A bedbug epidemic in her Astoria apartment building forced Ellie Maldonado, 42, to discard her mattress last year.

Now, her brother Marcos Maldonado is spearheading an effort to raise money to replace the infected mattresses of his neighbors living in the Astoria Houses. He has named the project Sweet Dreams.

“I named it this because I want the kids to have sweet dreams as they sleep,” said Maldonado, 43, who has lived in Astoria for 16 years and is the owner of M&D Decorators on Astoria Blvd.

As I said, it’s a lovely idea, and very generous. Mr. Maldonado’s heart is in the right place, and he clearly knows firsthand how much bed bugs can mess up someone’s life and home.

However, and I hate to be a wet blanket (no pun intended), but I am concerned this program may only provide a temporary respite from bed bugs. Discarding bed bug-infested mattresses does not usually eliminate bed bugs from the home. In most cases, the room itself is also infested, along with sofas and other items.

It can give people a false sense of security. Bed bug bites may be lessened or eliminated for a while. But the bed bugs may still be present in smaller numbers, and can quickly bounce back.

What’s more, tossing out infested mattresses isn’t recommended by bed bug experts in most cases. Sealed mattress encasements tested to keep bed bugs out (or in this case, in) allow the mattress to be used and prevent a discarded mattress from going on to infest someone else’s home.

It’s essential that the apartment and the neighboring apartments are all bed bug-free, or these new mattresses will quickly become infested too.

Maldonado is donating mattresses to residents of NYCHA apartments, and the city seems pleased:

Maldonado hopes to establish a permanent, registered nonprofit organization to provide mattresses to families in the Ravenswood and Queensbridge houses next, he said.

City Housing Authority officials lauded Maldonado’s work.

“NYCHA applauds community involvement where community members want to help each other improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods,” a spokeswoman said in a written statement.

What isn’t mentioned outright in this article is the fact that it’s the NYCHA’s responsibility to eliminate bed bug infestations from NYCHA apartments.

I hope that their procedures involve inspecting all adjoining units (top, bottom, and all sides) when a complaint is made. I am concerned this is not so, since the fact sheet linked above says nothing about neighbors being inspected.

To their credit, the NYCHA does tell tenants to destroy any items which must be discarded. But my experience is most people don’t research such instructions before discarding things.

And destroying alone is not enough: mattresses should also be sealed to prevent spreading bed bugs while they await collection by the sanitation dept. or by trash-pickers.

I hope the NYCHA is also educating tenants about the signs of bed bugs, which can be quite subtle.

And I hope Mr. Maldonado will donate good mattress encasements for use with the donated mattresses.

• Tracing the path of the epidemic
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• Washington Post prints correction thanks to bed bug activist
• NYC schools closer to having bed bug legislation

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The encasements tested were: Bed Wetting Direct, Clean Rest, Mattress Safe, National Allergy Classic, National Allergy Elegance, and Protect-a-Bed AllerZip. Each test was run five times on each model, with first instar nymphs.

Cooper’s research attempted to answer three questions about these encasements:

1. Could bed bugs get through the zipper teeth when the zipper was closed? (All passed.)
2. The end stop: could bed bugs escape from the area where the zipper closes? (Mattress Safe, National Allergy Elegance and Protect-a-Bed all passed.)
3. When the zipper is open slightly, by 1-2 teeth, could bed bugs escape? Cooper’s research suggested the Protect-a-bed encasement was the only one which would prevent bed bugs from escaping when the encasement zip was slightly opened. The “BugLock” feature is a quilted pad behind the zipper which is sucked towards the zipper, creating a tight seal even if the zipper of the Protect-a-Bed is slightly opened.

I personally used (and still have) the National Allergy BedCare Classic encasement, which did not fare well in this test. Many Bedbuggers have used National Allergy or Mattress Safe covers. Cooper’s research suggests that of the National Allergy covers, the Elegance is likely more effective than the Classic. And it would be essential that the zip not be allowed to open. Many people tape those zippers, as recommended by NA (and by many readers here), but keeping those zippers entirely closed can be very tricky.

Cooper’s research suggests that the Protect-a-Bed encasements may now be the most effective encasements for keeping bed bugs inside the encasement (or keeping them out).

People who have purchased other types of encasements should not panic. They may work fine. The bottom line is that even the best covers must be used properly and carefully.

However, I will be revising some of the FAQs on encasements based on this information.

I was glad to see these tests were done, and I hope more research will follow.

You can view the three parts of the ESA 2007 presentation by Rick Cooper below:

1. Background on encasements:

2. Encasements compared as to effectiveness in two tests: bed bugs’ ability to get through the zipper teeth, and bed bugs’ ability to escape a closed zipper end stop.

3. Encasements compared as to effectiveness in the third test: bed bugs’ ability to escape the encasement when the zipper is not in a fully closed position.

• National Allergy mattress encasement test results
• New: discount on National Allergy covers for Bedbugger readers!
• Ossining, NY 8-year-old suffocates in Mattress Cover / sealed mattresses
• FAQ: How do I protect my bed from bed bugs?

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In the 3 1/2 years it’s been open, Jurys Boston Hotel has never found bedbugs on its premises, nor have its guests complained about being bitten. Still, the luxury hotel in the Back Bay began dispatching a bedbug-sniffing dog to each of its 225 guest rooms last year. And when the canine detective barked, after detecting the suspicious scent of the itch-inducing insects or their eggs, the hotel fumigated two rooms and burned the mattresses.

“At the first sign or suggestion of a problem, our reaction would be to treat the room with chemicals, no questions asked,” said general manager Stephen Johnston, who calls the dog in every three months.

Every three months hardly means you won’t be bitten by bed bugs in the hotel, but it is definitely a start, and would prompt many of us to choose such a hotel over another that has no strategies to detect or prevent bed bugs.

Jurys isn’t the only hotel to take a proactive approach to bedbugs. The Omni Parker House brings in an insect-sniffing mixed Labrador from Advanced K9 Detectives LLC, the same Milford, Conn., firm that Jurys and about 10 other Boston-area hotels use. The Omni’s general manager, John Murtha, is also considering buying special encasements for mattresses and box springs to prevent bedbugs from building homes on them.

My advice to hotels is not to think too long about mattress encasements–just get them. They won’t prevent customers from being bitten but make it hard for bed bugs to hide on the actual mattress, and can mean you don’t have to destroy mattresses or spend considerable time and expense sanitizing them if an infestation does occur.

In addition, I hope all hotels and motels will educate staff about how to prevent spreading and detect bed bug infestations. Stephen Doggett’s article for Executive Housekeeping (an Australian hotel industry journal) is a must-read for industry professionals. Click here to load a PDF.

How many hotels are infested?

Judith Black, technical director at Steritech Group Inc., a pest-control company that serves the hospitality industry, found only 0.6 percent of the almost 76,000 rooms the company inspected between November 2002 and April 2006 needed to be treated for bedbugs, but those infestations were spread across 24.4 percent of the nearly 700 US hotels it studied.

I’d take those numbers with a grain of salt, and consider them in juxtaposition with another statistic the article offered:

Scientists are trying to find ways to fight the bugs, too. The Entomological Society of America’s annual conference, held in San Diego last month, featured three half-day symposiums on the insects, with nearly 30 scientific presentations on topics like “How bedbugs survive long xeric periods between blood meals” and “The effect of sex-ratio on dispersal and aggregation behavior of the common bedbug.”

Three years ago, no one at the conference presented any bedbug research.

So in 2004, bed bugs were not considered important enough to merit one single panel presentation at the ESA annual conference, and this year the topic merited thirty presentations.  To me, this obvious growth in bed bugs signals that perhaps Steritech’s data from 2002-6 is largely outdated.  (Steritech’s data also seems to be based on hotels who hired their services, in which case it is already biased towards hotels which are more proactive against bed bugs.)

Assume many more than 24% of hotels are affected, but try to keep this in perspective: remember that “a hotel with bed bugs” may have them in only a room or two.

In my opinion, with the requisite precautions, it is still safe to travel. Click here to download the CBC video for a good lesson in searching a room for bed bugs, and read our travel FAQs. Seeing the world is too good to miss. Let’s hope all hotels, motels, and hostels soon see having a sound bed bug protocol as being as important as changing the sheets.

Read the rest of the Boston Globe article here.

• 25% of hotel rooms have bed bugs? I don’t think so.
• Today’s bed bug conference in Cincinnati
• Second Greater Boston Bed Bug Conference
• “Disproportionate Horror”: Vancouver Hoteliers Get Schooled

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• bed bug news for 2007-11-15
• Bed bugs at Berkeley will be treated with… say what?
• How to avoid bed bugs, according to Texas A&M’s student paper
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back

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The folks at National Allergy wrote recently to let me know they had done tests as to whether bed bugs could feed or pass through, or their eggs could pass through the fabric or the zippers of the mattress encasements, and I am happy to post them on the site for your perusal.

Click here to load a PDF of the report. The results begin on page 7.

• New mattress encasement comparison test data
• New: discount on National Allergy covers for Bedbugger readers!
• Ossining, NY 8-year-old suffocates in Mattress Cover / sealed mattresses
• National Geographic story on bed bugs

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Today, an article in the Rhode Island News provides just one example. A Cranston, RI shelter was so infested that 70 residents and housing advocates marched to the State House, seeking the Governor’s help. (You need a login, which takes a minute, but I will quote the most relevant bits below.)

For the third time in six months, a team of exterminators on Monday visited the state’s Welcome Arnold shelter in Cranston in an attempt to eradicate a persistent bedbug problem that has been plaguing the shelter’s homeless residents.

The bedbug infestation had emerged as one of the chief complaints of a group of 70 shelter residents and other housing advocates who marched to the State House last week in an attempt to get the attention of Governor Carcieri and get him to do something about the conditions at Welcome Arnold.

At that session, Noreen Shawcross, the state’s chief of housing and community development, and Clark Greene, the governor’s chief policy aide, promised the People to End Homelessness that a team of exterminators would be at the site as early as Monday. Also promised were new mattress covers to make the mattresses “bedbug proof.”

Dennis M. Langley, the executive director of the Urban League of Rhode Island, the agency contracted by the state to oversee the operation of the shelter on a day-to-day basis, said he believes that the exterminators did what was asked, but “I would not be telling the truth if I said it has been completely solved. This is a difficult group of insects to get rid of.”

So on the one hand, they believed mattress covers would make the mattresses bedbug proof (well, the mattresses, at least would not be a source of bites). They also realized they needed new mattresses, though only in those cases of obvious damage and disrepair. And they realized the difficulty of fighting bedbugs. And nonetheless…

Langley said that in keeping with another promise to the homeless residents, the shelter has purchased 100 used mattresses to replace those that are cracked or that have stuffing falling out. Twenty-six mattresses, acquired from the Donation Exchange, were installed yesterday, and 75 others, purchased from a nursing home, should arrive soon, he said. Some 250 mattress covers have been purchased but have not arrived.

Everything in that last paragraph is so wrong, so very wrong.

Let me get this straight: you realize the mattresses may be the cause of bedbug problems (and I am sure they are infested, though other parts of the room are doubtlessly also infested). So you buy 100 used mattresses? Used mattresses are a notorious source of bedbugs, and you cannot necessarily see the infestation.

And then, adding another layer of stupidity, you install 26 of those before the mattress covers are available? Thereby potentially spreading more bedbugs around?

Arrgghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you people not listening? Used mattresses are a huge source of bedbug infestations. I would never take on a used mattress, having seen the damage that bedbugs can do. And I certainly would not bring one in without a sealed cover.

And if these are standard vinyl covers, they’re easy to puncture (another reason not to take on used mattresses and try and cover them.)

I realize the shelter has little in the way of funds. But that is wrong! The State of Rhode Island is not doing itself any favors by skimping on attempts to eradicate a bedbug problem. Homeless people with bedbugs in their clothing and in their posessions are riding around on your public transportation system, sitting on your park benches, reading in your libraries, and if they’re lucky enough to come across some money that day, drinking coffee in your resaurants and seeking shelter in your movie theaters.

If compassion for your fellow human beings who have fallen on hard times does not motivate you to agressively treat their bedbug problems, and fund this to the necessary degree, their bedbug problems will spread to you. It’s not an if, it’s a when.*

*I hesitate to warn people of this, because it sounds like I think bedbugs are spread by homeless people.

Let me be clear: bedbugs are spread by everyone: homeless people, truck drivers, hipsters, and Ralph Lauren designers.

Bedbugs are spread by people, period.

In this case, however, they will be spread by people who do not have the resources to properly treat them and to try and prevent spreading them. And so in this case, it is everyone’s fault.

Shame on the State of Rhode Island! Shame on all of us for not seeing the problems of homeless people as our problems.

In this case, sadly, they soon will be.

• Brown student wants to provide free bed bug treatment to those who can’t pay
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• Washington YWCA infested with bed bugs: more elderly, low-income residents being left to itch

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