Here she tells the story, and asks a few questions of attorney Steven De Castro (who’s been involved with bed bug lawsuits) and local entomologist/ Bedbugger hero Lou Sorkin. She talks about the signs and symptoms of bed bugs, but not really any suggestions about what to do to avoid taking them home.

If you recall, in September 2006, NY1 covered the city council hearing in New York (on bed bugs and the reselling of mattresses). They illustrated the opening with a nice, big photo of a dust mite. The segment below occurred within six months of that incident (I don’t know exactly when, but it was uploaded to YouTube in February). Suffice it to say, they’ve come a long way in those six months.

(I am not sure how we missed this when it aired, but it’s new to us, and maybe to you too!)

If the embedded video won’t work for you, click here.

• Bed bugs. Are. Not. Dust Mites.
• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• Arctic Monkeys bitten by bed bugs
• bed bugs, news at 11

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• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16

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• TheStar.com | News | Bedbugs a bane for Barrie pair
  Bed bugs can afflict anyone, but elderly people like June’s sister, living in senior housing where the problem was neglected, are some of the most tragic cases. June and Alan caught bed bugs from June’s sister, after helping to prep for bedbug treatment.
  (tags: barrie ontario bedbugs canada elderly seniors elderlyhousing news 2007 nov2007 epidemic spread)
• Nicholas Brown: Bedbug Chronicles 5 - Living Now on The Huffington Post
  Nicholas Brown on bed bugs: he’s had two sprayings and they’re still going strong.
  (tags: bedbugs blogs nicholasbrown huffingtonpost journalistgetsbedbugs)

• 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 Virginia Beach (again), Brown County, Ohio, and potential health risks

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First, Donna Freydkin published twin articles in USA Today on Tuesday: one about her personal experiences with bed bugs, and one about others’ experiences. There was also a sidebar alerting people to the dangers of curbside mattresses, the problems of foggers, and other important stuff. Especially interesting, since USA Today is distributed free in hotels around the USA, is this warning to travelers:

Be careful where you put your suitcase when you travel. “These guys are fantastic hitchhikers,” says the University of Maryland’s Michael Raupp. “If you have a luggage rack with metal racks, put your suitcase on that.”

Check behind a hotel headboard. That’s one of their favorite spots, Raupp says. Pull back the comforter and sheets and look for the fecal stains on the mattress seams and ticking. Shine a penlight behind the headboard and look for dark fecal stains.

There are some points in the article that are not fully explained and might mislead people (for example, drying for ten minutes on hot will not be enough if the item being dried is wet, an important bit of information if anyone is actually going to treat their clothing based on such a recommendation). Also, many pros recommend not getting rid of your mattress or box springs. Doing so when unnecessary is a good way to give your neighbors bed bugs; a good mattress encasement will usually be enough. However, despite these details, Ms. Freydkin did speak with Dr. Michael Potter, whose unofficial fan club is right here. And bed bug news in such a popular paper is always good.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Minnesota Star Tribune asks, “How safe are your kids at college?” and among the many other concerns addressed, bed bugs:

Look for evidence of bedbugs — fecal staining that resembles an accumulation or a scattering of pepper — around baseboards, along cracks and crevices and furniture in rooms where people rest, such as bedrooms or TV rooms.

Prevent infestation: Resist the temptation to scavenge mattresses, sofas or other furniture set out by curbs or behind stores, said [University of Minnesota Assistant Professor of Entomology Stephen Kells]. They can harbor bedbugs. Don’t encourage cockroaches. Keep counters clean and remove garbage regularly. Wipe surfaces and sweep floors frequently. Pick up papers, boxes and other clutter that gives cockroaches places to hide.

Ask about infestation: Ask the landlord the last time the place was evaluated for infestations and if the building is on a regular control and prevention program, said Kells. Remember, treating just one apartment for infestation is ineffective. The whole building needs treatment, combined with prevention tactics.

Good advice.

Finally, from the good-blog capital of Brooklyn, Greenpointers has posted an image of an ad that appeared on Craigslist Monday, in which current or former tenants of the Astral put up a bed bug warning to potential tenants.

The ad (NYC ad #469469878) reads:

This is a warning: two former tenants of the astral (the large beautiful building in greenpoint on the corner of java and franklin) have moved out due to a BEDBUG infestation, and it is rumored that the entire floor is moving out because of the same problem.

Make sure that you discuss this with your realtor/potential roomate before moving in!

This is a serious posting, not a prank–I thought it was something people should know before moving in, to protect themselves! I would want to know.

You can go to Greenpointers to see an image of the actual ad. (Clever bloggers: Craigslist usually removes these kinds of ads tout de suite.)

We’re not breaking the news on the Astral-bed bugs allegation. But Curbed, NewYorkShitty, and the BedBugBlog commenters have that covered. The building also has two entries on the Bed Bug Registry. Rumor has it Mae West once lived in the Astral.

• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Sunday, Buggy Sunday
• When I say the title of the blog, it makes me feel like Sean Connery
• Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”

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First, the journalist Judith Woods says of some bed bug victims:

The lawyer got rid of her bed, both mattress and frame, which ideally anyone with an infestation should do.

Wrong! Tossing such items out is unnecessary, since a Pest Control Operator (PCO) can treat them. Moreover, throwing them away (even labeled and sealed) makes it very likely someone else will pick them up and use them. You’d be surprised how eager others are to bring them home, or sell them secondhand (beware the Car Boot Sales, my British friends). In so many cases, you cannot tell from looking at the items that they are infested. If you’re in a multi-unit building or an attached house, your neighbors may even take them, meaning they can later come back to you.

Similarly, Woods suggests,

Bed linen can be washed at the highest possible temperature – but [PCO Ben Knorton of Rentokil] advises throwing it out.
“I’ve seen sheets literally moving with the sheer number of bedbugs under them,” he says. “In that situation you really need to take drastic action.”

Well, if the bed is moving under the weight of bed bugs, perhaps that’s right. But washing on hot and drying on hot are a better idea in most cases. The above statement implies otherwise. I would only throw out sheets, or a bed and frame, if the PCO advised it. And then I would get them to help (with the mattress and frame) to ensure it was carefully done.

We’re also told of the same afflicted lawyer’s case,

Her room was then sealed and sprayed with insecticide three times over as many weeks.

Does this mean the room was sealed and left for three weeks, meaning no one was sleeping there? If so, the insecticide is not likely to work. Bed bugs need to be lured out to cross the poison and die.

Thanks to reader Fedupandparanoid, in the UK, who wrote me an email to alert me to this article and the issues mentioned above.

She also had this to say:

The article was nearly a full page on the Health on Monday page, and headlined ‘Don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ but I was very dissapointed at the tone of the article and take issue with some of the information contained in it. For some reason the journalist writing had called in Rentokil to check her house because she was so worried about the general rise in bedbugs. She didn’t appear to have any reason for suspecting bedbugs other than that there is a 500-fold increase in cases in London. Rentokil, who she called in, are at the very expensive end of the pest control market and they will be rubbing their hands in glee if they can charge good money to go in and inspect middle class people’s homes for no reason other than there is a general increase.

In fairness, the article did mention signs you can look for, like blood spots and fecal stains, bites in a row and did mention what a bedbug looks like, also the problems with hotels, but they seemed to miss an opportunity of really educating people. The journalist to her ‘great relief received a clean bill of health’ for her beds and although I wouldn’t wish bedbugs on anyone it would have carried more weight if she had actually had them or knew someone who had. There was nothing really about the terrible trauma and life disruption that people go through just a few jokey comments about what the neighbours would think.

Fedupandparanoid also said,

I just feel so annoyed that a paper like the Daily Telegraph - respected for it’s journalism - can make such a hash of a good opportunity. I realise journalists have to write articles that people want to read but there seemed no research and no substance to the article at all.

Yes. I agree with Fedup that we have come to expect more. At least the British press are covering the issue–getting people to talk about bed bugs is the first step.

In other news, in one of the few places that has gone beyond talking about bed bugs, Cincinnati emergency personnel are concerned about catching bed bugs when they go to help the city’s residents, ABC9 (WCPO.com) reports.

Firefighters, police, and health workers are encountering bed bugs in their work. And in the circumstances, where people are in danger, personnel don’t generally have time to worry about whether a place is infested before they go in.

Cincinnati Fire District Chief Ronald J. Texter says they’re working on a plan so crews won’t bring them back to the firehouse.

“The difficulty for us is that we can’t go into a house, survey it first, find out whether or not there’s bedbugs and then take precautions by putting on a Tyvex suit or something like that, like an exterminator would do.”

Texter said the department is concerned about the growing bedbug problem. The bugs are so small, sometimes you can’t see them.

“We’ve also had hospitals call and tell us that the patient, when they started treating them, they found bedbugs and they call us and let us know as a precaution that the patient had bedbugs,” Texter said.

This is good news: hospital staff are tuned in to the problem and the dangers of personnel exposed to it. The bad news is if patients are carrying bed bugs on their person, they must be suffering from very bad infestations.

If a firefighter walks into a home with bedbugs, they’re being encouraged to clean their equipment as soon as they return to the station.

Chief Texter admits that’s easier said than done.

“When you make 15 to 20 runs a day and you can’t stop everytime and take everything out, clean it, and put it all back and make sure there’s no bedbugs.”

The Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police says officers have similar concerns.

Both departments are working on a plan to deal with the problem.

The fire department is educating personnel in addition to hiring an exterminator.

“If we do have a problem with bedbugs, we already have a pest control operator under contract to treat the infestation.”

Cincinnati emergency personnel, like the Cincinnati health department, are being very proactive about bed bugs. That the police and fire departments are talking to pest control operators in advance of detecting an infestation, is a very good thing. Lots can be done–not only in terms of educating personnel about signs of bed bugs and what to do if one is exposed, but also in terms of developing a protocol for searching the firehouse, for example, or where to store clothing that may be exposed.

And make no mistake: bed bugs are spreading via the same routes everywhere else. The difference is, people in Cincinnati are not afraid to talk about it. It’s the first step to making things better.

Click to read or watch the ABC9 video from Cincinnati.

Click here to read the Daily Telegraph article.

• Cincinnati: awareness spreading, funds needed to fight bed bugs
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Cincinnati Establishes Bed Bug Furniture Pick-Up Procedures and Hotline
• Cincinnati: “best weapon against bed bugs is … education”

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(Photo by News of the World)

It is entitled, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers!”

NOTW journalist Sophy Ridge quotes David Cain (who has participated in our Forums) as saying that his calls for bed bugs are up 500% compared with last year’s calls.

Similarly,

Rentokil boss Savvas Othon said: “Outbreaks are on the rise. The number of people travelling and the current warm UK temperatures are helping the bugs to spread and thrive.

“You can easily pick them up on buses, in airport lounges and from other people’s dry cleaning. Even car boot sales make it worse as people buy furniture which may already be infested.”

Experts advise vacuuming mattresses and cleaning regularly to keep the bugs at bay. But if you’ve got them, there’s only one thing for it.

Who you gonna call? …pest busters.

(Car boot sales are “flea markets” in the US.)

This article is bound to reach even more people who have not heard of bed bugs. Unfortunately, NOTW is, as those not familiar with it can see, a fairly sensationalist tabloid. I hope that people in the UK will nevertheless seriously consider the facts contained in this story, and will consider being more cautious about used items, and also consider pressuring their government to take this issue seriously.

There is certainly no need to panic: I still use dry cleaners and sit on subway trains (gasp!) though the NYC epidemic is surely as bad as that in London. However, bed bugs are surely being spread in all these ways and more. Most people don’t consider this until they have them; those who do fear getting them over and over, since the rest of the world seems completely oblivious.

Articles in the popular press are a good way to spread the word. Hopefully this article will help start more conversations about bed bugs in the UK.

Yes, I said UK: despite the NOTW’s banner referencing “England,” the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish elsewhere in the UK (as well as their neighbors in the Republic of Ireland) are also battling bed bugs.

• Given that they spread like wildfire, why did bed bugs take 30 years to come back?
• Landlord won’t tell new tenants you have bed bugs?
• Spring break bed bug warnings!
• Bed bugs and marketing (again)

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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.

• Craigslist bed bug warnings
• Bed bug news round-up: Waterbury, Connecticut; MIT
• Lexington-Fayette County, Kentucky Health Dept.: Think you’ve got bed bugs? Call us!
• Nashua, NH Health Officers on prowl for bed bugs

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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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Two months ago, as you may recall, loyal Bedbugger S. wrote to Maxwell to correct some misinformation in the Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure book, which suggested something to the effect that keeping a clean home would prevent bed bugs. (I have the book, but not handy, so I can’t quote right now.) Maxwell graciously posted a long message from S. which detailed both the causes of bed bugs (i.e. you don’t get them because your home is not clean) and the total nightmare involved in getting rid of them, especially in multi-unit buildings. We appreciated Maxwell devoting a post to S.’s letter, and we also appreciated that he linked back to us.

So imagine our surprise when the following appeared on the Apartment Therapy NY blog yesterday:

Bedbugs Take Manhattan!

This is breaking news. Within one of the homes previously toured on AT (don’t even try guessing), a bedbug has been found (see above) within the past 24 hours, after more than a week of reported bites…

Apparently the news is sobering. Nighttime bites were growing within an apartment that is chic, beautiful and CLEAN. The owner has not been traveling lately. No besotted overnights with traveling salesmen had been happening (lately). The building has no other reported sightings. This bug was found by leaving the lights out all evening and then snapping them on to catch this nocturnal creature.

Pulling the bed away from the wall helped to avoid any bites last night.

The apartment is getting bombed tomorrow.

We’ll be there.

Okay, if you snap the lights on and find a bed bug, then odds are, you have a lot of bed bugs. Why? Because bed bugs feed for 3-10 minutes. You don’t feel them doing so. So the odds of turning the light on at precisely the right time are slim.

Also, moving the bed from the wall (and keeping the lights on, for that matter) will do little to help you avoid bites. (Moving the bed from the wall is good if you have protected your bed per our FAQs).

I was struck by Maxwell’s reluctance, still, to understand that clean spaces are not immune to bed bugs. Period. Yes, chic or drab, clean or dirty, zen master or pack rat, you can get bed bugs.

That said, I am glad that Maxwell posted this entry. Very glad, because people obviously are not getting this message: bed bugs do not discriminate!

I am not sure if the AT tour home was really “bombed” or not, but if so, unless the entire structure of the building was completely evacuated of all living creatures, and then tented and treated with Vikane gas by professionals, then the “bombing” probably did not work, and may well have made the problem much worse, by spreading the bed bugs.

I am also glad Maxwell promises to “be there” for treatment, since further coverage will be a good thing. I look forward to all follow-ups.

I invite AT readers to check out our FAQs, especially those in Bed Bugs 101, especially, “Think You Have Bed Bugs? Some Do’s and Don’ts.” Perhaps we should change the title to something like, “If you ever get bed bugs, this is the information you need to know in advance.”

Because once people see a bed bug, freak out, and run for the DIY bug bombs, the horse is seriously out of the gate.

Update (6/15): On Thursday, a day later, AT gave an update on “Amanda’s” situation:

The drama unfolds. Where to begin? Let’s see, Amanda (the one with the bedbugs - not her real name) informed us today that she was both grateful and worried by all the comments on the thread yesterday.

Last night she went to bed with all the lights on, fully clothed, with a sleep mask and bug repellent applied liberally (now that’s a picture we want). She received no new bites, and now she has a question for all of you…

The original pest guy quits: Your comments were excellent and she felt that it was a good point that bombing MIGHT make the problem worse. So she asked they pest guy who was coming tonight. He was so offended that she doubted his prowess, that he quit over the phone, sight unseen. Then she had to find someone else.

Amanda takes your advice: Left empty handed, Amanda took YOUR advice and called up Stern Environmental (210-319-9620) and arranged for them to come over on Tuesday. They recommend that she wash all of her clothing and fabrics first.

Second thoughts arise as the price goes up: The pest people charge $650 for their services and now she faces the prospect of spending the entire weekend washing all of her belongings, which is going to cost at least $600 (she has a lot of clothes).

Now the folks in her office are arguing that perhaps she should WAIT and SEE if there’s really another bedbug before going through with all this and paying over $1000.

So tonight, she wants to ask all of you whether she should go to bed regularly tonight and see if any new bites appear OR sleep fully protected with lights on again and go through with washing all her belongings and treating her apartment on Tuesday???

There’s even a scary “Choose Your Own Ending” poll, where readers can vote for Amanda waiting-and-seeing while sleeping un-armored, or Amanda springing for full treatment and doing all the hot wash / hot dry stuff. You know where my vote ended up. But readers are (as of this writing) split on that.

I encourage you to go to the site and read the comments, which demonstrate not only how much misinformation still abounds, but also, how much wisdom. I was really glad AT readers convinced her not to have the place “bombed” and to get someone in who knows more about bed bugs. I look forward to following the drama as it continues to unfold.Check it out.

Another update (6/15): a third bed bug post today from ATNY:+ no progress, but Amanda now thinks her neighbors who travel a lot may be the source. They’re on vacation till next week.

She has not sprung for the exterminator, but asked her landlord about the neighbors. Ding! Ding! Ding! (That’s the sound of bells going off!) She is renting, people. She does not have to pay $650 for the PCO. Her landlord does. She still does not know this. Hopefully she will see my comments clarifying that fact which I’ve now left for two days running.

We provide the FAQs, folks, but people have to read them.

• ApartmentTherapy’s fourth post on the Amanda bed bug case, since Wednesday
• Amanda at Apartmenttherapy.com, part 5
• Apartmenttherapy.com: Amanda update (#7)
• craigslist: An Open Letter to my Bedbugs

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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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