetles, Moths, etc. on one side, a prominent picture of a bed bug on others.

The 1939 Post Office London Directory (apparently published by Kelly’s) in two volumes was the 1939 London “phone book.”  It tells us a few things:

• Bed bugs were big business: the company that could afford the most prominent advertising in London was a Bayswater (W1) pest control company.
• Bed bugs were a big problem in 1939: the only picture included in the ad is a really big bed bug.  Not a mouse, a rat, a beetle, a moth: the ad is primarily about bed bugs.
• This also tells us that: bed bugs were visually recognizable to all.

1939 was, of course, before DDT.

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I was poking around some historical items, for reasons which will soon become revealed to you, dear readers, when I found an interesting document from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation which outlines the history of DDT in Canada, the US (the three countries represented on the CEC) until 1997.  Click here to load a PDF of History of DDT in North America to 1997, from the CEC.

Please understand: we don’t think DDT is a solution for bed bugs now. Sure — despite being ecologically-minded and kind of nervous around pesticides in general — like many of you, my first reaction to bed bugs was “Bring back DDT!”  However, learning more made me realize this was not practical, and not even an effective solution anymore. I don’t want to entertain a discussion of this.

The fact is, bed bugs started showing resistance to DDT as early as 1948 in Hawaii, and reports from the 1950s and 1960s, as well more recently, tell us that bed bugs were not killed when spraying with DDT was done for malarial mosquitos. (This BBC article from 2001 claims that DDT spraying for malarial mosquitos in South Africa made bed bugs more active. Shudder.)

If you don’t believe bed bugs are resistant to DDT, Renee has previously laid out all the evidence for you at New York vs. Bed Bugs, in this post, and I encourage you to check it out.

However, I do think this CEC history of DDT is relevant to us today, in terms of thinking about the laws around pesticides.

In 1969, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) cancelled the registration of certain uses of DDT (on shade trees, on tobacco, in the home, and in aquatic environments) after studying the persistence of DDT residues in the environment. Applications on crops, commercial plants, wood products, and for building purposes were cancelled by the USDA in 1970. Under the authority of the EPA, the registrations of the remaining DDT products and DDT-metabolites were cancelled on 4 January 1973, with the following exemptions: public health use for control of vector-borne diseases, USDA or military use for health quarantine, and use in prescription drugs for controlling body lice. All of these remaining uses were voluntarily cancelled (due to failure to pay maintenance fees) by October 1989.

Emphasis mine.

I had not realized that even after being outlawed in the US for home and agricultural use in 1970, and after being prohibited for most other uses in 1973, you could still legally get DDT until 1989 for some purposes including treating pests which caused vector-borne diseases (a category which does not include bed bugs) and for body lice.

This is relevant because, while DDT does not appear to be one of them, there are classes of chemicals which are currently outlawed in certain areas which are effective against bed bugs.  It is worth remembering that agencies can make exceptions to allow some of those substances to be labeled for bed bug use and allowed in controlled situations.  Winston gives us a glimpse of one product not available for this use in the US, Ficam, here:

… as mentioned in my first piece, misguided legislation have forced many products out of the market. Some due to legitimate concerns, some due to a lack of true scientific evaluation and feel-good politics, and some because they simply could not afford to maintain registration due to increased requirements. A prime example of this is Ficam, a material which is used elsewhere with a degree of success, but here in the US is no more. The same in fact would have been true of Drione, one of the remaining effective dusts. Prior to the bed bug outbreak this product was due to go by the wayside simply because of economics, and now it is probably one of the good long-term materials when used properly in wall voids, outlet covers and cracks and crevices.

As Winston has reminded us elsewhere, even pyrethrins are outlawed for use in city-owned buildings by Local Law 37.  Despite pyrethroid-resistance, pyrethrins can be an important part of a bed bug treatment plan.  This law is misguided and means residents of public housing, homes, kids in public school classrooms and people in city-run institutions may have less effective bed bug treatment.

And while some might think LL 37 is protecting New York citizens’ health, you have to ask yourself: if the pesticides prohibited in publicly-owned buildings, then they’d be outlawed in private schools and apartment  buildings too, not just in the city-owned buildings.

In New York, it’s one reason we need to encourage the city to take action.  Some legislative changes can help in the fight against bed bugs.

As Michael Potter said last summer at the PCT Bed Bug Seminar,

“If there is a classic example of why you don’t eliminate entire classes of pesticides,” Potter said, “bed bugs are it. We’re in a heap of trouble in terms of the products we have available to fight this pest,” citing several classes of chemistry that are no longer available (e.g., organophosphates, carbamates, etc.) and the growing threat of pyrethroid resistance. As a result, he said, “I don’t see how this problem is going to get better. I think it’s going to get chaotic. This is the most challenging pest I’ve encountered in my career. We’re in big trouble.”

We are in big trouble.

I don’t even know how to begin to help lobby for better pesticides.  I assume pest control operators, entomologists, and their professional organizations are doing so.  Maybe they can tell us if there’s something we bed bug activists can do to help.   It seems so essential that we get all the help we can get in fighting bed bugs.

Finally, because someone always asks: I am not pesticide-happy. I am, in fact, more enthusiastic about non-chemical solutions to bed bugs. Not only because they do develop resistance to pesticides, but also because I seek safe, ecologically-friendly, easy solutions to bed bug problems.

Steaming, thermal treatments, and other solutions are labor-intensive. Steam requires dedicated, persistent, repetead work (and in most cases, probably requires the backup use of targeted use of dusts or sprays).

Thermal treatments require an experienced operator and expensive equipment. For those who can afford it, and who have access to knowledgeable providers, this can be a good option. We can only hope that effective non-chemical options will become more widely available and less costly.

When we’re talking about the extensive spread of bed bugs, though, we have to be realistic about the types of treatment likely to be implemented. Making sure the most effective pesticides (or at least, a variety of pesticides, to help offset resistance to individual chemicals) is probably better for both people living with bed bugs, as well as the environment.  Because getting rid of the problem more quickly means less pesticides will be needed.

Once the bed bug epidemic is under control, and we’re back where we were in the 1970s, with isolated outbreaks, then we might be able to deal with the problem in other ways. We’re a long way from that situation.  And we will probably never get there again if pest control operators are not able to use whatever tools they can safely use in order to eliminate them.Similar Posts:

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The Highland News reports a Scottish couple had a nasty bed bug encounter at an Inverness Bed and Breakfast:

James and Natasha Hinchley were woken by the beasties sucking their blood.

Mr Hinchley said: “It was like something out of a horror movie.”

The couple, who live in Glencoe, had come to the Highland capital for a romantic night away.

But the creepy-crawlies put paid to their peaceful night’s sleep at Ardgowan guest house in Fairfield Road.

They got a partial refund and skipped breakfast.
I will spare you the rest of the gory details. You can read about them in the article.

But check this out:

According to Inverness pest control expert Keith Potts, bed bugs are a common problem in hotels and B&Bs.

He said: “This is a huge problem, big scale, and it has been for the past 10-12 years. People don’t talk about it, that’s why you don’t hear much about them. They’re very difficult to get rid of unless you have the proper chemicals.

“They can shut themselves down and they can lie dormant for up to one year. If a hotel shuts down for the winter they can live their quite happily and then become active once a warm body gets into the bed.”

There’s a PCO, from Inverness, declaring bed bugs have been a huge problem for the past 10-12 years.

And just to clarify things, this is not just a problem in hotels and B&Bs. They’re in homes, workplaces, even public transportation. They can come from these places to your home, or the other way round.
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PCTOnline has a new article out in which Dr. Michael Potter explores bed bug history, and relates past bed bug stories to today’s situation.

The article is enlightening in that it describes how our ancestors, recent and long-past, dealt with bed bugs. Before they came under control (with the widespread use of DDT) in the early fifties, bed bugs were everywhere:

One interesting account from World War I states, “In the East African campaign the bugs invaded the cork lining of the sun helmets of the soldiers. As the helmets were piled together at night, all soon became infested and the soldiers complained of bugs attacking their heads.” (Medical Entomology, 1932). Bed bugs also occupied warships and the nooks and crannies of submarines.

But civilians had even more ingrained bed bug problems:

… bed bugs were common years ago in laundries, dressing rooms, factories and furniture upholstery shops. Theaters had big problems and sometimes had to tear out entire rows of seats and install new ones. Coat rooms and lockers in schools were commonly infested, as is happening again today. All modes of transport including trains, buses, taxicabs and airplanes were spreaders of bed bugs. A 1930s survey of 3,000 moving vans in Sweden found bed bugs on 47 percent, foretelling big concerns for moving and storage companies today. Perhaps most unnerving was that bed bugs used to be common in hospitals — another pattern from the past which has resurfaced in recent years (see “The Business of Bed Bugs,” Pest Management Professional, 2008). Heavy infestations of bed bugs likewise once occurred in poultry houses and were spread via the crates in which birds were shipped or held at market. A similar pattern in poultry production is reappearing today.

What resurfaces again and again above is that in regards to bed bugs in schools, moving and storage companies, hospitals, chicken production: “a similar pattern … is reappearing today.”

The article goes on to examine how treatments for bed bugs have evolved over the years.

Those new to the bed bug problem commonly call for the return of DDT. But the evidence is that this would not be the powerful solution today that it was when it was first released. Today’s bed bugs’ resistance to pyrethroids is mirrored in the resistance bed bugs began to show to DDT as early as 1947!

Failures were first noted in barracks of the Naval Receiving Station at Pearl Harbor in 1947 — only a few years after the product was introduced. During the next 10 years, other cases of DDT resistance were confirmed, and by 1956, the National Pest Control Association was recommending malathion as an alternative.

Other methods followed for sporadic bed bug infestations in the years after DDT came along:

Other products used during the 1950s to 1970s to control occasional infestations of bed bugs included diazinon (when the bugs became resistant to malathion), lindane, chlordane and dichlorvos (DDVP). Mattresses were sprayed and aired as part of the overall treatment. As with DDT, a single application often did the job, provided spraying was thorough. Sporadic recurrences of bed bugs during the 1980s were eliminated with organophosphate or carbamate insecticides, none of which are available today.

Dr. Potter’s words describing the future outlook are nothing if not foreboding:

All of society will be affected as infestations appear in the same places they had before. Besides homes and hotels, watch for them in such places as schools, theaters, and especially health care facilities. Small cities and towns will be spared for awhile but not for long. There will be new challenges this time around including an unprecedented mix and movement of people from across town and across the globe; more bug-friendly belongings and clutter in which to hide; fewer options and more restrictions in respect to fumigation; societal apprehensions about pesticides; and a pervasive feeling today that when someone is harmed they should sue.

Bed bug management will be handicapped until the chemical industry invents a safe, residually potent product with a permissive label. This will not be easy given the priorities and challenges facing our industry partners.

Today, on the downside, we have a much more mobile society, a lot more stuff, fewer chemical treatment options.

The upside is that we now have powerful dry vapor steamers and ziploc bags. Those two factors alone tell me it may be easier in some ways to live with bed bugs these days, but it may actually be harder to get rid of bed bugs.

And there lies the problem: don’t we really want to get rid of them? After all, bed bug bites are every bit as uncomfortable now as they were then.

Your best bet for getting rid of bed bugs is the same today as it was in 1940: thoroughness; Dr. Potter’s footnotes cite the following words of wisdom, from a 1940 pest control manual:

“Thoroughness is the key word and only experience will teach a man how to best find every possible place bed bugs may be harbored. Most operators take the beds completely apart and remove the casters from the bed legs. Dresser drawers are removed, rugs rolled back and pictures taken from the walls. Floor lamps are upturned, moldings pried loose in some cases and books and papers carefully examined…” — Bed Bug Spraying, Pests and Their Control, 1940.

Be sure to read the rest of Dr. Potter’s Lessons from the Past in the current PCTOnline magazine.

And if you want to learn more about current challenges with bed bugs and pesticide resistance, check out this PCTOnline article Insecticide-Resistant Bed Bugs–Implications for the Industry by Alvaro Romero, Michael F. Potter and Kenneth F. Haynes.

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An article in Haaretz reports that bed bugs are making a comeback in Israel.

A second article in the same media outlet tells Israelis what to do if they suspect they have bed bugs:

If the bite is found to be that of a bedbug, a report should be filed with the ministry of health or environmental protection. The Health Ministry confirmed a significant, recent rise in bedbug reports.

Do you hear that, Israel? If you get bed bugs, call the Ministry of Health!

Haaretz also notes that bed bugs were mostly unheard of in Israel between the 1950s and about ten years ago:

“Until now we hardly saw bedbugs in Israel, perhaps only in prison cells. But recently we have had some incidents. Though not many, they were in places where we have not seen bedbugs before such as in private homes,” says Dr. Laor Orshan of the ministry’s entomological laboratory.

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The LA Times wants everyone to know how long bed bugs have been sharing living space with humans:

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.

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The bedbug resurgence in the developed world. We know the story, don’t we?

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. Similar Posts:

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Bed bug podcasts, bed bug news:

• 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)

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