I have not actually tried this product, though it does look like fun! Apparently, you seal your bed bug-infested laundry inside, throw the whole thing in the washing machine, and the bag dissolves while the items wash.

I stress that this post is not a review or an advertisement. I am posting this because I think it is good for everyone to know that this technology is available. It has actually been available, apparently, for 30 years, and has been used by hospitals and nursing homes for a long time. Applying it to the bed bug problem seems like a good move.

Click to watch the video.

(note: I usually embed YouTube videos, but this one did not work for some reason.)

Update 4/18:

Here’s a second video which shows the bags being used in the machine itself.

• Bed Bug Helloise with “exciting” XL Ziploc bag news
• Bed bugs in Listowel Community Hospital, Co. Kerry
• FAQ: how do I deal with clothing during treatment for bed bugs (and for a while later)?
• Hints from (Bed Bug) Helloise: your bedbug-opinions on hanging Space Bags, Space Bag Totes

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my lovely bedroom

Originally uploaded by mangy_cur

Scene’s from a Bedbugger’s life: the bedroom of bags.

• Reader Angie’s bed bug photos
• Hundreds participate in massive pillow fight, New York City, March 22, 2008
• Spraying is just the beginning…
• Spring break bed bug warnings!

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The Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority will show the Health, Environment and Education Committee a presentation on the pests.

Officials said bed bugs are a big problem in the city’s public housing, which is overseen by the Housing Authority.

According to Channel 12, Cincinnati politicians are claiming some success against bed bugs:

The health department says it received 737 bedbug complaints last year, more than 300 in September and October alone. Since then, the numbers have gone down.

Dale Grigsby, Cincinnati Health Department: “It appears as though at least what we’ve been doing for the last 6 months has been effective, but I don’t want to say conclusively until we’ve seen some more data.”

The message not to re-use discarded mattresses and couches may be sinking in. But housing advocates say the bedbug problem is here to stay for at least a while longer.

Surely the work Cincinnati is doing is having an effect.

However, I would not use statistics based on complaints during the last two months as a barometer. It’s my sense that people taking action on their bed bug issues goes down between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. My sense is that people are celebrating and preparing to celebrate. Money and time are going to other things, and they do not want to deal with problems–especially one they may think they can deal with a bit later. I don’t think that –based on fewer calls to the city about bed bugs in November and December–one can declare any improvement just yet. It really is premature.

And a few months isn’t really long enough to assume those treated homes are really bed bug-free. Bed bugs are notoriously tenacious. Even though Cincinnati was helping people discard furniture carefully, and providing information, there is no reason to think existing bed bug cases have been abated and that they have not spread further. It can take months for people who were treated to realize their bed bugs are not actually gone, yet. Rick Cooper helpfully suggests that people wait 55 days after last seeing a bed bug or suffering a bite to declare themselves bed bug free. My own sense is that in a multi-unit building with multiple infestations–and especially possibly undiagnosed and untreated ones–you aren’t really sure the problem is gone for some time after that.

The article also contained a strange estimate of how many would suffer bed bugs:

Charles Tassell, Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Association: “It’s going to be one in seven houses by the year 2008 that will be infected. We’re at 2008 and we’re not at that number yet, but we’re going to see it continue to grow.”

On the video, Tassell attributes his estimate that 1 in 7 houses would have bed bugs by 2008 to unnamed “professionals”. I do not recall hearing this statistic before, and I don’t know if it refers to Cincinnati alone or some larger region. I Also assume Tassell means “homes” in particular, and “homes,” not houses. Perhaps a reader will know the source of this statistic.

The Local 12 article did not give any real basis for thinking things were either that bad, or that improved. We can consider the one actual case mentioned in the article:

Joyce Jones has the bites to prove it. When bedbugs showed up in her apartment last fall she asked for help.

Joyce Jones, Stanley Rowe Apartments: “I did everything…I called in a work order. They come in and I tell you what they do. They do this here and say we don’t see nothing.”

Joyce is one of many residents of Stanley Rowe Apartments that are fighting bedbugs. Because of complaints, city council demanded answers from the Metropolitan Housing Authority and health department. CMHA says it’s doing the best it can. The health department says bedbug education programs seem to making headway.

Reading this tells you little. Watch the video. It’s hard to tell exactly what Joyce Jones’s housing inspector did, but her implication is that the inspection was cursory and this is a familiar story to our readers. Some readers tell us they have PCOs, and in some cases housing inspectors, who do very limited “inspections.” While we know bed bugs can live in the baseboards or other places in the room, and in furniture besides beds, some inspections still don’t go beyond looking under the sheets and mattress, and if they do not find a live bed bug, the inspection is over. (Some PCOs and inspectors, readers tell us, don’t inspect at all.) There have been isolated reports from people in NYC of HPD inspectors unwilling to come into apartments after people filed bed bug complaints. Of course, that is clearly not HPD policy and any person making this accusation simply must pursue the matter further with HPD.

Local 12 says Jones is simply using extra bleach in the laundry until someone comes to help. Since Jones lives in the same bed bug-beleaguered high-rise senior apartment building as Samuel Blackmon, the man shown in this harrowing video, where his “apartment that was treated a month ago” was not surprisingly still literally crawling with bed bugs. (The full story was not clear, but that video implied Blackmon’s apartment may have been treated just once, as of October, and that a month had elapsed with nothing more being done.) I would hope inspections in every unit of the building would be very extensive indeed, and that treatments are much more aggressive and regular.

I appreciate the steps Cincinnati has taken, but I would guess they still have a long way to go in fighting bed bugs.  We have not heard anything about monetary assistance for tenants, landlords, and homeowners who need help both preparing for treatment and for covering costs of treatments themselves. 

I hope they will add such assistance to current programs of public education and refuse removal, and make sure everyone is getting proper, thorough inspections and treatment–until their bed bugs are truly gone.

View the brief Channel 9 article by Alyssa Bunn here.

View Local 12’s article here.

• Today’s bed bug conference in Cincinnati
• We love Dr. Susan Jones, Entomologist
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Adult home shut down in Monticello, NY with multiple housing violations; 40 beds contained “bed bugs and bed bug eggs”

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She wants the health department to investigate whether they’re a health hazard:

Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) has received so many calls from constituents she’s asked the health department to declare them a health hazard. Last month, Fletcher met with Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health. It was decided the Board of Health would issue a report in February on what should be done about bedbugs in the city and whether they should be declared a health hazard.

Here’s a hint, Toronto: stress, anxiety, loss of sleep, are all health issues. You need look no further. Something more sinister is clearly a possibility, but these other concerns are not to be taken lightly.

Next, Fletcher wants people to talk about how to get rid of bed bugs, and prevent their spread:

In the meantime, says Fletcher, “We will have a bedbug summit with all the people who are interested in and involved in this issue.” Fletcher is advocating the city address the problem with education, not enforcement.

“Some people said they were living beside a house and the bugs were travelling from the house or apartment next door,” she said. “I’d like to see a focus on what needs to change in terms of behaviours; what do you need to do to stop bringing them in and what do you need to do to get rid of the bedbugs.”

This is all familiar ground for us.

Fletcher seems a bit distracted by the idea that bed bugs primarily affect a certain region of Toronto:

The bedbug problem seems to be concentrated in areas south of Bloor Street, says Fletcher.

“They might be north of Bloor, but the infestations and pockets are definitely south of Bloor. Right now tracking them is not a requirement but that’s one thing we’re looking at is how are we going to track and where are we finding them?”

While they may be more common in certain neighborhoods (and certainly spread more easily to those next door than to those across town), they will spread anywhere, and are certainly moving in all directions. And not just from neighbor to neighbor, but to workplaces, co-workers, people who frequent the same gyms, doctors, schools, and shops. Public transportation is likely to be affected. (David Cain tells stories of encountering this situation in London.)
Fletcher mentions the concern of people bringing in used furniture, and getting them to not do so is a public education issue. But her ideas about eradication methods are quite progressive:

“Sometimes people are bringing bedbugs into a whole building inadvertently and they are travelling unit-to-unit. I’d like to see a model where there are teams of people who go into a building to assist and not simply spraying, but cleaning, washing, getting rid of them and then when the spraying happens, you have a better chance to eradicate them.”

The article also quotes PCO and bed bug dog handler Michael Goldman of Purity Pest Control, who claims that “most hotels” have bed bugs, at least in one room. This is a far cry from the claims made by other companies.

The article also concerns itself with the need for notification of other tenants when bed bugs are found in a building.

Unlike schools that send home letters when lice are found in a school, superintendents rarely post a notice saying bedbugs were a problem in a unit, says Fletcher.

Finally, there’s a nod to Vancouver, which has some of the more progressive bed bug-fighting protocols in place (though we rarely get details of them).

Vancouver has launched one of the best pilot projects in its downtown east side as the city prepares for the 2010 Winter Olympics. “They’re vigorously trying to figure out what to do with bedbugs and they have a program set up but it’s very labour-intensive.”

The Vancouver pilot included tenant and landlord education, public education workshops, pest control and development of a health and safety protocol.

I hope politicians in New York City and other US cities with bed bugs (from Boston to Cincinnati) will take note, and that they’ll trade notes with their counterparts in other cities, from San Francisco to Toronto and Vancouver.

The number one complaint I’ve heard now from professionals (entomologists and PCOs) in several cities is that their local politicians will not listen to those with bed bug experience. This is a grave mistake.

Though it is not explicitly mentioned here, it’s clear Paula Fletcher is listening.

However, there was one small problem. This:

“The chemical approach isn’t necessarily the only way or best way to go. It’s one piece of a bigger puzzle,” says Fletcher, who would like the city to help people control bedbugs. “What people have to learn is that to control bedbugs they must become good at cleaning their bedding. People have to be taught how to do that.”

People do not get bed bugs, nor do bed bugs persist, because people do not know how to clean their bedding.

Reminds me of  when the chief medical health officer in Vancouver, John Blatherwick, implied bed bugs were spreading in Vancouver due to hanky panky in downtown eastside hotels.  Doing or not doing “naughty things” had no bearing on the spread of bed bugs.  What is it with politicians and their weird ideas?

Read the rest of the article here.

• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Reg Ayre of Toronto Public Health: bed bugs a “health concern,” not a “health hazard”
• Toronto Board of Health gearing up to fight bed bugs
• Toronto municipal councillor pushes for bed bugs to be declared a health hazard

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He posted volume 3 last week, which chronicles the “laundry and first treatment” phase. Somewhat unconventionally, Brown as his roommates Katherine and Jihad had not done much prep before their PCO showed up. He was kind enough to come back a few hours later, and so the team flew into motion. Brown’s style is engaging and the laundromat saga, in which the pushy ladies of the laundromat are put in their places, is fairly fun reading:

Our neighborhood has relatively few Laundromats and almost no one has a washer and dryer in-building, resulting in an atmosphere of intense and sometimes uncomfortably physical competition for the few available dryers. The already charged atmosphere is made particularly dangerous at our local Laundromat by a series of heavyset neighborhood Grand dames who are willing to throw their weight around. When I walked into the Laundromat, Katherine was facing down one such woman who had taken her clothes out of a washer and thrown them on the floor.

“What, you want to use all the dryers here at once!” the woman said

“Actually, yes.”

“Your clothes are dry.”

“They have bugs,” Katherine said.

Apparently she hadn’t mentioned this earlier. The effect was satisfying. Most people took at least a small step back and the grand dame who had been facing us down retreated completely. One woman, who had been rummaging through our clothes in an attempt to clear a dryer for herself, jerked her hands back so rapidly and with so much revulsion that it looked like the beginnings of an epileptic fit.

Volume 3 concludes with the “wait and be bait” period following the first treatment.

Volume 4 details various “crackpot” ideas for fighting bed bugs. My only critique would be that he nixes the idea of freezing books (when, in fact, freezing is a legit method for killing bed bugs), and freezes his VCR instead (note: I would not do this with electronics).

What Brown describes well is the experimental nature of so many solutions bed bug victims concoct. The last time people in New York City commonly had to deal with bed bugs was before World War II. Some of the folk remedies of that time worked and were dangerous, others probably did not work. In 2007, we are luckier than our ancestors; we have resealable bags, washing and drying machines, zipped encasements. Information travels faster now, but so does misinformation. Caveat bedbugger.

Brown also captures well the stress of life during bed bug wartime. By day 24 he says,

Our nerves are on edge. While it’s true that bedbugs generally fall into the category of ‘pests,’ it is underreported that they are also life-changing experiences. It is said that the three most stressful times in life surround divorces, moves, and new children. Bedbugs are surely a close fourth.

If I forget to take out the garbage one morning, I come home to find an angry Katherine. If I Jihad or Katherine move my things, I become irrationally angry. We lurk about the apartment during the day waiting to explode at one another. We are all angry at the creatures, but it is very hard to take out fury on an insect so we target snide remarks and well-timed sighs at one another instead. The emotionally traumatizing effects of these creatures are probably foreign to anyone who has not had them, but bystanders beware: bedbug victims are emotional landmines. Do not misstep near us.

Wise words. I hope Brown and Company have gotten a follow-up treatment 10-14 days after their first treatment. Judging from his description of the bed frame, they had a lot of bed bugs. From what we hear, one treatment is rarely enough, even in lighter cases.

Like the saga of Amanda’s bed bugs over at Apartment Therapy, Brown’s story is compelling reading. Like Amanda, he also introduces an unsuspecting new audience to the horrors of dealing with bed bugs, that we here at Bedbugger.com are all too familiar with. Some of the comments on the earlier installments are a healthy reminder that the vast majority of folks still are blissfully ignorant about bed bugs (a double-edged sword if ever there was one).

I don’t think we ever got the final update on Amanda, unless I missed it? Last entry I saw was #8, in which after two treatments, her bed bugs were “back.” (By back, I mean, they “never entirely left.”)

• Nicholas Brown’s Bedbug Chronicles, Part 7
• Nicholas Brown’s “The Bedbug Chronicles: Part 6″ sounds pretty familiar
• Apartmenttherapy.com: Amanda update (#7)
• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again

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Hello,

I found your site and wanted to ask a question. I rent an NYC apartment and it has been confirmed by an exterminator that we have bed bugs. I am wondering about the transportation of bed bugs. For example, I work in a corporate office…What are the odds that I’ve transported the bed bugs to the office? Can they be living on my chair at work? Can they be transported through hugging or close contact with others? I check my clothing and have not seen any bugs walking around on myself or clothing, but can the eggs be transported by any of the above situations?

Thank you so much in advance for your feedback.

Best regards,
bugginINlowerNYC

Hi bugginINlowerNYC,

Sorry for your bed bug troubles. The bad news is that bed bugs can spread. They can catch a ride in your clothing or bag, and hop off somewhere else to start a new life. It’s worth considering this possibility, as you are. The good news is they don’t spread that easily, and it is possible to avoid this using some precautions.

It’s also worth noting that they can bite during the daytime, a fact which some people just don’t acknowledge. If bed bugs are in a school, a corporate office, or somewhere else where people are not sitting or lying down at night, they will bite by daylight.

Let’s take your questions one by one:

I am wondering about the transportation of bed bugs. For example, I work in a corporate office…What are the odds that I’ve transported the bed bugs to the office?

First of all, don’t panic. It happens, but I would say it is a small percentage of people who report this.

Though few people report this happening, we do also encourage people to take precautions against it. If it does happen, not only can you create a stressful situation at work, but you are also likely to reinfest yourself at home, even if treatment at home is going well.

Precautions might include carefully inspecting purses, shoes, etc. and treating them in appropriate ways if necessary; storing them in the home carefully; washing and drying clothing on hot and storing it in sealed containers (e.g. XL ziplocs) before use; showering and dressing in this cleaned-dried-sealed-up clothing directly before going out to work or anywhere else.

If, instead, you sit around at home, then hop up, grab a bag off your (possibly infested) sofa, hop in the car, and go to work (friend’s home, etc.) then you are more likely to bring bed bugs elsewhere.

And while few people have reported taking them to work, many people have reported giving them to relatives, friends, etc.

Finally, this is not your situation, but for others out there, some folks think they have bed bugs at home, where they might actually be bitten at work. Since bite marks and itching seem to appear after one is bitten (anywhere from a few hours to the next day or longer), it is possible to be bitten at work and think you are bitten at home. Keeping a log of when new bites appear might help you pinpoint this. Most people seem to first notice new bites sometime the day after being bitten: in the morning, afternoon, or evening, in many cases. Lots of Bedbuggers notice them after a warm or hot shower, or exercise, suggesting that heat can “bring them out” somehow. That is based on anecdotal evidence; unfortunately, this stuff has not really been studied yet.

Can they be living on my chair at work?

Yes–or, for that matter, a chair at home. Sofas, soft chairs, desk chairs, anything really: if you sit there for long periods (working at your desk, zoning out at home in front of the internet or a movie), you can be bitten. And they are likely to hide out near where they feed.

But remember– in addition to beds or chairs, bed bugs can actually live in the room itself (under baseboards, in floor cracks, around edges of carpeting, even behind electrical plates).

Can they be transported through hugging or close contact with others?

It is possible, but not easy. As per the first answer above, they will “hitchhike” in your bag, or even an item of clothing. If you are wearing washed, clean clothes, and if you take care to store items like coats and shoes properly, then it would be difficult for them to do so. Also, even if they did hitchhike, say in a trouser cuff or bag, they would not likely ride around very long. They want to bite you and then run off and hide inside something that is not moving!

Again, this does not apply to your situation, but we have heard of extremely serious infestations of people who did not bathe or change their clothing regularly, who were walking around covered in bed bugs. This is a rare situation, but it can happen.

I check my clothing and have not seen any bugs walking around on myself or clothing, but can the eggs be transported by any of the above situations?

It is possible a bed bug could have left an egg in your clothing. However, eggs take 6-17 days to hatch according to this Cornell fact sheet.
So if you’re washing your clothing and storing it as we describe during your infestation, this should not be a problem. Washing and drying on hot will kill bed bugs and eggs. If a hot wash will damage your clothes, Dr. Michael Potter has done some research on drying dry items on hot (which should be safer for items not suitable for machine washing and drying together). These FAQs about dealing with clothing should help.

For the benefit of others, I should point out that the precautions are not difficult in and of themselves, but they become moreso if you a lot of people in your home, or live with elderly people, children, people with various disabilities, or even adults who do not want to participate. I do not discount these difficulties, but am simply suggesting what has worked for others.

I hope other readers will comment with additional suggestions, questions, or comments.

• bed bugs and thrift stores
• Bed bugs infest New Rochelle cell block and three police cars
• Word about bed bugs getting around
• FAQ: how do I deal with clothing during treatment for bed bugs (and for a while later)?

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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 firefighters battling bed bugs in one firehouse after another
• Today’s bed bug conference in Cincinnati
• Cincinnati: awareness spreading, funds needed to fight bed bugs
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…

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Amanda has now had (apparently) one treatment and one follow-up treatment from Metro Pest. (Their protocol is listed here.)

Apartment therapy’s Maxwell has the idea that “you have to keep the clothing out” of the apartment “for three weeks.”

This was my response to the notion of putting back clothing:

I don’t know about keeping clothes out of the apartment. On http://bedbugger.com we tell people to wash and dry on hot, bag in XL ziplocs, and keep those ziplocs in the apartment. But don’t return stuff to closets and drawers.

I am not sure where Amanda sent her stuff for three weeks, and I’d be really interested to know. But her PCO’s protocol appears to require stuff be not just bagged but out of the way, making treatment easier.

People should be aware that washed clothing should stay bagged and out of closets and drawers until bed bugs are LONG gone. Many people require more than two treatments, so be warned. Needing 3-4 is not uncommon. And the stuff should be bagged until there are no further signs of bed bugs, bites, fecal specks, etc.

Richard Cooper, a pest control expert in NJ, says in this article that it takes 55 days of “bug-free, bite-free time” to know the bed bugs are gone for good. It sounds extreme, yes, but if Amanda is already putting clothing and stuff back in drawers and closets, three weeks from the beginning of treatment, I personally think that doing so is foolhardy.

Maxwell also shared this scary story:

Meanwhile, in other bedbug news, we recently heard that another friend and her boyfriend lost their apartment in Brooklyn due to bedbugs. Away in Vancouver for the summer, they had sublet to folks for 4 months, but had pulled a rug in off the street just before leaving that let bedbugs out on the subletters.

Freaking out, the subletters fled the apartment and our friends lost the rent and were then liable for the cleanup cost. Needless to say, they are now considering staying in Vancouver for the long haul.

Yikes!

Subletting is hugely popular in NYC, especially in the summer. Artists, students, people with summer homes or travel plans, commonly rent out their apartments for one week to three months in the summer. Some people rent theirs to multiple subletters in one summer!

I regularly get forwarded offers via email to rent people’s apartments. And I gotta tell ya, lots of people are going to be coming home to bed bugs or unknowingly taking bed bugs home with them. Subletting in this city is not going to slow down, but it is a great way to spread bed bugs. And you don’t even have to drag an old rug in off the street to get them. Remember, the neighbor who dumped the rug in front of your friend’s building had bed bugs. If they live in the same building, your friends could have got them anyway!

• Amanda at Apartmenttherapy.com, part 5
• FAQ: How can I avoid spreading bedbugs to others when I visit their homes?
• Bedbugs called “a new kind of roach”; building managment lies
• ApartmentTherapy.com still does not quite get the bed bug thing

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A more recent article from News 8 in New Haven suggests that the

The infestation started in one unit and moved to 14 other apartments. The city paid for hotel rooms so the professionals could come in and steam clean room by room, bed by bed.

“We’re steaming it, the steam will kill the eggs and a lot of the bugs it contacts,” said Jim Miller of Yale Pest Elimination Corporation.

The bugs are not just in the beds, they could be in clothes.

Steaming, especially dry steaming (which avoids problems with mold and mildew) is a good way of killing bed bugs and eggs. But as PCO Miller’s words imply, it will only kill bed bugs that are steamed directly. The same is true of eggs (though the quotation implies otherwise). Although I am glad to see PCOs using this method, I do think it needs to be used in concert with pesticides and/or dusts. Killing “a lot of the bugs,” after all, is not the goal here. Steaming needs to be followed-up by other methods. If it is, I don’t doubt more bed bugs can be killed more swiftly than without the steaming step.

I do note, however, that this article is misleading. If the PCO is using other methods, this isn’t mentioned. The article therefore might give readers the idea that steaming alone is a good way to beat bed bugs. While professional steaming equipment will probably do a better job than home steamers, it is not a comprehensive plan to eradicate bed bugs, which hide well, and are likely to be hiding in places the steam cannot reach.

“They steamed my mattress and my box spring yesterday and removed all my clothes out of my clothes closet,” said Witherspoon.

“We provided them with new clothing because obviously we are concerned about them taking their own clothing with them because the clothing may be contaminated,” said Jimmy Miller, Director of the New Haven Housing Authority.

“They’re making sure all the clothes get washed they’re doing what they have to do, they stepped up to the plate,” said Maria Ayala, resident.

The housing authority is promising prevention at all its complexes.

“We’re going be increasing our house keeping efforts,” said Jimmy Miller.

It’s great that they’re aware of the clothing issue, though laundry would have been sufficient and probably saved them a lot of money as well as making tenants happy.
I note that my prior concern–expressed in the previous post about New Haven– has not been addressed: that is the question of whether precautions were taking to prevent bed bugs being spread to the hotel.

In addition, authorities need to realize, prevention is not simply a matter of housekeeping (as housing official Miller suggests; I am, by the way, fascinated that the PCO’s name is Jim Miller and the Housing Authority official’s name is Jimmy Miller, and I wonder if they’re related).

Prevention requires education–for all tenants and employees–about where bed bugs come from and how to avoid getting them. (Note: they don’t come from women who carry bags and have cats.)

Prevention requires supplies (such as good mattress and pillow encasements that may help keep bed bugs from infesting beds) and services (regular inspections–either manual, or by a good bed bug dog) will help new infestations be caught earlier so they can be treated quickly.

The bottom line is that New Haven housing officials — like all landlords in multi-unit dwellings — need to accept the inevitability of more bed bugs being brought into the building. It’s a matter not of if, but when. And knowing that, they need to have wide awareness among tenants and employees of how to recognize the signs. Preventive treatments, such as food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) might be a way the city can help the building stay bed bug-free longer.

• New Haven housing officials confused: why can’t they get rid of these bed bugs?
• Reno; and New Haven: bed bugs cause unsuspecting officials to run around like confused flour beetles
• New Haven: another housing complex has bed bugs
• New Guidelines for Prevention and Management of Bed Bugs in Shelters and Group Living Facilities

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A reader asked,

Did you have problems finding dry cleaners to accept your clothes?

I personally did not, but I did not have much stuff that needed to be dry cleaned. If your things can be washed and dried on hot (until seriously, seriously dry and hot), that’s probably better, cheaper, and safer.

If it can’t be washed and dried but can be put in the dryer when it is already dry on hot for a shorter period of time, then this is probably also a good option. Bed bug researcher Dr. Michael Potter says dry for hot for 5 minutes, if the item is already dry, and he seems to know his stuff! But if that skeeves you out, 20 is probably even safer for many clothing items that may be thicker than a sock. If drying only does not seem “clean” enough to you, you can always dry in this way, then bag the item until a full dry cleaning were possible, say in a few months when the bed bugs seem to be long gone (hopefully).

I’d be interested in hearing from others about their dry cleaner experiences.

I don’t doubt that many people simply take the stuff in to be cleaned, and say nothing, but I think that’s very dangerous. Better to take them in in a sealed bag and explain that they had been exposed to bed bugs and should be kept separate from other items until dry cleaned.

I could fully understand some dry cleaners not wanting to deal with that, but there will be others who will want your business regardless. I’d expect some careless others to say “sure,” but if they don’t much about bed bugs, they might not pay much attention to what happens. If you’re lucky, they will agree and they’ll care.

While we’re at it, wash and fold services are very popular, especially in cities like New York. I seriously don’t recommend using them. The risk of transmitting the bed bugs to the business and to others–both workers and other people via their laundry–is too great.

If it seems like a good time to weed out which clothing items you can give to charity, wash, dry and bag them first–at least they won’t be sitting around your house in bags for weeks.

You may also want to just throw things away, but think about it carefully; here in NYC, seeing people pick through other peoples’ garbage is a daily occurrence. Even if you don’t see it, it happens at night, everywhere.

Okay, I’m off my soapbox.  Anybody got dry cleaning stories to share?

Update 12/07:  a word of warning.    In our forums, Doug Summers wrote:

I think we need to be careful when we discuss dry cleaning. Traditional dry cleaning uses perchloroethylene or “Perc” instead of water. Dry cleaning used to mean a wet cleaning method that does not use water.

Some newer “environmentally friendly dry cleaning” methods utilize water in the process to eliminate the health issues that are associated with exposure to Perc. These methods are essentially a mechanical method using a cold water delicate wash approach. I don’t know if the “No Perc” methods will actually kill bed bugs.

So you might want to make sure your dry cleaner uses PERC.

I think this is another reason to try and use wash/dry (drying wet items on hot until really dry and really hot) or drying dry items on hot (see above).

I also would not rely on dry cleaning or even wash/dry or dry/dry methods with thick items like pillows, comforters, and sleeping bags.  It can’t hurt, but I would not be very confident.

• FAQ: how do I deal with clothing during treatment for bed bugs (and for a while later)?
• FAQ: How do I prepare for pest control treatment? Should I put everything in bags?
• Case study: bed bugs survived dry cleaning… and resurfaced 6 months later (update)
• bed bugs and thrift stores

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