Bugs!

Originally uploaded by Generik11

Was the warning painted by the person who discarded this mattress and box spring in San Francisco, or by the person who appears to have removed the plastic covering?

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The City of Chicago has been investigating sales of new and refurbished mattresses which are infested with bed bugs, and has closed one store,  NBC Chicago reports.

At least five stores in the Chicago area sold new or refurbished mattresses containing bedbugs, city officials said Thursday.

The stores include Mike’s Furniture, Best Mattress Company, TC Furniture, Guadalajara Furniture and Chicago Mattress. One of the stores, Best Mattress Company, has been shut down.

City officials launched the investigation after receiving a litany of complaints from itchy and sleep-deprived customers.”This is an issue of taking advantage of consumers,” said Commissioner Norma Reyes with the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. “Particularly the most-vulnerable consumers in the City of Chicago — seniors and people with limited income.”

At least one of the stores disputed the charge,

All but one of the mattress stores refused to comment. Chicago Mattress said it disputes the city’s findings.

“I’ve been in business for 13 years and I’ve never had a problem until now,” said owner Andy Shifrin.

Alas, that’s how it is with bed bugs: they were not a problem. And now they are spreading like wildfire.

Chicagoans, check out “Consumer Watch: Purchasing a Mattress in Chicago” (click to download the PDF flyer from Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection).Similar Posts:

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Caution Bed Bugs Ahead

Originally uploaded by Social Interloper

Another shot from San Francisco’s Tenderloin:

Flickr photographer Social Interloper says in the caption,

Bed, Duct Tape, plastic cover, and a freaking caution cone, this picture says it all.

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Remember when we reported back in June 2008 that a new RainCity Housing development in Vancouver was going to contain a “bed bug sauna” for treatment of infested items?

The new building “The Lux”, at 65 Hastings Street, is in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a highly infested neighborhood, and provides 25 transitional housing units, and 67 supported long-term housing units.  And they’ve started baking tenants’ bed bugs.

RainCity is a chartiable organization which provides housing to people who need it.  Their website states,

The men and women who benefit from the services of RainCity Housing are treated with dignity and respect, and are offered a safe place to live, independence and improved quality of life.

Nothing says “dignity and respect” as much as helping people to live without the presence of bed bugs.

The Vancouver Courier reported of the new sauna room, that

Staff take bed bug-infested furniture to a 200-square-foot cream-coloured room with a grey cement floor and four metal troughs. A gas boiler heats water and an electric fan spreads heat throughout the room. Simpson, operations manager for RainCity, wraps infested mattresses, carries them carefully to the ground floor room, cranks the dry heat to 60 degrees Celsius for four to six hours, and watches bed bugs creep from the highest point of an item down, until they dry out and fall off.

It does not replace bed bug treatment for the unit, but does mean tenants do not have to throw out belongings which they may have been asked to toss in the past.

However,

RainCity hasn’t run the belongings of tenants moving into The Lux through the oven before they get set up, but it might do so when the flow of tenants moving in decreases. The nine-storey building provides low-barrier transitional housing with intensive staffing on two floors, and provides apartments for men and women who have a history of homelessness.

In my opinion, it would be best to run new tenants’ belongings through the unit.   Many people will not notice they have bed bugs until the problem is pronounced — especially since many people do not react to bed bug bites.  And tenants with bed bugs can spread bed bugs to others via common areas, and outside of the building (buses, hangouts, etc.).

With construction and consultant costs, Simpson estimates the bed bug room cost $8,000 out of the $22 million it took to construct 92 new social housing units in the Downtown Eastside. Extra money was spent in an attempt to seal each unit. Electrical outlets include flanges to keep bed bugs at bay. RainCity’s maintenance contract with a pest control company continues but in this new building, treating rooms above, below and next to an infested one shouldn’t be necessary.

$8000 out of $22 million?   Peanuts.

And simply sealing each unit carefully from the outset may go a long way to helping prevent bed bugs spreading.

The bed bug sauna idea is attracting interest from public housing provider BC Housing:

Bill Briscall, RainCity’s communications manager, said B.C. Housing is interested in including bed bug saunas at each of the 12 city-owned sites where social housing is planned. RainCity Housing runs shelters, including the controversial HEAT shelters under Granville Bridge, long-term housing, outreach programs, life skills and food services.

The Globe and Mail also reported on the Bed Bug Sauna at The Lux (PDF here).Similar Posts:

• 160-unit Richmond, California complex evacuated for tent fumigation of bed bugs
• Entire Kansas City high-rise gets thermal treatment for bed bugs
• Bed bugs bite in Richmond, California public housing development
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• Mark Sheperdigian on the limits of bed bug inspections

The Australian show “The New Inventors”(ABC) features several new inventions in an episode, with a panel of judges choosing the best of the lot.

Inventor Tony Abrahams won episode 16 (20 May 2009) with his passive bed bug monitor, the “Bed Bug Barrier,” which either attaches above the feet of the bed, or sits under the feet of the bed, trapping bed bugs attempting to crawl up onto the bed in a glue. (Based on the placement of the glue under the rim of the device, it is not clear to me whether bed bugs would also be intercepted if they tried to crawl off a bed, rather than onto it, as would be true with the Climbup TM Interceptor.)

There’s some iffy science here (for example, I don’t think anyone can prove the inventor’s claim that bed bugs cannot harbor on a mattress encasement). One judge is concerned that bed bugs brought onto a bed via a suitcase (rather than climbling up the bed leg) will not be hindered by this tool, and this judge is apparently correct. Bed bugs can live on beds. This device will not get rid of bed bugs living in the bed frame, on the mattress, or for that matter, on chairs or in other parts of the room.

This does not mean the trap is useless, but it does mean it is not a total solution. I would like to see independent test data demonstrating the effectiveness of any bed bug monitors. And I would like to know whether bed bugs are 100% trapped while entering or leaving a bed, since from what I can see, there’s some possibility bed bugs exiting a bed could drop down without crawling on the underside (glued) region of the trap.

Clearly, the passive bed bug monitor is an idea that is blooming in lots of different forms, and time (and independent peer reviewed research, we hope!) will tell which is best.

You can read about other currently available bed bug monitors such as the Climbup TM Interceptors — which provide a barrier for bed bugs climbing onto or off of beds — here, or read about David Cain’s soon-to-be-widely-available bbalert monitors — which provide a harborage for bed bugs somewhere on the bed frame itself — here and here.

I love that a bed bug-related product won this contest. Interestingly, Tony Abrahams got the idea for this product because he was in the business of renting out accommodations to travelers. His invention beat out a device which weighs beehives and some kind of portable refrigeration/food heating device.

Let’s face it: bed bugs in the popular media are always a good thing: one of the judges notes she will change her hotel room behaviors based on this presentation (presumably, she won’t be leaving luggage on the bed anymore!) If news about the problem of bed bugs reached many other Australians via this show, that in itself is a very good thing.

Click below to watch!

Thanks to Paula for the tip!Similar Posts:

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2009 is the year of the bed bug monitor. While some are thinking high-tech, it is also important to know that low-tech monitors are being improved.

This month, the CDC 3000 is starting to be used by PCOs and a few of the luckier people with bed bugs. The Nightwatch is also set to ship soon, we’re told. The devices cost in the $500 – $700 range, and so they really are not aimed at the consumer market. These active bed bug monitors use kairomones, CO2 and heat to attract bed bugs into the monitors, and then trap them.

But passive bed bug monitors are also evolving. Traditionally, we have had the glue trap, which really is not very useful at catching bed bugs. Think about it: they’re usually rectangular, and they just sit there. They sit there covered with a thick coating of goopy glue, and people commonly report waiting patiently and nabbing no bed bugs. There’s no easy way to surround the legs of your bed in glue traps.

Enter Susan McKnight, who has designed the Climbup ® Insect Interceptor, a passive bed bug monitoring tool which can be used in homes under the legs of bed frames, chairs, tables, and other furniture.

This is a tool for finding out whether you have bed bugs. It is not going to treat an infestation, but can help you determine if you have bed bugs, and when they are gone.

It looks simple, but seems quite clever: first, it has two wells: a center well and an outer pitfall. So you can actually tell from where the bed bug is caught whether it is coming onto the furniture or trying to exit from it. (The idea is they can’t hop over the wall in between. Neat, huh?)

This is a photo of bed bugs caught in the Climbup ®:

(Photo courtesy of Susan McKnight, All Rights Reserved).

Those bed bugs in the middle were trying to get off the bed / chair / etc. and the others were trying to get onto it.

You can imagine how some treatment plans could be improved if PCOs could see whether the bed bugs were coming onto the bed, or leaving from it.

Think also of the woman who reacts to bed bug bites, whereas her children and husband don’t. This monitor may allow a much better determination of who is actually being bitten.

The directions found in this PDF on the Insect Interceptor website note:

Climbup ® insect interceptor is ready to use with center well and pitfall ring prelubricated with talc to form slick surface to prevent bed bug escape. The talc will not kill bed bugs. With repeated wipeouts and prolonged use, relubrication with talc is advised. OPTIONAL: To avoid handling of live bugs, a dust (e.g. diatomaceous earth) or nonrepellent liquid (e.g. soapy water, mineral oil) may be added to in center well and outer pitfall ring.

Some bedbuggers have long placed a bed bug-free mattress and frame on top of risers or inside of margarine tubs and filled these with diatomaceous earth or mineral oil in an attempt to keep bed bugs from getting into the bed. The moat of mineral oil in a cup around the bed legs can backfire if there are any bed bugs living in the bed, because they become trapped on the bed, and will keep biting you there.

The approach suggested on the Insect Interceptor site is not an entirely different idea, but in my opinion is theoretically a better one: this product is designed to trap live bed bugs and to show which direction they are traveling in, both of which would be very helpful, moreso than simply trying to avoid bed bug bites.

A Pest Control Operator could, as the directions also suggest, “Count bugs by developmental stage from each capture area to determine efficacy of control treatment.” A resident could simply count bed bugs, and know if they needed a follow-up treatment, or not.

Dr. Mike Merchant of Texas A&M wrote on his Insects in the City blog about a presentation by Dr. Changlu Wang at November’s Entomological Society of America conference in Reno. Wang tested the efficacy of various spray-based and dust-based IPM programs for bed bugs (using chlorfenapyr, diatomaceous earth and Climbup™ monitors). Merchant noted that:

The traps caught more bed bugs than were observed by the inspectors in all apartments. Another interesting observation was that 94% of the trapped bed bugs were in the outer bowl, indicating that they were off the bed. This shows the importance of treating off-bed locations when controlling bed bugs. These devices might be especially useful for clients with low budgets and a high motivation to help with the elimination program. Of course the effectiveness of the bowls depends on eliminating contact of the bed and bedding with the floor and walls.

I understand that Changlu Wang’s research will be published soon (and we’ll let you know when it is). In the meantime, you can download a brief but interesting PowerPoint of his presentation at the ESA in Reno, 11/2009 by clicking here.

The PowerPoint stresses the usefulness of the product for low-level infestations and where residents do not respond to bed bug bites. We are told that only “4 of 10 residents noticed bed bug bites,” and that while visual inspection detected an “average of 6.7 bed bugs per apartment,” the Climbup™ interceptor after being used for 7 days found an “average of 8.8 bed bugs per apartment.”

For this reason, it would not be a bad idea for everyone to have these under their beds and chairs, sofas, etc. Wang’s finding that only 40% of the residents had bed bug bites reminds us that everyone needs an early warning system that they have a bed bug infestation. Those receiving bed bug treatment need to know when bed bugs are gone.

My only concern is that this product might have to be used creatively to work for some — for example, people who have platform beds with broad bases, or big clunky sofas — I am not sure how the product would work with items of furniture which don’t really have “legs.”

The Insect Interceptor website states that Climbup ® Insect Interceptors can be obtained from Residex and Oldham Chemical (by PCOs only from those outlets, I assume). We also see that Bed Bug Central is selling these monitors to the public. I have not actually seen them yet, but the research sounds promising. We look forward to reading Wang’s research results and to hearing from people who have used the product.

Update 4/23/2009: This month’s issue of Pest Control Technology has an article by Changlu Wang, Timothy J. Gibb, and Gary W. Bennett detailing the study of the Climbup ® Interceptor. You can see the contents of the April PCT issue with a link to the article here.

Update 5/12/2009:

Climbup ® Interceptors are now available from NorthShore Care (enter code in ad below for free shipping) and other online retailers, as well as from Residex and Oldham Chemical. In New York City, you can get them from Standard Pest.

(Disclosure: Bedbugger has an affiliate relationship with NorthShore Care, which means that if you purchase through our links, it helps support this website at no additional cost to you. We’re grateful to NorthShore Care for offering our readers the best deals we know of on Protect-a-Bed AllerZip encasements and Climbup ® Interceptors, as well as free shipping with the BBFREE coupon code.)Similar Posts:

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The following photos come from Lou Sorkin — pictures of bed bugs and eggs harboring in a bed (headboard, frame, mattress, etc.).

All photos and descriptions above courtesy of Dr. Louis Sorkin, All Rights Reserved. Many thanks to Lou, for sharing these with us!

(All descriptions follow the photo they describe.)

Bed frame, headboard & box spring. See close up pictures [below] of headboard, side of bed frame, box spring, and canvas strap handles.

Close up on wood support behind head board. Close up of top of wooden support to reveal bed bug adults, nymphs, exuviae, feces deposited on vertical wood headboard, and accumulation of dust.

Close up of headboard groove. Bed bug nymphs, shed skins, feces near to and in the groove.

Groove in bed frame side panel. Machine cut in bed frame bed bugs infested. Shed skins on surface and bugs in groove.

Bed frame with horizontal slat. See close ups [below] of slat and close up of area under this slat. Also bugs can be seen in another picture [above] of a machine cut in wood frame.

Close up area on bed frame under slat. Horizontal slat removed from bed frame to reveal bed bug refugia including adults, nymphs, eggs (some unhatched), exuviae, and feces.

Bed frame edge of horizontal slat. Bed bug feces, shed skins, eggs (some entire, some hatched) on underneath side of slat.

At head, old box spring turned over. See bed bugs, nymphs, eggs, feces.

Old box spring canvas strap 1. Canvas strap is folded down to expose refugia of bed bugs. Note bed bug adults (also squished one), nymphs, eggs, feces.

Old box spring canvas strap 2, lower. Another canvas strap that has been folded up out of the way to expose bugs, exuviae, feces, eggs on box spring covering.

Old box spring canvas strap 2, upper. Another canvas strap that has been folded up out of the way to expose bugs, exuviae, feces, eggs, on strap.

To see more of Lou’s photos, or to see these photos in a larger size, go to Lou’s flickr photostream.
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This is great.

As New York vs. Bed Bugs reports today, the New York City Council is going to hold hearings on three bed bug bills on February 24th at 1 pm at City Hall.

It’s a joint hearing by the Consumer Affairs, Health, and Sanitation committees on bills Intro. No. 57, Intro. no. 872, and Intro. no. 873.

Intro. 57 calls for a ban on reconditioned mattresses in New York City, and the creation of a bed bug task force.

Intro. 872 calls for disposal regulations which require people disposing of mattresses to obtain from the city a disposal bag and bed bug warning stickers.

Intro. 873 calls for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to provide training to landlords and pest control operators on bed bugs and their proper elimination; a list of PCOs so trained to be made available to the public via 311; bed bug information to be provided on the DOMHH website; and a toll-free hotline for citizens to call to report bed bug infestations and/or get information about bed bugs.

Intro. 57 was originally submitted in 2006, and there was a hearing on September 18th of that year which I know at least a few of you reading this attended. This is a NY1 article about the testimony, one from the New York Sun, and a cynical item from Gothamist.

But that was 2006, when bed bug stories were less common. Back in 2006, when you told someone you had bed bugs, you had to explain what they were.

It’s 2009 now, and The New York Sun is defunct, but bed bugs are positively thriving. While the lousy economy is cruel to newspaper producers, it’s a boon to bed bugs, who thrive when people have the least amount of money to spend in fighting or preventing them!

It’s high time we got that bed bug task force that we need even more now than we did in 2006.

You can read our posts referencing Intro. 873 here.

You can read New York vs. Bed Bugs’ posts on Intro. 873 here.

If you’re in New York City, please try and attend the hearing on February 24th at 1 pm. You can testify there as to what bed bugs have done to your life. You can help make this happen.

Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs (of which I am also a founding member) promises to share details and tips on how to do so, so keep an eye on New York vs. Bed Bugs, and start with Renee’s post on Thursday’s exciting new development!

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This article and video report from WCBD in Charleston reports that bed bugs have been found at colleges all over Missouri, including Northwest Missouri, Missouri State, and 70 cases at Wichita State.

However, the focus of this article is on the encounter between bed bugs and the University of Central Missouri:

It is a pest unexpected by college administrators.“We didn’t have them until about three years ago,” said Patrick Bradley, director of housing at the University of Central Missouri. At UCM, since the beginning of the last academic year, Bradley confirmed bed bugs in 32 rooms, treating many of them multiple times.

Some parents and students with infested rooms are angry, not only because those bed bugs keep returning, but because in some cases UCM has failed to fulfill it’s pledge to replace infested beds. Students say they discovered the discrepancy by marking their beds before officials displaced them to treat the room for bed bugs. Returning students then looked for their markings when they moved back into their treated rooms. Freshman Lauren Pulse was disturbed with the findings.

“It was the same mattress and the same bed frame,” Pulse said. “You ask them to do something and they don’t,” says freshman Molley Buckley

The university says it has since instituted tighter controls to ensure facilities employees dispose of bed bugs from infested rooms. “What we’re doing right now is everything we know,” Bradley said.

They may take a cue from the University of Florida, which decontaminates students’ infested items by heating them in a makeshift oven. Thermal methods may be very effective for treating mattresses, and would avoid the unnecessary expense of replacing mattresses.

Though I understand that students and parents think replacing beds is the solution, doing so actually does not ensure bed bugs have been removed from the room. If there are bed bugs there which persist after treatment, you may simply be giving them a new home.

Encasements are an option, though they must be treated with care so as not to rip. My own college had sealed mattresses (though I had no idea why at the time), and I wonder if colleges won’t start using these again.

The other thing UCM needs to think about is that experts say as many as 70% of people do not react to bed bug bites. Relying on students to react and then report the problem means many more students may have bed bugs, which feed and breed and spread, unknown to administrators.

It would be in the college’s interest to implement a proactive bed bug detection program. Bed bug sniffing k9s are not 100% accurate, but a good one is likely much more accurate than a human inspector. Texas A&M University has been flying bed bug detection dogs in to check for the pests before students start to complain of bed bug bites or bed bug sightings.

You can read the full article here or watch the video.

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In a new article in Time Out New York’s Apartment section this week, entitled “Bugs in a rug … and everything else!” TONY teases readers:

Yeah, we know you love found furniture. We do too. But what’s hiding in that street-side score?

Good question.

Journalist Julia Schweizer tours the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, examining curbside freebies with local pest control pros. They find a folding chair, a mattress and box spring set, a desk, a carpet, and a cabinet.

None of the items is absolutely confirmed to have bed bugs, but only one item (the desk) is assumed (rightly or not) to be bed bug-free.

There’s some advice I don’t 100% agree with:

[Timothy Wong from M&M Pest Control] —and most other sane people—advise against taking mattresses off the street, ever. They’re called bedbugs, people. Nonetheless, he says, if the box spring, frame and mattress are out together, you can assume they’re infested (while if the mattress is alone, it’s more likely that it’s just been thrown out for a new one).

Well, this may be true in some cases, but there’s also been a trend the last 5-10 years or so towards using mattresses without box springs. I know this because a Rockaway Bedding employee talked me out of a box spring when I bought a standard depth mattress for a platform bed about 5-6 years ago. Yes, he actually tried not to sell me something (it worked!)

People with platform beds, captains’ beds, or slatted frames often don’t use box springs, and these frames are popular with space-limited city dwellers. Even with more traditional frames, the newer thick mattresses make the “box” less of a necessity.

The absence of a frame, too, is not necessarily proof. Some people seem to think bed bugs are a “mattress” or “mattress and box spring” problem; they might not discard a frame right away. They might not have one. A lot of people also think, wrongly, that metal frames are “safe.” Though it is true there are some frame designs which may be more salvageable or more easily inspected than a mattress or box.

All I am saying is, I don’t think it’s good to assume a mattress on its own is a “safer” find.

The article also has promising advice. Re: the desk, Schweizer says,

Wong had suggested inspecting wood or metal items by spraying the crevices with an application duster, like Falcon Dust-Off JR ($5 at Staples). If there is a pest problem, this will force the little buggers out of hiding.

This is something people can do at home when inspecting the crevices of wooden items with a forced air canister (but be ready to kill what you scare out: have a contact killer or something-to-smash-with handy).

And the article also contains sinister PCO anecdotes, like this one from Montag Hicham (of Abolish Pest Control):

“Sometimes I ask people if they will put a sign up [on discarded furniture after I exterminate their home] and they say, ‘No! I want someone to take it!’ I guess they don’t want their neighbors thinking they’re dirty.”

Yes.

We have a lot to do as far as educating New Yorkers about bed bugs. I am glad TONY is trying to help. I hope city officials will start taking charge on the bed bug issue. Don’t you? Well, then, tell them!

In a related article, “Pickup Tips,” Schweizer talked to managers of a dozen “big-name” secondhand shops all over New York City who

…all admitted to not doing much more than eyeballing an item before reselling it.

Nice.

The only thing that may change such attitudes is a bed bug infestation on the premises — one that is unpleasant, taken home by employees, noticed by customers. And given time, the likelihood is high.

Stores with good reputations ought to care. It makes good business sense, in the secondhand trade, to care if your stock and premises have bed bugs.

Personally, I was already spooked by bed bugs and so do not want to take the chance on secondhand items (sold or foraged) that I do not know for certain to be bed bug free and/or which I can’t seal in a sealed ziploc after acquiring, and stick into a hot dryer (or hot washer and hot dryer).

Ultimately, I am not sure the message of these articles is strong enough. There just isn’t any way to know an item is bed bug free by looking at it. Even if you collect it from the inside of someone’s home, and they do not know they have bed bugs, the item can have bed bugs. I can’t stress that enough.

If you have unfortunately already experienced bed bugs, you are more likely to be in the “spooked” camp. If you haven’t, and don’t know anyone who has had them and shared their story in some detail, you may not be able to really feel this concern.

Like the secondhand shop managers, it might take a full-on bed bug infestation — which costs you thousands and takes months to clear — in order to make you worry about this.

But I hope not.Similar Posts:

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