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Bed bugs usually plague a city for a few weeks before being eradicated. Really, Waterbury Health Department?

nobugsonme — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 04:21:54 +0000

Waterbury, Connecticut has had a recent bed bug outbreak in a number of locations. Last week, we were told in the Republican-American online of these locations with bed bug infestations, which had been reported to the Health Dept.:

553 South Main St. (two apartments in a multi-unit building; all the rest of the following had at least one infested apartment in a multi-unit building):
42 Pine St. (the Wilby Apartments),
107 South Leonard St.,
182 West Main St.,
148 Grand St. (where the entire building was declared infested back in April), and
995 Bank St.
Also: the Salvation Army shelter.

A news report by Eric Parker of Eyewitness News 3 on Friday said that this week, two more apartment buildings were added to the list of bed bug infestations reported to the Waterbury Health Department: the Enterprise Apartments at 13 Cherry Ave., and an unnamed building “near Waterbury Green” (the Waterbury Republican named this as “two apartments at Plaza on the Green… 2 North Main Street”).

Let’s be completely realistic: these buildings that the Waterbury Health Department has been made aware of are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Single family homeowners, condo owners, hotels, and other businesses are unlikely to report their infestations. So are landlords of multi-unit buildings, and fearful tenants who may be wary of reporting their landlord.

Eyewitness News 3’s Eric Parker tells us,

The reports are spreading, and that has people at the Enterprise Apts worried.

The Health Department is not surprised that reports keep appearing. Parker reports (note, I transcribed his actual video report, since the transcription on the website differed from it):

Officials at the Health Dept say that when they get a few reports of bed bugs, they expect a few more. Because people who have the bed bugs at their house will travel around, and that spreads it. So they usually have several weeks of reports before they can finally kick the bed bugs for good.

Cookie Rosado, of the Enterprise Apartments was planning to move because of her bed bug infestation. Eyewitness News 3 just told us bed bugs were spread via people; why not reiterate here how easily bed bugs can be moved from one location to another, and how likely it is Cookie Rosado’s new building, too, will become infested.

The Health Department, Parker tells us, is going to “continue to follow the bed bugs as more reports come in.”

Cool! So are we, Health Department. The only difference is, we are a media outlet (yes, I know, it is a grandiose term for a blog. But we are trying to spread the bed bug news and information as best we can). You, however, are the Waterbury Health Department. You need to do more than assume that after a few weeks of reports in various locations, that your town will be able to “kick the bed bugs for good.”

It is true that bed bugs in one space (say a single apartment) can be gotten rid of in a few weeks. But we also know that most people do not recognize the problem right away. And then few people recognize it at all: it is commonplace for some residents in a building to report an infestation while others will have no idea. If they are not allergic, it may take ages to see the signs. Still others are fearful and simply live with or try to self-treat the problem. So while a small, isolated infestation can theoretically be gotten rid of in a few weeks, in most cases, the problem will continue spreading to others.

So not only will a few more weeks uncover many more infestations, most of them likely to be unreported to the Health Dept. You’re also likely to find that many of these cases drag on for months (or even years) because there’s one or two tenants reporting a problem, and several neighbors who have it but have no idea and so are not treated. That reason alone makes treating bed bugs in multi-unit buildings really difficult.

I can only hope that journalist Eric Parker misunderstood the Health Department officials’ line on bed bugs. Because Waterbury only needs to read some of the bed bug news from other cities in order to see that, yes, bed bugs will continue to spread. But they won’t be eliminated in time. They will only get worse and spread further. Unless drastic steps are taken by the city to halt their spread, and educate people about the problem.

What’s displayed in this report is either ignorance of the true nature and likely scope of the bed bug epidemic in Waterbury, or a fear of disclosing the truth to residents.
Either way, it’s a shame.

You can catch Eric Parker’s segment here.

FAQ: Do I have to tell my landlord / co-op board / condo association / residents of attached house next door?

nobugsonme — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 21:18:37 +0000

Often, people are embarrassed about dealing with bed bugs, and want to deal with their own infestation quietly and discreetly. Maybe they told the landlord before, and the problem was mishandled, eliminating the bed bugs for a short time, and the person wants to deal with things properly this time. Maybe they think they brought the bed bugs in, and don’t want to trouble others or piss off the owner. Maybe they figure they can just get rid of the problem and no one has to know. They will call a good PCO and get rid of it, and don’t need to involve others.

The truth is, if your home is attached to any other homes (whether it’s a high-rise, a three-family, or a single-family row (attached) house, this is probably not a good way to go about things. It can be unethical, it can mean you are liable for spreading bed bugs to others, and it can even mean your bed bugs do not go away, because others are unknowingly sending them to you. This FAQ explains this in a bit more detail.

If (you think) you’re the “source”

If you think you brought bed bugs to a new home, then you may not want to tell neighbors you have them. Remember that you may be wrong–though your old apartment was infested, it does not mean your new building isn’t also infested. If you live in an area that has a lot of bed bugs, then this is a distinct possibility.

Even if you’re fairly certain you brought them in, you may have already spread them to others. You should tell the landlord and neighbors about the bed bugs. All adjacent units (top, bottom, and on every side) must be inspected by a PCO who knows bed bugs.

If the building mis-managed your prior infestation, and now they’re back

If this is not your first time with bed bugs, but you got rid of them and they’re back, it might be because your building mishandled the problem, eliminating the bed bugs for a short time. You might think hiring your own PCO is the best way to go, now. If you intend to move out, and you think the building is mishandling things, then it’s true that hiring your own PCO may allow you to keep bed bugs at bay long enough to move without them (though we’d recommend a treatment at the other end, to help ensure this is the case). It’s worth remembering that moving is never fool-proof, and many people think they did everything to avoid bringing bed bugs, and still did.

But if you intend to stay in your home, it is not wise to try and treat the problem without involving the management, neighbors, co-op board, condo association, etc. If you eliminated bed bugs temporarily, but they’re back, they are coming from somewhere. It’s always possible you are reinfesting yourself (via your job as a flight attendant, say, or as manager of a homeless shelter). But it’s more likely someone else in the building has bed bugs and they are coming back to you. Treating on your own, without telling others, means this will undoubtedly keep happening.

With bed bugs, knowledge (education) is power!

It is not pleasant to have to tell neighbors, building management, or landlords that you have this situation, but chances are someone else has them too. They may not even know they have them, and you may have to educate the neighbors and/or management about how people can have bed bugs, be bitten, and not see or feel bites. They may not notice other evidence until an infestation is advanced.

If the situation is that the prior treatment was ineffective, you need to get others to understand this. It could have been done by a PCO that does not know how to treat bed bugs, or it could be that other infested tenants either did not get treatment at all, or did not fully cooperate with treatment, or did not follow up on the continued presence of bed bugs (remember, they may not even know they have them).

If you live in a rental situation, you can try discussing the recurrence with the landlord. Hopefully the landlord will get a good PCO in to inspect all adjacent units and treat properly, you may have to take further action, for example, in NYC you might call 311 to report the infestation to the Housing and Preservation Dept. (as per our FAQ on tenants and landlords). This would not likely be your first move, since it might antagonize the landlord to have a housing violation recorded, but it is a recourse if they really don’t take effective action.

If you’re in a co-op or condo, it may take some educating to get people to see the need for nipping this problem in the bud, and doing it right, and doing it right now. You might point to recent press about Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s building, which was infested for two years–one tenant had treatment, but the problem popped up in other units. If you can fill in the blanks for your neighbors on how easily this happens, they will probably see it’s likely you are not the only one, nor necessarily the “source.”

If you live in a single-family attached house, or row house

If you are in an attached single-family unit, and your infested neighbor does not notice their infestation or (gasp!) does not care. If they do not notice, then it might help for you and your PCO (maybe) to talk with the neighbor about how stealthy bed bugs can be. They probably don’t notice and certainly deserve to be warned.

Perhaps the most difficult situation is when it becomes apparent that the attached neighbor does not care. I think that it is truly rare for people to know and not care, truly rare. I have heard of it happening in at least one case where a neighbor had bed bugs crawling on them and obviously did not mind. If this truly is the case, it’s likely the person has other issues, and you might see if there are relatives or friends or visiting social workers who help the person (as is likely if mental illness or senility is present), who you could approach. Again, I think this scenario is very extreme and unlikely.

In the row house (attached house) scenario, your PCO may be able to drill some holes in the wall and strategically place a form of DE plus pyrethrin pesticides, so that bed bugs are less likely to cross from one unit to another (this is sometimes done in multi-unit buildings too).

The best scenario is to get the other infested residents to seek treatment. If you’ve been doing your research, share what you’ve learned. Remember how many misconceptions you had before you were unfortunately forced to learn more about bed bugs. Try to remain civil, and use information to convince others. Above all, be calm. Homeowners, co-op owners, landlords should all be concerned about property values, and it should not be hard to convince them that this problem needs swift and thorough treatment.

It is almost impossible to keep bed bugs away permanently if they are living in an attached unit, so as much as you’d like to just deal with this discreetly, it probably isn’t ethical or smart. You may spread the bugs, and they may also come back to you. With bed bugs, it’s best to disclose.

Sydney, Toronto, NYC: a tale of three bed bug cities

nobugsonme — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:40:05 +0000

According to the clustermap, we have a number of readers in Australia. And in neighboring Aotearoa/New Zealand too–in fact, I’m a bit worried about New Zealand–a few more of those red dots on the clustermap, and the island is going to disappear from the map like the much smaller island group of Hawai’i has, under the weight of too many dots. I have a hunch (based on stuff I’ve found on the internet) that bed bugs hit Sydney and were being talked about there well before anyone was saying anything in the press about them in New York City.

I have the same hunch about Toronto and Vancouver. In 2003, when NYC claimed to have 16 bed bug violations (as per this 2005 NYTimes article) and the local and national press was still reporting bed bugs as a bizarre anomaly suffered by mattress-foraging Greenpoint hipsters, , the Canadian media outlets were writing much more about bed bugs. More to the point, Toronto was already surveying the incidence of bed bug infestations, of which PCOs treated 847 that year in that city; a whopping 70% were in single-family dwellings. (The study notes that Toronto Public Health, in contrast, had only 46 complaints by comparison: this is why I keep insisting that NYC is likely to have many more than the recorded number of complaints filed to 311.)

The US CDC published the Toronto study on their website, but to my knowledge no similar survey of the incidence of bed bugs as reported by PCOs in a US city in one year has been undertaken. But if this were done now in NYC, as I argue it should be, Mayor Bloomberg would have to admit we have a very serious bed bug problem here, indeed. (Denial ain’t just a river in Africa.)

As far as Australia goes, This article from The Age, an esteemed Australian news outlet, speculates about the origins of the Aussie bed bug epidemic, and dates it to the 2000 Sydney Olympic games, when people from all over the world descended on Sydney. The article states that

. . . Australia is in the grips of a bedbug resurgence. There was a 5000 per cent increase in the treatment of bedbugs between 2000 and 2005 - with Victoria one of the worst affected states, according to Westmead Hospital scientist Stephen Doggett.

I do find the Sydney Olympics theory (which I’ve also seen elsewhere) slightly less offensive than the “immigrants brought bed bugs to Astoria” theory of the origins of NYC’s bed bugs. It’s more probable, to me: Foreign tourists from countries where bed bugs were, at the time, more common, visiting hotels which are later visited by Australian business people and domestic travelers = bed bugs! The Olympics theory is even more probable if the rise in Australian bed bugs spiked in a way NYC’s and Toronto’s bed bug cases didn’t. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

Stephen Doggett is the fabulous bed bug scientist who gave us permission to post his Bed Bug Life Cycle , which allows us to see all stages of the bed bug life cycle side by side. He’s also the principle author or the Code of Practice for the Control of Bed Bug Infestations in Australia (June 2005), which can be downloaded here. Anyway, there’s a point to all that digressing, besides expressing our gratitude to Stephen Doggett once again, which is that the fact that the Australian Environmental Pest Managers Association has had time to build up a Code of Practice for the Control of Bed Bug Infestations which is now almost two years old, reinforces my view that they were slightly ahead of us in suffering the bites. (Again, possibly because they had a spike, brought on by this Olympic influx, whereas we in NYC have had a slower arc?)

In this interesting article by Doggett, (clicking there will get you a PDF —>) “Bed bugs: the Unwanted Guest” from a 2006 edition of Executive Housekeeper (for those in the Australian hospitality industry), the author claims that from 1999-2006 the US has suffered a “ten-fold increase” in bed bugs, while in Australia there’s a 1000% rise in infestations treated from 2001-2006. (This number really conflicts with the 5000% increase also citing Doggett as a source, but I suspect it relates to the context from which the figures emerged.) Since statistics are tied to years when data was taken, it’s impossible to settle the US vs. Australia bedbug-chronology question based on this. (By the way, you can read other articles by Doggett here.)

What’s being done to stop bed bugs in Australia, besides the sharing of best practices? Australia is a favorite destination of young travelers (both native and international), who often stay in the country’s extensive assortment of backpacker hostels. This article, from the Sydney Morning Herald, details a new law passed in the city to protect those who stay in backpackers hostels:

The Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, has a plan to stop bed bugs biting Australia’s most lucrative tourists: backpackers. Under the plan, all new hostels will have to provide washed mattress protectors and pillow covers to reduce the extent of bug infestations. The rules will make every hostel use dense foam in its beds “designed to eliminate potential harbourage of vermin including bed bugs” while providing coverings for mattresses and pillows, washed after each backpacker.

I do hope those are sealed, not just washable, mattress and pillow protectors. (In fact, I am hoping they’re washed on the mattress, since removing them seems like a dangerous thing to do, bedbug-wise.)

The City of Sydney has no power to apply the rules to existing hostels, as they are applied during the development approval process in the conditions attached to a hostel’s consent.

Not only do the laws not apply to existing hostels, as one hostel association spokesperson pointed out, many hostels are operating illegally, and they also obviously won’t have the rule enforced. It’s a start though, and budget travelers who are aware of bed bugs and the laws and which hostels are covered can vote with their feet.

Besides adding mattress covers and using foam mattresses (I’d love to see documentation on what those do):

The rules . . . ban triple bunks and discourage carpets, also to cut down on the spread of bed bugs.

Last year the Herald reported council findings that almost eight out of 10 eastern [Sydney] suburbs backpacker hostels had infestations.

The bottom line is that some things can only be legislated so far; mattress pads rip and will need to be checked and kept in good repair or replaced. (As an aside, I visited a YMCA retreat center that had cheap vinyl covers on the beds which were full of rips, and therefore pointless.) For this to be helpful, hostel managers need to care. (And what about hotels? Some do have zippered covers. They all should, and they should be of the sturdiest type, and checked often. Even the best-made ones can get torn.)

The article from Executive Housekeeping had one other tidbit I forgot to mention. (This is a post of asides, but there’s just so much in these sources and I want to get it all in.) In emphasizing the need for hotels to use experienced PCOs who know how to deal with bed bugs, Doggett mentions the case in one Sydney hospital where an employee residence was infested; a small infestation that would have cost AU$500 to treat, ended up costing AU$50,000, all because the infestation was handled poorly by an inexperienced PCO. I just thought that was a fascinating case study, but I bet it happens all the time, and I know similar things, on a smaller scale, have happened to many of you. College dorms are another prime example, since most news reports we get to see detailing dorms being treated (with the exception of Stanford) appear to be mismanaged, if the news reports are accurate.

I hope we can continue to record what’s being done to fight bed bugs in various places. And I hope some of our readers from down under will drop us a comment and say hello!

I almost said, “G’day,” but I know you were dreading it coming from me, as much as I dread, but await nevertheless, the “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” crap that gets trotted out by the end of 80% of media reports on bed bugs.

Down with bed bugs, and down with cliches, Dear Reader.