“Yes, Tiny, Evil–and in My Bed” is the first, and provides yet another first-person account from a journalist who had bed bugs (here are a bunch more journalists who had bed bugs). Daniela Deane was lucky to get rid of her bed bugs quickly:

I probably caught my infestation early, the experts tell me, meaning it hadn’t yet spread beyond the confines of my bed.

I caught it early because I was lucky enough to be one of the people who show an allergic reaction to the bites. Michael Potter, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and a leading expert on bedbugs, said that between 20 and 50 percent of people don’t, meaning the problem can go undetected for a long period of time.

“If an infestation goes undetected, the bedbugs are much more entrenched into the bed structure and even adjoining structures,” [bed bug expert Richard] Cooper [of Cooper Pest in New Jersey] said. “Then it gets very, very difficult to get rid of them.”

Incidentally, Deane suspected she got bed bugs from a favorite pillow she took to a hotel on a vacation. That’s the second such report today, since the woman from Charlotte featured in the video about Mr. K the bed bug dog told the same story. They could have brought bed bugs home anyway, but a pillow from home makes it so easy.

Nevertheless, the Washington Post felt the need to accompany this story with a second story arguing that the “media frenzy” around bed bugs is just hype. “Hmm. Tiny, Evil–and Everywhere?” makes one valid point: that there’s no need for everyone to panic. While I do think the word “epidemic” is appropriate, I agree that “plague” is probably an overstatement.

Yes — bed bugs are not every single place you go everyday, and the thing that makes you itch might not be bed bugs, and often isn’t. We at Bedbugger acknowledge that every day, and we are constantly pointing out to visitors that they need to rule out other possibilities — and strive to get an actual bed bug sample for verification.

That said, it’s no surprise that Bedbuggers, including myself, don’t appreciate it so much when articles deny how widespread the problem appears to be, or when journalists discount the true difficulties that a bed bug infestation can bring. Daniela Deane was very lucky–by her own account. Yes, bed bugs are treatable, and no, they are not known to spread any disease (yet). But they do wreak havoc on one’s home and, dare I say it, one’s mental health.

And no, I don’t mean “mental health” as in delusional parasitosis, though experts are often quick to mention people exhibiting “the matchbox sign” when they talk about how bed bugs are not as widespread as people think. The “matchbox sign” is what doctors call it when patients turn up with a matchbox (envelope, paper bag) full of lint and particles, claiming they have a sample of what’s biting them. No doubt PCOs get a lot of this too.

“We had a lady come in here with a garbage bag she said was filled with bugs that were biting her,” says Matt Nixon of American Pest Management in Takoma Park. “She handed it to my dad and she said, ‘If you open that and you get bit, it’s your problem.’ And there was nothing in there except lint, hair and dry skin. We deal with people like that every week.”

Delusional parasitosis is a real — not imaginary — medical condition, in which people feel the sensation of insects crawling on them and biting them, when there are no bugs present.

It’s also a nice, distracting concept to throw into a story about how the bed bug panic is all hype. The thing is that bed bugs can be hard to detect.

I grant that the woman with a garbage bag of scraps likely has another condition.

On the other hand, while a customer or patient with an envelope of scraps may have delusional parasitosis, she may also have some other problem or condition, or she may be experiencing real bed bug bites but nevertheless have had trouble finding bed bugs or signs of them. She may even have had a Pest Control Operator inspect who did not find signs. Bed bugs do leave visible evidence, but everyone does not know how to find it. And if the infestation is very new, there may not be a lot of it yet.

So, in response to Matt Nixon’s story, let me tell you, dear readers, about the kinds of people we at Bedbugger “deal with every week”:

• Readers who are told by qualified PCOs that they do not have bed bugs, after a cursory flip of the mattress yields no black marks or bed bugs;
• Pest Control Operators who tell us that –since we brought them a sample of a spider beetle we found in a bed, that we don’t have bed bugs (even though the most rudimentary understanding of the scientific method tells us that the presence of a spider beetle does not rule out the presence of bed bugs, and an inspection might be in order). In one such incident, the PCO actually told the Bedbugger in question, who was covered in itchy bite marks — without ever entering the home — that the spider beetles were probably biting her and that they could treat for that (and oh yeah — they just treated another woman for the same problem) — even though a cursory glance at university fact sheets tells us spider beetles are a grain pest and do not bite humans.
• Well-known and well-respected PCOs who tell us that there’s no point in inspecting since bed bugs are so hard to detect, so why don’t they treat anyway?
• PCOs who tell us that we don’t have bed bugs because we do not have bite marks;
• Doctors who tell us — simply by looking at our suspected bite marks — that we have scabies / that we have bed bugs / that we don’t have bed bugs — when it is known that visual inspection is not enough to diagnose either condition definitively;
• Landlords who self-treat, hire PCOs who don’t know what they’re doing, or hire good PCOs and don’t pay them to inspect and treat thoroughly;
• Landlords who refuse to have neighboring units professionally inspected (since neighbors claim not to have any bite marks), and therefore cause bed bug problems to continue much longer than they need to, and spread to others.

I would venture many of these occurrences are as common to me as customers with bags of lint are to pest management professionals, and probably even moreso.

Many people do feel or think they have bed bugs when they don’t. But quite often, people with bed bugs have trouble verifying their presence, and it takes a very long time for them to address the problem because they can’t get the proper assistance to detect and get rid of the problem.

About the health problems bed bugs are known to cause?

• Not sleeping enough;
• Allergic reactions (most who react experience itchy bites, but in some cases, extreme life-threatening reactions do occur);
• Stress (which can lead to a host of medical problems);
• In rare cases, reactions to pesticides, expecially if treatment goes on for a long time;
• In some cases, anxiety and depression.

These are usually not life-threatening, but nevertheless are (or can cause) medical problems.

Add this to the other stress-inducing experiences bed bugs cause:

• Spending a lot of time washing clothes, decluttering and otherwise prepping for bed bug treatment;
• Spending thousands on treatment and supplies; and
• Undergoing treatment for months and months, since your neighbors may insist they have no bed bugs, or may believe they have no bed bugs, when they are actually continually exporting them to you, or since your landlord may hire someone who does not know what they’re doing to treat for bed bugs, since — as Deane cites Michael Potter as saying — 20-50% of people don’t react to bed bugs–and you may be one of them, and have no idea until they are very far along indeed, and you see them cavorting in daylight.

Bed bugs may rob you of money, sleep, and time, and cause a great amount of stress. They can cause real mental health concerns for many.

And saying there’s no reason for everyone to panic does not mean that bed bugs are not a possibility, since you can indeed encounter them anywhere or bring them home at any time. Saying there’s no reason to panic does not mean that governments, businesses, institutions, and individuals should not try and prevent a bed bug infestation, nor that they should not seriously spring into action should one occur.

More, not less, needs to be done by the government to track bed bug infestations and help homeowners, landlords, tenants, and others prevent and deal with them.

The statistics this Washington Post article cites for the incidence of NYC bed bug cases are way off. The Post claims

In New York, the city housing authority has fielded and checked out more than 2,500 bedbug complaints in the past three years; fewer than 500 turned out to be actual infestations.

These statistics are incorrect according to all other accounts I’ve seen. In NYC public housing, The Daily News reported, in December 2007, there were:

. . . 1,708 verified bedbug cases in 277 public housing projects this year, the city Housing Authority says. The Department of Education has documented another 74 cases, spread across 50 schools.

That’s 1708 cases in NYC Housing Authority public housing projects in 2007, not 500 in three years. And that’s only in public housing projects.

Other news sources had much higher figures for infestations in non-NYCHA apartments which were reported to the Housing Preservation Dept. via 311 and verified by the city in fiscal years 2006 and 2007.

The Village Voice reported that

Carmen Boon, the spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, reports that of 4,638 calls about bedbugs in fiscal year 2006, about a quarter—only 1,195—of those, upon inspection, were actual infestations. That’s up from two complaints in 2002. That’s an increase of 231,800 percent (not to mention a 25,000 percent increase in bedbug articles in newspapers and magazines).

So HPD got 1195 actual complaints in FY 2006 (July 2005-June 2006). In December 2007, The Daily News said Fiscal Year 2007 (July 2006-June 2007) brought significantly more bed bug violations:

In the fiscal year that ended in June, 6,889 infestation complaints were logged and 2,008 building owners were hit with summonses.

And, as I keep insisting on this here blog, the HPD stats only track bed bug cases of people who complained to 311 and then had a housing inspector verify their bed bug case. Comparing fiscal year 2006 with fiscal year 2007, according to the stats above, the percentage of 311 complaints which are actual infestations went up (from 25% in FY 2006 to 29% in FY 2007) — which may mean there were fewer false alarms in 2007 than 2006 (and/or, possibly, that there were more experienced inspectors, who were able to detect more infestations in 2007 than 2006).

These statistics understate the problem of bed bugs in New York. Very, very few New Yorkers call 311 to report their problems. The vast majority will not call to file a complaint with the Housing and Preservation Department, when simply calling your landlord to ask them to fix the problem is the normal first step in getting help for a problem in your apartment.

Almost everyone reports bed bugs to their landlords first. (So all those cases which are then treated by landlords do not get included in the statistics journalists cite.)

Of those whose landlords are uncooperative, or who do not fully solve the problem, some will call 311. But many also fear filing housing complaints because they fear (rightly or wrongly) that doing so may mean they will have trouble getting a reference when its time to move (and boy, do some folks with bed bugs and unhelpful landlords want to move).

And let’s not forget that homeowners would never call 311 about bed bugs in their co-op, condo, or house. Bed bugs infest those homes too.

So even though the Post grossly understates the true level of bed bug violations the city has tracked, it also misses the point — as every other article stating these statistics so far has done — that 311 reports of bed bugs are the tip of the iceberg in terms of actual bed bug infestations that occur in New York City.

Of the hundreds of New Yorkers with suspected or confirmed bed bug cases who pass through the Bedbugger forums, few have reported calling 311 and getting the housing inspectors in. Another confirmation that these statistics understate the problem is that if you read the statistics cited by pest control operators on how many confirmed bed bug cases they treat, they themselves show how much more widespread the problem is. I have previously quoted statistics from Jeff Eisenberg of Pest Away, who told the Village Voice in December 2006 how many bed bug cases he encountered each day:

Out of Eisenberg’s 100 calls a day, at least 15 percent are wrongly self-diagnosed rashes or lint balls.

But as many as 85 calls per day to this single PCO [in late 2006] pertained to actual bed bug infestations!?! If this happened five days a week, 52 weeks a year, that would be 22,100 actual bed bug cases a year. And that’s assuming the number does not keep growing (though other data suggests it has). Yes, it’s anecdotal (we don’t have data from this company, though I am sure PCOs are keeping track of how many bed bug cases they see).

The city must implement a method of tracking actual bed bug cases in rental units that is not tied to filing a housing complaint. It is important to know how many people actually have bed bugs in this city. If the numbers truly are small, then I’d be happy to hear it. But I am weary of Housing Authority bed bug complaints or HPD (311) reports of bed bug violations being offered as evidence of how few New Yorkers have bed bugs, when it does not take a genius to see they can’t possibly represent the true scope of the problem.

Last but not least, the third Post article on bed bugs today, “Know Your Bedfellows” offers “just the facts” but nevertheless is not without inaccuracies, for example:

Life span: Adults live for about a year. They can survive for several months at a stretch without feeding.

Many reputable sources (including the Harvard site the Washington Post links to in the same article), point out more than a year is possible. Some say as long as 18 months. Harvard says:

Under ideal conditions, adult bed bugs can survive for more than one year between meals.

The following, also from the Post, is not inaccurate, but tells only part of the story:

Favored hiding sites: Mattresses and box springs, as well as cracks and crevices in furniture and walls.

Bed bugs are commonly found outside the bedroom, especially in sofas and upholstered furniture, but also desk chairs, in addition to other furniture and walls. Pointing this out can be helpful.

Unlike the Washington Post, I think bed bugs are underreported. Every article that comes out, no matter how inaccurate, misleading, or downright insulting to my intelligence (and this is by far not the worst we’ve seen) is positive in that it makes more people think about bed bugs.

That said, I’m not terribly impressed with the contribution to bed bug journalism that the second and third articles represent.

How about you?

• Washington Post prints correction thanks to bed bug activist
• Columbia Spectator on bed bugs, again with the HPD statistic soup
• Roger Smith Hotel on Lexington in NYC: latest bed bug lawsuit
• Lexington, KY vs. New York, NY: a tale of two bedbugged cities

ShareThis

The same day that we ask, with Rene Laraine, what might be causing his bed bugs to persist despite nine bed bug treatments by licensed PCOs, Nicholas Brown brings to mind similar concerns.

Brown, chronicling his bed bug experience on the Huffington Post, is now well past his seventh week. He has had five treatments (so treatment intervals are not the problem in this case). He is planning treatment six, the last one before he moves.

Again, I would bet money on the neighbors as source.

Like many of us, on this blog that was originally dubbed “Your foxhole, in the war against bed bugs” by its avowedly pacifist creator (yes, people, that’s how much I hate bed bugs), Brown mobilizes the war metaphors for his final assault:

Day 52

There comes a time in most insurgencies when you should cut your losses and leave. Maybe the enemy was more persistent than you imagined; maybe he was better at hiding; or maybe the weapons you used against him were inadequate. In any case, no one has ever accused the United States of pulling out of a conflict too early. And while I am all for America, I dont wish to repeat her mistakes.

I have returned from the farm and the squalor that confronts me confirms that the bedbugs are winning in our apartment. Yes, we have inflicted casualties. Yes, we have damaged their infrastructure. But at the end of the day, there are more of them than there are of us and we cannot win their hearts and minds. Moreover, there is great suspicion within the building that our downstairs neighbors are harboring bedbugs. Despite several requests, they have refused sprayings in their apartment. The bugs, we suspect, hide downstairs until the toxins in our place wear off and then return in greater strength. We can only assume they have training camps. We are keeping diplomatic channels open, but are not optimistic about pacifying either our apartment or the one below us.

We are calling in one more spraying, but the backbone has fallen out of our effort and we do not expect success. Our departure wont involve an embassy swamped with desperate refugees, but it will involve the horrid logistics of moving, made all the more awful by the necessity of inspecting and poisoning or freezing every item before it is packed away. Its a depressing thought, but honestly not all that much more work than washing, drying and sealing away all your clothing and papers and other possessions. Now come the slow logistics of apartment hunting, brokers fees, and long Saturdays devoted to subway rides and open houses. We are optimistic though. In the neon-lit consumerism of the new American Christmas, minor commercial miracles happen all the time. Uncle Bob might get some nose trimmers from the Airmall catalog; Delores might tip a busboy; and cousin Herbie may finally give in to those Debeers commercials and propose to that on-again off-again cocktail waitress he has been seeing for years. And maybe, just maybe, we will find our own minor Christmas miracle: a small apartment thats reasonably priced, relatively clean, and blessedly uninfested.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard from readers who moved almost nothing, took extreme precautions, and nevertheless brought bed bugs with them. In some cases, they chose new, equally infested quarters. Maybe they even rented a truck with bed bugs. But in most cases, they probably simply managed to move their bed bug despite precautions.

It’s worth moving during treatment, and treating at the other end. Yes, anonymous poster who raves when we mention pre-emptive treatment, we know “preventive” treatment isn’t supposed to work. But we know too many nice people who felt they had to pay for treatment in their new digs. This isn’t preventive, it’s reactive.

Good luck to Nicholas Brown. Unlike Amanda’s saga on Apartmenttherapy, I do hope we get to hear the end of the story.

• Nicholas Brown’s “The Bedbug Chronicles: Part 6″ sounds pretty familiar
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• The Huffington Post on bed bugs
• The Huffington Post: Nicholas Brown’s bed bugs, volumes 3 and 4

ShareThis

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

ShareThis

• 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

ShareThis

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”

ShareThis

This week he published a follow-up, which focuses largely on the many ideas people suggest (besides PCOs) for fighting the bugs. Hmm, Barbra Streisand albums. Now there’s an idea we hadn’t heard before. Cats? Barry’s right–not only do they sleep all the time, but unless they’re staring at your face at 5 am, they’re unlikely to catch and nosh on your bed bug friends.

He also mentions Bedbugger.com. Thanks Barry! Hope your bugs are long gone soon.

• Just a week after I posted “Another journalist gets bed bugs,” here’s a third
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Another journalist gets bed bugs, bad

ShareThis

When I spoke to Meredith May of the San Francisco Chronicle, I told her I knew of one journalist who’d gotten bed bugs (months after a story s/he wrote, and with no suspected connection between doing the research on them and catching them, in case you’re wondering, as I was). Last Tuesday, we read of the plight of Jennifer Holland, an AP journalist who also had bed bugs, and wrote about it. Only a day later, another such case comes to light: Barry Link writing in last Wednesday’s Vancouver Courier. In this Op Ed, Link describes the unpleasantness of bed bugs, the paranoia of going to bed knowing you’ll be bitten, the stigma, the unpleasant reactions from others, and the range of bites he’s gotten.

But I’m not sure if all or any of the itching is related to a real bite. The paranoia is what gets you. It’s no fun when your bed is a buffet table and you’re the buffet, and it’s distinctly creepy to wake up in the morning and find little brown spots on the sheets where they’ve fed and-this is gross-excreted. And having bedbugs is like having leprosy. Friends and colleagues have been overwhelmingly sympathetic. They also take a slight step back from you with a look of thank God it’s not me. My boss says, jokingly, that with an apartment that’s a hot zone, I can say goodbye to dating for the next while. He’s not far off. Soon after I discovered the bugs, I was gently de-invited from a party. I understood.

I’m fighting back. This past weekend I called in an exterminator, whose obvious sympathy for my plight was disturbing. Five years ago, he said, bedbug calls were rare in Vancouver. Now they’re a major part of his job and in every kind of neighbourhood. He also noted they’re hard to get rid of, which is why he’ll return in two weeks for a second spray. It won’t be soon enough.

That I hired someone to douse my home with chemicals to kill God’s creatures on Earth Day was not lost on me. If I could convince the bedbugs to go away by holding a benefit concert for endangered rainforests, I would. But I suspect these nasty, little bits of nature would find a reason to stay. They’re freeloading off my circulatory system. Life is good. And also, I hope, very, very short.

Me too, Barry Link, me too.

And I still want to know why the AP story was only apparently carried in the CentreDaily (PA), The Seattle Times, and spokane7.com. When the country’s newspapers had access to this AP story, why didn’t more of them publish it?

• Update from Vancouver journalist with bed bugs
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• Berkshire Fringe show conveys “the neurosis, the exhaustion, the paranoia, the fascination” of bed bugs
• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,

ShareThis

What better proof could we have that bed bugs are spreading like wildfire, than the fact that people whose work exposes them to bed bugs get them, but get them via some other route?

Today there’s an Associated Press piece by Jennifer Holland, of the AP’s National Desk, another journalist with bed bugs. She had bed bugs in her pricey Manhattan apartment for nearly a year, beginning in October 2005. I saw it in CentreDaily.com, a Pennsylvannia news site.

Hers is a common story– moving into an already-infested apartment:

Mid-October, perfect sweater weather. I woke up, put on my favorite blue zip-up and went for a walk on the streets of Manhattan, my newly adopted home. When I returned, I looked at my neck in the mirror and noticed some red welts. I had already had chicken pox, so I knew it wasn’t that. And I don’t have acne.

It took me about a week to realize what was going on after I overheard my upstairs neighbors talking about their bites. Then I found out that the two adjoining buildings were infested, too.

I had just moved here from South Carolina, where bugs were the size of pickup trucks. Bugs don’t scare me. But these things did. They like to snuggle into places, to feel enclosed, to crawl into any imaginable - or unimaginable - space.

Her description of lying in bed will ring bells for all Bedbuggers as it did for me:

Their tiny brown legs never tickled as they scurried across my face while I slept. Their sharp mouths weren’t enough to make me flinch. I could imagine it, though, and that was enough.

Each night, in bed, I waited wide-eyed for hours knowing they were homing in on the heat of my body and the escape of my breath. I protected most of my body with a long-sleeved shirt tucked into pajama bottoms tucked into socks. The slightest tingle upon my skin made me flick on the light, snap back the covers and begin the heart-pounding examination. Had they arrived?

Eventually, pure exhaustion forced my eyes closed. And that was when I unwillingly became breakfast, lunch and dinner for the little body snackers. My face and neck got the worst of it.

Some mornings, there were no new bites, and I allowed myself to hope that the latest visit from the bug guys had worked. Could I finally unpack my clothes from the stack of black trash bags and retrieve the rest of my wardrobe from the dry cleaners, where I had run up a $1,200 bill? Could I invite friends to visit without worrying they might take home an unwanted gift?

Then the itchy red welts would return, and I realized that the war continued.

Holland also did not get bed bugs from a story she did, rather, she got them from a neighbor; her PCO “Bug Guy”, who came to treat her home every ten days for six months, discovered the source:

Bug Guy became an important figure in my rapidly contracting existence. For him, I kept tiny plastic tubs of bugs as evidence. In return, he inadvertently made my life worse by giving me unwanted - and ultimately incorrect - information: The tiny dark things dripping from the vent above my bathtub were baby bedbugs. Suddenly every shower turned from refuge into menace.

My two cats didn’t fare well, either. I found them collapsed on the floor of my studio apartment after the first exterminator spray. They got a $250-night stay with the emergency vet, who gave them fresh air to breathe. After that, I boarded the cats each night the bug guys visited. I chose to sleep on a mattress soaked in poison, knowing at least that this night the bugs would stay away.

I sank into depression. I had no clothes to wear. I was afraid to make any friends. I stayed late at work to avoid going home. When a sympathetic co-worker offered me a couch for a good night’s rest, I had to hesitate; I couldn’t be sure what unwelcome visitors I might leave behind.

If you had stopped by my apartment in those days and opened my freezer door, you would have seen two unlikely items: my Bible and my journal. In cold storage, at least, the two most important books in my life might be safe.

Nothing worked.

She eventually threw away everything and started fresh:

I could spend many paragraphs telling you how no one understood. I could spend column inches denouncing my landlady, who sued me when I stopped paying rent, and telling you about the lawyers who said it would be more expensive to fight than to give up. I could give you statistics that show how anyone, in any city, could end up like me, fighting for my sanity against an invisible army.

But I will not. Instead, I will tell you what it’s like to walk away from all your possessions and start anew.

The day I made the decision, I was sitting in a sushi restaurant. My dearest childhood friend, Tara, had traveled from Texas to check on me. She said I needed to be ruthless - to pick only what I needed. The rest had to go. “You can buy new things,” she said. “Get rid of it all.”

I was fighting the tears, but they were coming anyway. I barely knew anyone to trust in New York. I could trust Tara, so I let it all out. Her saying it was OK to give up my fight and throw away my things made it OK.

On the day I got rid of everything, I was militant.

Dozens of movies with squashed bugs and dried blood inside video jackets - gone. My DVD player, which disgorged bug carcasses when turned upside down - gone. The closet of clothes, stacks of purses and meticulously-matched shoes, picture frames (I kept the photos), books, my guitar, my five-piece bedroom set - all gone. I even debated discarding my 32-inch television.

Aside from easily washed kitchenware, I selected only the most irreplaceable items - the toy dog I got for Christmas when I was 10, the first and only quilt I sewed, my late grandmother’s alarm clock.

I couldn’t risk tossing things into a trash heap on the street for fear my contaminated treasures would be scooped up by the unsuspecting. Instead, I just gave my landlord the keys to my apartment and walked away.

Holland did escape but at a great price. I have to say that the odds are, her stuff ended on the curb anyway (one reason why we need our city government to manage collection of bed bug infested furniture and mattresses the way they manage the collection of old air conditioners and refrigerators). But Holland got out. We’ve heard many stories here of people who threw out almost everything, and didn’t. Holland’s successful escape reminds me of the euphoria detailed by the author of A Big Fat Waste of Time’s Tales of a Bed Bug Refugee.

That the tragedy of losing every item in your home looks like a good deal when weighed against the euphoria of finally getting away from bed bugs should tell non-Bedbuggers just how bad this experience can be.

Some people do get rid of bed bugs: in a single family home it is very do-able. In an apartment, if you brought them in, you probably have a good shot if they’re caught early, or in a building where the landlord treats every unit at once, there’s a good possibility of success, even if they’re coming in from your neighbor’s.

But Holland’s story: an infested unit in a multi-unit building, where the source is not being eliminated, and every infested unit is not being brought fully under control at once–doesn’t have a good prognosis, and the hopelessness increases based on how long they’ve been spreading (and, I guess, which wrong moves, like bug bombs, have made things worse, by helping bugs spread).

I am hoping this AP story will make its way into every paper nationwide. Why is it so important? Because this article actually conveys the story of someone living with bed bugs for a year, giving up, and running away with nothing. This is the story that does not get into print–not, at least, from a “respected” source like a journalist. When Bedbuggers tell this kind of story to a journalist, they may sound a bit crazy. Some journalists emphasize that.

But here’s a journalist telling the world she went through it: she fought bed bugs, and failed, and fled. It can happen to everyone. It can be this bad with anyone. When it happens to more people who have influence, like politicians, TV news anchors, the Mayor– then, maybe, we’ll see some action.

Be sure you check out the video associated with the article, by Jennifer Holland and Ray Kugler, which features our favorite entomologist, Lou Sorkin, in an interview. (For those of you who’ve only seen Lou in the newspaper stories, and the many views of his arms featured on our site, a rare treat!)

Lou makes the point clearly that bed bugs do cause “health problems,” from skin infections, welts, itchiness and pruritis, to psychological problems. None of this is news to us, but we do get tired of hearing people stress that bed bugs are “not a health issues” because they aren’t (currently) known to (currently) spread disease.

Thanks to the reader who tipped me off about the article.

• Just a week after I posted “Another journalist gets bed bugs,” here’s a third
• Penelope Trunk: bed bugs as a lesson in “taming materialism”
• Amanda at Apartmenttherapy.com, part 5
• ApartmentTherapy’s fourth post on the Amanda bed bug case, since Wednesday

ShareThis