WNYC reports on the EPA National Bed Bug Summit which is happening tomorrow and Wednesday in Arlington, Va.

WNYC’s Fred Mogul interviewed New York City Assistant Health Commissioner Dan Kass:

KASS: There are folks who have done a tremendous amount of study, about the kinds of products and practices that work well, there are other jurisdictions that may have some ideas about how to encourage property owners to act quickly. We’d like to hear some of those.

Kass says he wants to see what regulations other states have to police over-the-counter pesticides – many of which he says are dangerous and ineffective.

The city health department for years said bedbugs were not a public health problem, because they are a nuisance but do not transmit disease. Kass says his agency now is committed to assessing the problem thoroughly and helping property-owners, tenants and exterminators work together more effectively.

See: WNYC – News – Conference to Address Bedbugs.

I’m really glad Dan Kass is enthusiastic about the EPA Summit.

We really need housing and health officials to learn as much as they can from entomologists who study bed bugs, and can speak to various issues around their control and spread.

We also need public officials to share their experiences and learn from the experiences — both good and bad — of their counterparts in other locations.

You can get all the information on the EPA Summit from this post at New York vs. Bed Bugs.

I look forward to hearing about the EPA National Bed Bug Summit, which I unfortunately cannot attend due to work commitments. Perhaps some of our regulars would report back to us about the event.Similar Posts:

• Soundbites from the EPA National Bed Bug Summit

We’ve previously mentioned the upcoming EPA bed bug summit on April 14-15 and the upcoming Washington DC bed bug summit on March 27.

We now refer you to New York vs. Bed Bugs, where Renee has compiled all the details and links on the EPA National Bed Bug Summit (4/14-4/15) and Stop Bed Bugs DC (3/27); RSVP is strongly recommended for the April event and required for the March event, so please do follow those links for more information on that.

I encourage you to participate in person or virtually (in the case of the EPA Bed Bugs Summit, where teleconferencing / webinar options are said to be in the offing).

Also, on Friday, I received a message from Gale Brewer about the signing of Intro. 57a, the Bed Bug Advisory Board bill, which will take place tomorrow (3/18) and is open to the public:

Dear New Yorker:

Thank you for your advocacy on the creation of a bed bug task force.

Because I share that goal, I introduced Intro 57-2006 which prohibits
the sale of reconditioned mattresses and calls for the formation of a
bed bug task force. On Wednesday, March 11, 2009, the Council
unanimously approved the Int 57-2006 at the full Stated Council meeting.

The bill will be signed into law by the Mayor on Wednesday, March 18,
2009 at 3:30pm in the Blue Room, in City Hall. All bill signings are
public hearings and all members of the public are invited to attend.

There will also be the opportunity to offer short comments.

Sincerely,

Gale A. Brewer

City Council, District 6:
Manhattan

Many of you may wish to attend and show your appreciation; we will all be there in spirit, I am sure.

Two other recent links of note from New York vs. Bed Bugs:

First, Renee examines the fact that the New York City Housing Authority is drastically under-responding to bed bug complaints in public housing in NYC. They just can’t keep up. And you know what that means, right? More bed bugs for everyone.

Also, Renee shares a notable letter from August 2008, in which Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Michael J. Kussman outlines the best practices for dealing with bed bugs in VA facilities.

Prompted by this, Renee asks whether some centralized agency might collect and disseminate such resources, rather than every single agency and institution, large or small — in every city, county, state or nation — having to reinvent the wheel.

Excellent question.

Reinventing the wheel is the name of the game when it comes to disseminating bed bug information, isn’t it? How many universities have their own bed bug fact sheet — some of them quite outdated, making recommendations no longer commonly offered by experts?

What would the humble bed bug fact sheet look like at its very best, compiled by a committee of the most reputable bed bug specialists, with access to the latest research and a keen awareness of how bed bugs act in the field? There are some like this, but in their presence, why do the others still exist?

Why do we so rarely get that information at its best?Similar Posts:

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The New York City Bed Bug Advisory Board bill (Intro. 57a) was passed yesterday!

This fox segment preceding the vote Wednesday was just a sample — there was a lot of press, from Fox and Newsday to the Canarsie Courier.

The New York Press was clearly too traumatized to post an actual bed bug photo, so they posted a picture of the furry faux Bed Bug plush (from Giant Microbes).

Alas, sneaky Simes is way, way uglier than that.

This clip from WNYC about the passing of the bill has Gale Brewer saying, “it’s not the final nail in the coffin of bed bugs in our city, it’s the first nail…”.

Bring it on!

Congratulations to Gale Brewer and the other council members who sponsored and supported Intro. 57a which called for the Bed Bug Advisory Board.

Congratulations also to Renee Corea and my other fellow founders and members of New York vs. Bed Bugs, who worked hard to raise awareness about the importance of the bed bug issue (and the need for a Bed Bug Task Force) among council members, as well as other local officials and elected representatives.

Thanks to all those who testified at the New York City Council Hearing a few weeks back, and of course to everyone who wrote, called, or visited their elected representatives.

We hope the appointments to New York City’s new Bed Bug Advisory Board include some of the best local entomologists who study bed bugs and can speak knowledgeably of the scope and complexities of the bed bug problem, and of the best possible courses of action the city might consider.

I know I still owe you some notes from two weeks ago. Alas, they’re dated now, but I still intend to share some snippets. I’ve been busy and had some back trouble of late, so it’s had to go on the back burner. Stay tuned!Similar Posts:

• New York Mayor Bloomberg signs Bed Bug Advisory Board legislation
• New York City bed bug numbers, Bedbugger-style
• Atlantic City public housing: 1/3 of 800 units in four buildings infested with bed bugs
• New York Daily News: NYC bed bug complaints up 34% in one year
• Bed bugs bite in Richmond, California public housing development

The press is starting to appear about the hearing yesterday.

Frank Lombardi in the Daily News said,

Prodded by rising complaints and pressure from some elected officials, activists and the media, the Bloomberg administration gave limited support Tuesday to launching a war on bedbugs.

Testifying at a City Council hearing, representatives of the health, housing and sanitation departments announced their support for Council legislation to establish a task force to study the city’s widening bedbug problem and recommend remedies.

Although it is true that some of the experts and departmental officials who testified rejected some or other of the bills or provisions (more on that in a later post), I am not sure how limited the support was. Among those who testified, support for the Bed Bug Task Force was unanimous, and I suspect this had a profound effect on the City Council Members.

Done properly, and quickly, and peopled with the right individuals, a bed bug task force can really make things happen.

City Room blog (NYTimes.com) quoted Gale Brewer, the City Council Member who has so long been trying to pass legislation on this issue that her City Hall peers call her “The Bed Bug Lady:”

Ms. Brewer is optimistic about the formation of a task force, though there is considerable debate over the specifics, such as the mattress legislation.

“I was glad that all the questions are all out there,” she said in an interview during the hearings. It is a multifaceted problem involving the city’s health department, public housing agencies, the Police Department (since prisons are infested), the Sanitation Department (since it involves disposal of furniture), and Department of Consumer Affairs. “You have to do it as a collaborative effort,” she said.

AMNY covered the event too, and gave a taste of what people with bed bugs go through:

Those who have lived with the pests say it often takes multiple exterminations – and sometimes thousands of dollars – to get rid of them.

“I threw away everything,” said Sirajul Laskar, 42, of Jackson Heights, who added that 22 of the 52 apartments in his building have had bed bugs. “They sprayed three times and still bedbugs.”

Overall, I had a positive impression of the event. The City Council members took the testimony very seriously, and do seem to grasp the importance of the bed bug problem — especially the wonderful Council Member Robert Jackson, who himself lived with bed bugs as a child, and who mentioned having seen bed bugs recently, in New York city, in public places.

It’s nice to have someone on the City Council with this sort of first hand experience and awareness of the problem, though of course we don’t wish bed bugs on anyone.

I also want to say how grateful I am to everyone who testified, especially Renee Corea who represented New York vs. Bed Bugs, and a second of my fellow New York vs. Bed Bugs co-founders who represented herself in testimony, entomologists Lou Sorkin and Jody Gangloff-Kauffmann (both also Advisors to New York vs. Bed Bugs), Rick Cooper and Gil Bloom, and the many citizens who had battled bed bugs themselves and testified about their experiences. The witnesses did a wonderful job of conveying the problems of bed bugs, which are complex indeed.

I am also grateful to everyone who showed up to support the speakers and the cause.

I will be posting more of my impressions and notes later today…

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Renee Corea of New York vs. Bed bugs broke the news today that the EPA is holding a meeting on bed bugs on April 14th.

Renee writes:

We have just received information, from our one and only contact at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that EPA is set to hold a public meeting on bed bugs on April 14 in Washington, DC.

We think this is a watershed event. The public health interest is clear and can no longer be ignored. No more dithering about bed bugs and their public health importance. This attention is utterly warranted and, in fact, overdue.

It’s really wonderful to see this happening.

I know you’ll want to follow up by reading the rest of the post over at New York vs. Bed Bugs.

And, New York City folks, you surely already know our big day is tomorrow (Tues. 2/24/2009), when the City Council is holding a public hearing on three bed bug bills.

If you can come, it starts at 1 pm at City Hall, directions here; if you are able to testify for 2 minutes, you can sign up on the spot.

If you can’t testify, just come out and support those who will be speaking. The more of us that show up, the better, because it makes a strong statement about how much New York City citizens and voters care about solving the bed bug problem in New York City.

More details, on the hearing tomorrow and on the bills under consideration, from New York vs. Bed Bugs.Similar Posts:

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The New York Daily News has a good article today on the 34% increase in bed bug complaints in the last fiscal year, compared with the previous one.

The data for this came from the amazing Renee Corea, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of New York vs. Bed Bugs.

Adam Linsberg reports,

“There are lots and lots of people who are having a devastating experience with bedbugs,” said Renee Corea, who helped start the coalition New York vs. Bed Bugs after being bitten. “We are already regarded as the most highly infested city in the United States.”

New Yorkers called 311 with 9,213 bedbug complaints in the last fiscal year, up 33.7% from the year before, according to records that Corea’s group obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

That probably understates the problem, Corea said, because uncounted numbers of New Yorkers call exterminators instead of phoning 311.

Thanks to Renee for communicating this crucial fact — one we bedbuggers know too well, but one which the powers that be — and the media — almost always overlook.

The article also mentions the crucial bed bug hearing next Tuesday at City Hall (1 pm, 2/24). Our good friend Lou Sorkin of the American Museum of Natural History is also quoted,

“If you look at other cities, their local governments have taken a big step to try to educate people and deal with the problem.”

Yes indeed.

Other important information conveyed in the article:

The city Health Department doesn’t consider bedbugs a health issue, but at least three other city agencies track bedbug infestations separately in Housing Authority projects and school buildings.

Not all exterminators know how to spot and treat bedbugs, and critics say the city doesn’t do enough to stop infected mattresses from being reused. Some victims may be too embarrassed to seek help, and some small landlords may not be able to afford a competent exterminator, advocates say.

It would seem obvious that the city needs a more unified fight against the red menace, and that the current advice the city gives — when it is heavily prodded — to tell your landlord, to call 311: these are not always sufficient.

Want to know what happens when entire buildings become infested and landlords react after the fact by continually treating the entire building for bed bugs?

This happens. Here’s a bed bug registry complaint about a building on Lawrence Avenue East in Toronto, but it could be anywhere bed bugs were allowed to take over a building.

The Landlord here has told me that she is battling bed bugs on EVERY SINGLE FLOOR.

Every Monday the pest control guy comes and makes his rounds to spray for bed bugs.(For people that have prepared their unit, and are on ‘the list’ to be sprayed)

I’ve had my unit sprayed so so many times this past 12 months, and I still have bed bugs!

As if the idea of people living indefinitely with bed bugs is not enough, the poster goes on to claim a man in the building killed himself due to the ongoing infestation.

This report (brought to my attention by Death2BBs in the Bedbugger forums) was from a building in Toronto, but it could have been anywhere.

Thanks to Renee and Lou for getting the important facts about bed bugs out there, to Adam Linsberg for the excellent story, and to Roy Edroso in the Village Voice blog Running Scared for spreading the word.

And check out New York vs. Bed Bugs for details on how to testify in person at next week’s City Council Hearing (and on how to testify in writing if you cannot be present).

Update 2/17:

More from ABC 7 online, New York 1 andStaten Island Live (quite a turn-around for bed bug news in Staten Island.)

And then there’s WCBSTV.com, which says we got a bed bug task force in New York City in January 2008…

Update 2/28:

NBC News and The Staten Island Advance, the NYPress blog and Gothamist.Similar Posts:

• Steven Kells: bed bugs “could almost be considered like a disease themselves”
• Mark Sheperdigian on the limits of bed bug inspections
• Wednesday’s New York City Council vote on the Bed Bug Advisory Board: it passed!
• Langdon Mill Apartments: now 85% bed bug-free
• Status of New Jersey bed bug extermination bill A3203: so far so good

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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The NYC Pest Control Operator known as KillerQueen on our Bedbugger Forums is, in fact, John Furman, who runs Boot-a-Pest.

The hardest working bed bug activist and blogger, Renee Corea, did a nice in-depth interview with him over on New York vs. Bed Bugs.

Furman’s magic secret may be his belief in careful, detailed inspections:

The inspection for bed bugs takes time. Not 10 or 15 minutes either. My inspections for low level infestations take an hour and a half or more. I don’t do free inspections and if you have a problem, I will usually find it. I turn furniture upside down, I remove the batting on your box spring, and I spend a half hour just looking at your bed. I check behind pictures, pull the edges of carpeting up, etc. This type of inspection and service I can’t do for free.

But the importance of a thorough inspection is paramount. I have done inspections for people suffering from fleas, carpet beetles, etc. they insisted they had bed bugs but no evidence proved there suspicions. They were confident in my findings and moved on to resolve the true problem at hand.

Many PCOs will search for bed bugs, but readers regularly report their inspections lasted for fifteen minutes or less. Some people watch as a PCO pokes around for ten minutes before declaring them “bed bug free.”

Some people, of course, don’t have bed bugs. But the industry really needs to face the fact that cursory “inspections” won’t do.

The next step for many who have such a cursory inspection, but who cannot determine any other reason for their skin problems, is to bring a bed bug k9 team in to inspect. And dogs can be a real help in many cases.

Here’s the problem: if your dog alerts to bed bugs, but the PCO who subsequently comes in to treat still does not inspect carefully, won’t it be difficult to make sure all harborages are detected and treated?

Be sure and read the rest of Renee’s discussion with John Furman, here.Similar Posts:

• Footage from the recent New York Pest Expo: Bed Bug Edition
• Bed bug sniffing dogs abound
• Brief report on Seattle NPMA Bed Bug Symposium; bed bug dog awareness among customers
• Boston University dorm residents bitten by bed bugs
• Seattle Housing Authority, you are smart about bed bugs

I don’t have enough time at this moment to do much commentary on this, but I want to point you to New York vs. Bed Bugs, where Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs posted a new podcast with David Cain of Bed Bugs Limited (many readers will also know David from our Bedbugger forums, both for his knowledge of bed bugs and his sense of humor).

Among other things, the discussion covers David’s recent London Bed Bug Survey, and various types of bed bug monitors.

Thanks to Renee, and to David!Similar Posts:

• Post-recall, Nightwatch good to go

New York vs. Bed Bugs points out the distressing data from a recent survey: the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Joint Bed Bug Task Force (JBBTF) sponsored a series of questions in a survey conducted by The University of Cincinnati Institute for Policy Research. They found that 14.5% of Cincinnati residents surveyed had had bed bugs.

Renee of New York vs. Bed Bugs writes,

Cincinnati, population 332,252, received give or take 757 official bed bug complaints in 2007. Do we realize what this survey suggests about the likely underreporting rate? The official stats could account for less than 2% of the actual cases.

And is it possible that there could be ______ New Yorkers who have bed bugs? Why can’t we have this type of survey here?

I agree, and I suspect we would find the percentage of New Yorkers who have or have had bed bugs is much higher than that represented by HPD bed bug violations.

We’ve known for a long time anecdotally that the official numbers probably do not account for the majority of NYC bed bug cases.

It’s scary to consider that a number like this 14.5% might be applied to the NYC population.

And let’s not start in on the fact that the same survey found 31% of Cincinnati residents with bed bugs used only an over-the-counter spray to fight their bed bugs — a method likely to allow bed bugs to keep on thriving and spreading.

New Yorkers, don’t walk by the entire wall of bed bug spray in the Duane Reade on Fifth Ave. in midtown and tell me you are not worried. Join us at New York vs. Bed Bugs and write your letter to tell the city to do something, now.
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