College students move often, sometimes from semester to semester.

They also tend to travel a lot, going back and forth to one another’s dorm rooms and apartments, visiting parents’ homes, friends’ parents’ homes, and vacationing at frat houses in Madison, Wisconsin, hostels in Amsterdam or cheap resorts in Ft. Lauderdale.

Many students shop in secondhand stores and accept gifts of secondhand furniture from parents, friends, or even off the street.

All in all, they can be helpful in moving bed bugs around.

Now the Contra Costa Times tells us that college officials have been talking about how to deal with bed bugs in college housing at a recent conference.

Universities and colleges nationwide are trying to figure out how to keep the biting insects out of dormitories — no easy task when it comes to creatures that can survive pesticides.

At this weekend’s conference of university and college housing officers in Florida, two sessions deal with the pesky bugs, which also have boomed at hotels and major cities around the world. UC Berkeley residence halls had to be treated for bedbugs at least six times during the recently ended school year — up from no incidents the year before.

I am glad that university housing officers are spending time on learning about how to deal with this problem. I hope that Stanford was there to represent; the reports we’ve seen suggest the Stanford officials have a good protocol and are getting good advice from professionals about how to get rid of bed bugs when they rear their ugly heads.

• Bed bugs at the University of Vermont
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?
• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• Back to school: news media focuses on bed bugs in college dorms

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A BU junior said during her first night in the BU dorm Crofton in late May, she received small, red marks, each a centimeter wide, around her feet, legs and ankles. When she spoke with the associate director of British Programmes a month later after repeated unsuccessful attempts to meet, she was accused of making the marks herself, said the student, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of not being allowed to study abroad again.

The junior said she noticed the bites became larger and puffier and had spread over her entire body, but she and her roommate, Newbury College junior Michelle Beaton, did not complain until the second week. After their complaints, housekeepers sprayed the room using an aerosol insecticide and changed bed linens.

The aerosol insecticide worked briefly, but of course, the bed bugs came back with a vengeance:

Housekeeping and exterminators did not find evidence of a bedbug infestation in the students’ room, said Joe Finkhouse, international programs director of institutional relations, in an email to BU spokesman Colin Riley, to whom comments about the issue were directed.

“They wouldn’t admit we had bedbugs,” Beaton said. “We had all the symptoms of bedbugs.”

The students said the aerosol insecticide worked briefly, but eventually they began to notice more marks. Bedbugs do not spread diseases, nor are their bites particularly harmful to people.

“I was using makeup on my legs,” the BU junior said. “It was all over me. It was horrible.”

After the first spraying, the bugs got out of control, and she began seeing them, she said.

The junior said she tried contacting British Programmes Associate Director Alison Campbell after her room was first sprayed, but Campbell did not hear her case until about a month after. When they spoke, the BU junior said Campbell accused her of making the marks herself and said she “wasn’t allowed to tell anyone” about the situation.

BU’s Joe Finkhouse, international programs director of institutional relations, had this to say:

“Pests are not an ongoing problem in the London program or any other program site,” Finkhouse said in an email. “In fact, this was the first incident of its kind in London in over nine years. Over 4,000 students have participated in the London programs during that time. There have been no further reports since June.”

Well, it’s no great surprise, if students suffering from bites are threatened with retaliation for speaking about their experiences, as these students claim they were.

Students eventually got assistance with clothing cleaning bills and were moved to faculty housing at Lexam Gardens. (Hmmm… I wonder what happens to faculty who complain about bed bugs in their housing?)

Finkhouse had more to say:

“Fortunately, pest problems are extremely uncommon in our programs abroad,” he said. “We’re satisfied that the situation was handled well and quickly under the circumstances.”

What college administrators need to realize is that bed bugs are increasingly common everywhere. There’s no shame in contracting bed bugs; you will be judged not on the basis of having them, but on how you react to them, once a problem is identified.

I hope that BU’s study abroad program, and all international and domestic providers of student services, develop a proactive plan for preventing bed bugs, and dealing with them should they arise. Any complaints need to be met with a prompt, thorough inspection by a PCO and treatment by a PCO of the affected units. In this case, students claimed housekeeping staff coming in twice with an aerosol bottle represented the only treatment. It is extremely difficult to treat bed bugs, and professional, experienced pest control operators are the way to go. Unless more has been done since then, it is likely this dorm is still infested with bed bugs.

• NYU student blogs about Bed bugs in Broome Street Residence
• Bed bug hotel claim in Isle of Wight; study/travel abroad and bed bugs
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back
• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)

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Calvin Merritt’s problems at Hillrise Apartments are pretty simple.

“Mostly bugs, roaches and all that…”

The “all that” is bed bugs. Dead ones were easy to find under Calvin’s mattress, and piles of them behind the bed. When exterminators come in to spray here, their work’s easy to see, pesticide stains run down Calvin’s walls. Calvin pays 313 dollars a month for this one bedroom…what little furniture he had was mostly pitched, because it was infested.

Calvin Merritt, Resident: “I done lost everything got here, my couch, my other chairs, all the stuff I had was new, I had to get rid of all of that.”

At the other end of the hall, Jeanette Jessie doesn’t have any bedbugs, but she worries about them just the same.

Jeanette Jessie, Resident: “They just spread them from one end of the building to the other, this is crazy, get this place cleaned up, spray it at one time and get rid of this mess.”

It sounds a bit like the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA in Washington DC, Halcyon House in Denver, and Warren Towers in East Moline, Illinois. Elderly people, disabled people, and anyone in low-income housing is being dealt a raw deal when it comes to getting rid of bed bugs. Let’s face it, bed bugs are expensive to treat. They’re also a rather sudden problem no one was expecting and no one has budgeted for.

Bed bugs are difficult to treat, too. Traditional treatments require multiple pest control visits at short intervals. Residents must prepare for treatment, which can be a lengthy process and costly too (especially for those on a fixed income).

However, make no mistake: non-aggressive treatment (treating only some of the infested units, treating at too-long intervals, or not coming as many times as needed), waiting for tenants who might be unaware they have bed bugs to report them, and not providing assistance with preparation costs and physical labor–all of these reactions from landlords and housing managers mean that bed bugs will be around longer, spread into more units, and cost much more to get rid of.

It just does not make sense on any practical level to not be aggressive, thorough, and quick to treat bed bugs in a building you are responsible for. It is simply a display of ignorance about the nature of this beast.

We can’t entirely blame landlords for this ignorance; none of us were expecting bed bugs. But we need to educate the public about the signs of bed bugs, and we need to educate professionals in all walks of life (from those who provide housing, to hospitality services, to health care, education, and on and on) about the need for a bed bug protocol which includes both proactive searching for signs of bed bugs, and swift reactions to any bed bug signs or sightings.

Too many people seem to be hoping they’ll just go away. Good luck with that. In the meantime:

Channel 12 reports,

Officials from the Cincinnati Health Department tell us they’ll soon be taking a closer look at conditions in the apartments.

I love the Cincinnati Health Department. But you knew that.

• Indianapolis Housing Authority vs. Bed Bugs
• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Housing Authority vs. Bed Bugs
• Cincinnati fights bed bugs, declares some success

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Keith Hamilton said that bedbugs have returned to some local social-service facilities and asked if the county can make money available to help smaller organization exterminate them. Hamilton said his employer, SERV Behavioral Health System Inc., must spend $200,000 to exterminate the insects at one facility after they were brought in by someone who stayed at another facility.

Hamilton said the extermination costs may be too much for smaller organizations. He noted that bedbugs can return after exterminations if they continue to live in other local facilities. Mair said county legal staff would review the county’s options.

That’s all they wrote. And you have to scroll right down under the article on fireworks to read it.

But it’s important news. Governments will have to assist both social service agencies–and, in my opinion, landlords and homeowners–because otherwise, bed bugs will continue to spread at an alarming rate.

And remember, an infested social service facility does not just spread bed bugs to other facilities (via clients who move around). It spreads them to workers and their families.

I am not sure if what kinds of facilities are included in SERV’s work, but consider this: when people who are homeless, or in need of a detox center (or in need of health care of other kinds) hear that the facilities are infested with bed bugs, they are less inclined to seek assistance there. This means, for example, more homeless people sleeping out, at greater physical danger to themselves, or people who need mental health or drug treatment services staying away from treatment. It hurts them, and it affects everyone else.

Remember, with bed bugs, we’re living in a matrix, a web. We’re all interconnected and the bed bugs are going to show just how closely, by moving from one place to another. If we don’t make sure everyone can pay to have their bed bugs eradicated, more and more of us will end up becoming infested.

• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay
• Tampa Bay mental health facility closed for bed bug treatment
• Nova Scotia home help nurses stop visiting client with bed bugs
• Bed bugs & tenant organizing: don’t take this lying down

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First, WLNS of Lansing, Michigan warns that bed bugs are the pest of the 21st century, that they “wreak havoc on your skin and your life,” their incidence has increased 75% n five years (oh, I’d say much more than that), and fighting an infestation is costly, upwards of $300 per room. After scaring the living bejaysus out of the good (Lansonians? Lansineers?), what one, tiny pithy nugget of practical advice do they give?

When returning from a trip, experts say it’s a good idea to vacuum out your suitcase.

Well, it’s not bad advice, but is that the only thing you’ve got for us WLNS? Looks like your readers might need them a few Bedbugger FAQs.

WVLT in Tennessee also seems to have latched on to the phrase “bug of the 21st century.” (All right, which entomologist let that one out of the bag? Well, if it replaces that nursery-rhyme mumbo-jumbo, then we’re on to a good thing, I guess.)

More suggestions here, including suitcase-vacuuming (again, I’m sensing a pattern here), and the warning to those who are thinking it’s a bedsheet issue,

If you’re leaving for a trip, don’t think taking your own bedding will help. They live in the mattress.

Just make sure and check the bed before bringing your stuff to the room.

Well, sorta, but not quite: they also live in the baseboards, bed frame, electrical sockets, light fixtures, ceiling, floor, and sofa, among other places. The information is more plentiful for Tennessee than for Lansing, Michigan, but the quality is a bit hit-or-miss. They’re obsessed with bed bugs being “in the mattress,” but they also warn people not to toss vacuum bags in the trash, and so on. (Tennesee is also playing a bit fast and loose with the rules of punctuation, spelling, and grammar, so compulsive proofreaders and your high school English teacher should steer clear!)

OSU’s student paper The Lantern reports that an infested grad student dorm at Ohio State University is getting some serious “fumigation” in response to bed bugs. The collection of all students’ non-washable belongings—isolated, bagged, placed in red carts—sounds promising. It’s a bit mysterious what will happen to that stuff (in the red carts, they have to be red carts!), but hopefully it will be picked through with a fine-toothed comb by PCOs with bed bug knowledge, and returned.

If this is so, and if OSU also follows up at 10-14 day intervals (follow-up was not mentioned at all in the article), this would not be unlike the Stanford bed bug protocol, which we believe to be the best reported in any response to college dorm bed bugs. (You can scroll down this list to see past coverage on Bedbugger of Stanford bed bug cases, and gawk at the love fest I’ve put on for Stanford upon hearing the descriptions of how San Francisco’s Crane PCO and the Stanford admin dealt with those cases. It’s beautiful, really.) I only note this because reports have also come from many other colleges of poor bed bug procedures.

Update 5/25: 100 rooms on 3 floors are being treated. Bed bugs were found on the 9th and 11th floors, and they’re treating the 10th as well. (What about the 8th?)

Finally, Australians appear to have been battling bed bugs a wee bit longer than those of us in the US. (Canada, too, a bit ahead in the Bed Bug Olympics.) So no surprise that they’re at the forefront of innovation: this dry steamer does the bed bug killing job, without getting your stuff all wet (that’s dry steam, i.e. no mold!) Their website says,

Duplex Cleaning Machines has a variety of industrial and commercial strength steam products to tackle bed bug epidemic including the Jet Steam, Tosca and JetVac range.

The JetVac Professional Plus is an ideal solution to the bed bug problem as it delivers 160°+ Dry Steam with a tool which applies the steam evenly without blowing the bugs away and then also vacuums away the dead bugs and their eggs.

Wait, they have a steamer named Tosca? Puccini must be tossing in his grave.

But the question on everyone’s mind: when will my PCO have one? I can just see it now, integrated pest management: first, they bring in the bed bug dog. Then the dry steaming and caulking. And finally, the chemical and mechanical onslaught begins. Well, the bug of the 21st century needs the PCO of the 21st century, no?

• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back
• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)
• Stanford still fighting bed bugs

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Legislation by Assemblymember Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) requiring notice of bedbug infestations to all parents at an affected school took a step towards becoming a law last week when it was reported favorably from the Assembly Education Committee. The Gianaris proposal would require the city Department of Education to institute a mandatory policy notifying all parents whose children attend a bedbuginfested school of the infestation and providing them with prevention information.

“Today, we are one step closer to restoring some sanity to this school health policy,” Gianaris said. “Knowledge is our best weapon to keep the bedbug problem in our schools from spreading further and this legislation would provide crucial information to concerned parents.”

Since some believe that NYC’s bed bug epidemic started in Astoria, it makes sense that an Astoria politician would be the one to get behind such legislation, though bed bugs in schools are a problem citywide, as the article states. And don’t kid yourself: the Upper East Side is among neighborhoods where Bedbuggers report a lot of infestations. One reader swaps bed bug stories at parties with her tony UES neighbors. Bed bugs can go to school with a rich kid or a rich school Head just as easily as they can creep into humbler institutions. So if you think posh private schools aren’t also housing bed bugs, think again. Let’s hope they have their own protocols already in place.

What newspapers are saying about bed bugs is getting smarter too. The Queens Gazette article closed with the following:

In recent years, bedbugs have become a much larger problem throughout New York City, affecting not just school communities. They reproduce rapidly and are easily transferable from one person to another. Once a bedbug is found, it should be dealt with immediately to prevent further infestation.

Wise words.

• Gianaris’ Bedbug Legislation Passes
• Update on New York State bed bug legislation (parental notification re: bed bugs in school)
• Excerpt from article re NYC Department of Ed policy
• Gianaris- a champion for change

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Port Jervis – Patients in the mental health unit at Bon Secours Community Hospital were relocated last week amid a bedbug outbreak.

Two patients complained to doctors about skin rashes caused by bedbug bites, hospital officials said.

Following a doctor’s examination, all patients on the floor were relocated to another unit and an exterminator was called. There are about 12 patients on the mental health floor.

No other bedbugs have been found in any other parts of the hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Mary Decker.

But perhaps the hospital is overly optiistic about how easily treated the problem is:

All the rooms have been exterminated and are in the process of being reassembled, Decker said. The patients will be moved back to their rooms tomorrow.

“We’re happy we discovered it when we did and are able to treat it appropriately,” Decker said.

Decker said the hospital consulted with several agencies, including the Orange County Department of Health and the Mental Health Department, about the bedbug occurrence. Decker said there was no risk to others in the hospital.

“Each patient was showered and given new clothing before being transported to the other unit,” Decker said.

A hospital is probably an easier place to treat than most homes (due to clutter, furniture, and the way homes are set up), but if the hospital was only treated once, they may need to treat again. They should also inspect the entire hospital for bed bugs.

Patients, families, and other patients may want to know that the patients’ belongings may still be infested, if these were not treated or removed. Employees should be aware that they, too, could have moved the problem around to other rooms or to staff areas (even possibly taking the bugs home).

My heart goes out to those patients, who have enough to worry about without bed bugs.

Thanks to Bugalina, who mentioned hearing about this infestation on the Curtis and Kuby AM770 radio show today.

• Tampa Bay mental health facility closed for bed bug treatment
• FAQ: Are bedbugs a health issue?
• Alton, Illinois, motel: blaming the bedbug victim
• News round-up: UK’s Daily Telegraph on bed bugs; Cincinnati’s finest are working to avoid bed bugs

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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.

• Bed bug infestations on the increase in Australia, says The Age
• Stephen L. Doggett’s A code of practice for the control of bed bug infestations in Australia (2nd Ed.)
• Bed bugs on the increase in Australia too
• bed bug life cycle photo

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Exterminators began work on the problem in January, but the bedbug infestation persists, the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs contend Presidential Towers and The Habitat Co. failed to prevent or detect the infestation and failed to tell tenants about the problem.

We’ll see how this one pans out.

Also in the news today: remember the detox in Vancouver Island, Withdrawl Management Services that closed due to bed bugs? Well, now another detox also run by the Vancouver Island Health Authority, Victoria Detox Centre is infested and closing for a month.

Withdrawl is interesting enough, I hear, without bed bugs.

Perhaps institutions should notify people who’ve slept in rooms recently, where bed bugs are found, so they can check their own residences, or their shelters (or other accommodation) can be checked.

Update 3/6: More on Presidential Towers here.

• Bed Bug sightings in the media today: NYC, North Carolina, Vancouver Island.
• Another suit at Presidential Towers: this one focuses on landlord’s non-disclosure of neighbor’s bed bugs
• apartmentratings.com on bed bugs; realtor warns clients about bed bugs; tenant.net on bedbugs; more video from Cincinnati
• Escaping tenants leaving crumbs, marking the bed bug trail

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