• bed bug news for 2007-11-11: Lexington, KY and Toronto, ON
• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto

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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 Cluster Map
• The NYTimes is back on the case
• Are you in the UK? Got bed bugs? Or have you had bed bugs?
• In London? Got bed bugs (or think you do)?

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So imagine my surprise when WBTV 3 in Charlotte had this to say:

Bed Bugs are Back

An outbreak of bed bugs in southwest Charlotte. Some people in Steele Creek are concerned these small bugs are taking over their apartment complexes. They met with police, code inspectors, and apartment managers to discuss the issue today. Exterminators told the group they’ve seen an enormous spike in bed bug calls since last year. Exterminators say a lot of these pests brought here by folks from overseas.

Every entomologist I’ve heard from has painted a much more complex picture of the causes of bed bugs’ return. Most PCOs (and note: they don’t like to be called exterminators anymore), also paint a more balanced picture of the causes. This Charlotte, NC CBS affiliate should be more responsible. This kind of one-sided report just stirs up bad sentiment against immigrants, and spreads misinformation, by neglecting to mention these other reasons for the return of bed bugs.

I’m glad Charlotte residents, police, code inspectors, and apartment managers met to discuss bed bugs, and heard from “exterminators.” But they’re not getting the whole picture.

If they want to know why bed bugs are spreading in Charlotte and elsewhere, they might consult this post we ran back in February, when a Charlotte used furniture warehouse was found to have 600 unsanitized mattresses in its possession. I’d like to link to the original article, but it has since been taken down by the newspaper (many news sites don’t allow access to old articles). We did quote it at some length in our original report.

The Charlotte Observer reported at the time that inspectors had ordered the mattresses to be cleaned or destroyed, but 600 of them were still in the shop a month later. It was unclear how many had already been sold. What’s more, the warehouse was still planning on “dumping” 200 of them. Now where do you suppose some of those mattresses ended up? Probably as beds for local people who convinced the store to sell them one (even though they were intended for hotel guests), or who found them dumped. It is unlikely that hoteliers shopping in the store did not purchase any of the used mattresses during that month. So some of us from elsewhere may also have been subjected to these unsanitized mattresses and the bed bugs that surely lived in some or many of them.

It would be nice if the media gave more care to covering such stories rather than simply blaming one segment of our society.

When I said it was not only travelers (of every kind), but also business people who were spreading bed bugs, I did not only mean those business people who were traveling and staying in hotels (though this is true too). Remember, some people can actually make money spreading bed bugs. Greed spreads bed bugs. As, for that matter, do stupidity, misinformation, turning-a-blind-eye, looking-for-scape-goats, and keeping-your-head-in-the-sand. But especially greed.

Before playing the blame game, look to yourself, look to your neighbors, look to those who want to make a fast buck and don’t have much foresight.

• inspectors find 600 unsanitized mattresses at Charlotte, N.C. used furniture store
• Thai trains play the bed bug blame game: blame backpackers for bed bug infestation
• Alton, Illinois, motel: blaming the bedbug victim
• Disney guests paid off to keep quiet about bed bugs

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It’s not much fun to tell the truth and say that we’re not exactly sure, but that the elimination of routine baseboard spraying in homes (as a roach and general insect preventative), the move to baits and traps for roaches (from sprays), the outlawing of DDT (plus almost 30 years), coupled with a rise in travel, are likely to have all played a role in helping bed bugs regain their foothold.

For some pundits, it’s more fun to use bed bugs as fuel to a racist anti-immigrant fire, as William Gheen recently did on Denver’s 630 KHOW-AM show with host Peter Boyles. Watchdog group Colorado Media Matters covered the June 1 show, where Gheen first tried to use the man he referred to as “TB Boy” (A US citizen, mind you) to stir up fears about immigrants bringing in disease. And he then made the claim that,

We’ve got bedbugs back in all, almost all of our 58 states. We’ve got TB on the rise, we’ve got hepatitis, we’ve got HIV, we’ve got diseases like Chagas disease, which is a horrifying disease, but also, much like TB, is very, very difficult to treat at all. And it’s coming in because of the, the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws.

Yes, Gheen actually thinks we have 58 states, and he is willing to chalk bed bugs up as one more problem brought in due to lax immigration policies.

Colorado Media Matters, Bless them, responded on their website and supported the voice of reason by citing OSU’s fact sheet on bed bugs.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, contrary to Gheen’s insinuation that the presence of bedbugs in “almost all of our 58 (sic) states” is attributable to illegal immigration, a fact sheet on bedbugs prepared by the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences explains that “widespread use of baits rather than insecticide sprays for ant and cockroach control is a factor that has been implicated” in the resurgence of bedbugs in the United States. According to the fact sheet:

In the past decade, bed bugs have begun making a comeback across the United States, although they are not considered to be a major pest. The widespread use of baits rather than insecticide sprays for ant and cockroach control is a factor that has been implicated in their return. Bed bugs are blood feeders that do not feed on ant and cockroach baits. International travel and commerce are thought to facilitate the spread of these insect hitchhikers, because eggs, young, and adult bed bugs are readily transported in luggage, clothing, bedding, and furniture. Bed bugs can infest airplanes, ships, trains, and buses. Bed bugs are most frequently found in dwellings with a high rate of occupant turnover, such as hotels, motels, hostels, dormitories, shelters, apartment complexes, tenements, and prisons. Such infestations usually are not a reflection of poor hygiene or bad housekeeping.

Yes, the OSU factsheet does nod to other causes of bed bugs (international travel, the demise of DDT, etc.) but the bottom line is that bed bugs are being brought into and spread around the country by rich white businessmen and travelers, as much as by anyone else. Immigration laws are not going to keep bed bugs out, because they’re in: they’re here, and they’re a problem for all of us.

Instead of trying to lay blame (a pointless and offensively racist exercise), let’s get rid of the problem. Let’s see government and lobbyists and corporations doing what they can to stop bed bugs. It’s going to take money.

As I have said many times before, when it comes to the bed bug problem, we’re living in a matrix: whether you’re in a multi-unit building or shop in a store or go to a gym or ride in a taxi, you’re being exposed to your neighbors’ bed bugs, or they’re being exposed to yours. Until we fight bed bugs high and low, and provide funds to help those who can’t pay for proper treatment, and fight for better treatments, bed bugs are not going to go away.

Forgive the cliche, but you’re either part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Thanks to Colorado Media Matters for paying attention.

• bed bug news for 2007-11-14
• Company reports bed bug bite photos their most searched-for medical image in 2007
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• Tracing the path of the epidemic

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