The article conveys the scope of the problem and the speed at which it seems to be spreading:

To get a full sense of the bedbug boom, ask any pest control expert. [Carlo] Panacci, for one, used to have a 1-800 number for his company, Cain Pest Control, but cancelled it because he was getting overwhelmed by cries for help from people in B.C., Newfoundland and everywhere in between. He now averages about eight to 10 bedbug inquiries a day. “I got so busy with bedbugs I gave up on raccoons and squirrels,” he says. Doug Wadlow, who runs Orkin Pest Control in Edmonton, says bedbug calls are up 300 per cent from 2004. Meanwhile, John Mitten, branch manager of Poulin’s Pest Control in Vancouver, says bedbugs will total 25 per cent of his firm’s work this year. That’s up from 13 per cent in ‘06. Some U.S. companies are getting as many as 50 bedbug calls a day. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see which way this is headed,” says Michael Potter, an entomology professor at the University of Kentucky and one of the world’s top bedbug researchers. Potter describes the spread of bedbugs as “a bit like a communicable disease.”

Although he acknowledges that bed bugs “don’t transmit disease,” the author nevertheless seems to get that bed bugs do have an adverse effect on mental health. Anecdotes convey the strain of a bed bug infestation, as well as the anxiety people feel even after the bed bugs are apparently gone–the fear they might still be there, the nervousness.

One study of pest control professionals found that 60 per cent of clients are more upset by the discovery of bedbugs than ro­­dents, termites or roaches. It’s no wonder bedbug support groups and message boards have popped up on­­line.

Indeed.

Intini also conveys the anxiety of professionals who fear bringing their work home:

Even pest control ex­­­­perts suffer the occasional anxiety attack. “A couple of times, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, felt some­­thing crawl on me, and just freaked out,” says Goldman. “It turned out to be my wife’s hair.”

Intini notes that “If anyone should be frightened of bedbugs, it’s those in the hotel business,” and describes some of the steps hotels are taking to avoid bed bugs, and to get rid of them.

A new statistic from Dr. Potter on bed bug-reactive people (ie those with itchy bite marks):

“I’ve been in places where the wife is getting slaughtered and the husband, who is sleeping in the same bed, doesn’t react at all,” says Potter. As much as half the population, he says, won’t show any signs.

We’ve seen statistics as high as 70% bandied about, but I’m willing to go with Potter’s 50%. (Of course, it’s hard to know: some who are non-reactive may not be bitten.)

And finally, somber words from Dr. Potter:

And, says Potter, “it doesn’t look like there is a silver-bullet bedbug eliminator coming down the pipe any time soon.”

We have heard this before, but wait, there’s more:

Even if one did, he says, the liability of spraying beds and couches with it would restrict its use. “Bedbugs live in all the places that we’ve been training the pest control industry in the last 20 years not to spray,” says Potter. “Back in the days of DDT, it was recommended practice to spray the pillows, the entire mattress. Nothing wasn’t dripping when you walked out.” Before then, bedbugs were a whole lot more common. “I’ve read diaries from the ’30s where they wrote about springtime bedbug cleaning,” says Potter. “They’d throw boiling water on the walls, pour oil into the crevices of the wood floors, sleep for two weeks and then start the process again. It was part of life.”

I found this helpful in elucidating why it isn’t just about bringing back a banned pesticide or creating a new one; the whole culture on pesticides has changed since we last had to deal with bed bugs in North America (on a large scale, anyway).

All in all, nothing terribly new, but lots of good soundbites, and all in all, a good consciousness-raising piece.

Nice work John Intini and Maclean’s!

Read the article here.

• FAQ: Are bedbugs a health issue?
• Bed bug dog Joni: fighting bed bugs in New Zealand and Australia
• Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher has some progressive ideas about bed bugs
• I asked New York’s Mayor Bloomberg what he is going to do about bedbugs

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• Pest Management Professional - Continued technological and educational advancement in pest detection, identification, treatment and control methods. | Web Exclusive | 10 Questions with Jerome GoddardTen Questions with Jerome Goddard (Pest Management Professional Podcast)–includes interesting discussion of whether bed bugs are potential transmitters of disease, or not. From 9/06, but new to me and maybe you too.

  (tags: interview audio bedbugs Dr.JeromeGoddard entomologist sept2006)

• PCTOnline.com :: Article :: [Focus On Public Health] Do Bed Bugs Carry Disease?Article from PCTOnline by Jerome Goddard (11/2003) on whether bed bugs spread disease.

  (tags: bedbugs disease health diseasevector Dr.JeromeGoddard PCTOnline)

• Pest Management Professional podcast | 10 Questions with Alvaro RomeroInterview with Univ. of Kentucky bed bug researcher / graduate student Alvaro Romero. From April 2007.

  (tags: podcast alvaroromero researcher)

• Pest Management Professional Podcast | 10 Questions with Rick CooperInterview with Rick Cooper of Cooper Pest, NJ–focusing on pesticide resistance. September 2007.

  (tags: rickcooper interview podcast sept2007)

• San Jose Mercury News - Bedbugs, electrical problems force evacuation of Ventura motel“A bedbug-infested low-rent Ventura motel was shut down by authorities, forcing poor families and disabled tenants to spend the Christmas season hunting for cheap lodging.” The 37-room Travelers Beach Inn hopes to reopen in a week.

  (tags: bedbugs hotelclosure ventura california travelersbeachinn motel code dec2007 2007 budgetmotel)

• Review of Judith McNeil’s The Girl with the Cardboard Port :: Sarah Chew, thestar.com.my“She recalled with humour the shock of discovering squat toilets, bed bugs, and corpse-eating rats…” From a review of an Australian woman’s memoir of life in 1950s/early 1960s Singapore.

  (tags: singapore bedbugs 1950s 1960s judithmcneil memoir dec2007 2007 bookreview)

• Rats: Hawaii’s first invasive species - The Molokai Times“In cities, rats are one of Hawaii’s biggest pest problems after ants and bed bugs, said Tim Lyons, director of the Hawaii Pest Control Association.” Bed bugs are #2? Not for long, I suspect.

  (tags: bedbugs hawai’i hawaii pests dec2007 2007 spread)

• bed bugs in Virginia Beach (again), Brown County, Ohio, and potential health risks
• Ventura County motel closure makes many families homeless at Christmas
• a bed bug story from Hawai’i; Fagerlund on aerosol bombs and pesticides
• Bed bugs in casino and senior apartments in New Jersey, Binghamton University (again) and another dust mite photo in the news

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To stretch their funds, Cheney said, candidates and staff stay in pretty bad hotels when they’re on the road.

“There are some incredibly beautiful hotels in this country,” she said, “and if you are working on a political campaign, you will be staying in none of them.”

During one trip, she found herself sleeping on a rollaway bed. The problem, though, was when she woke up.

“I realized something wasn’t quite right … from the neck down I was covered in huge itchy welts - bedbug bites,” Cheney said.

From “Cheney: Politics has always been part of the family” in yesterday’s Michigan City, Indiana News-Dispatch (caught by hopelessnomo).

• Lou’s bed bug bite photos
• Joe Biden’s staffers suffered bed bug bites in Des Moines at Iowa Caucus
• Winnipeg HoJo gets sued over bed bugs
• new Ohio Hilton bed bug lawsuit

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• Use bed bug registries and warn others about infested buildings and hotels!
• Bed bugs invade Chicago’s Presidential Towers, and another Vancouver Island detox
• search terms for Bedbuggers
• Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”

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newyorkshitty.com » ‘Tis The Season: Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite!

miss heather of newyorkshitty.com shares a current photo of suspected bed bug refuse at the Astral Apartments in Greenpoint, and shares an article from exactly 121 years ago, decrying the need for “quality affordable housing”, free of vermin.

Glenwood Springs Post Independent - Valley News (Colorado)

“Tom Cornwell, president of the Colorado Pest Control Association, will be speaking to representatives from hotels and motels, … and public and housing personnel from 11 a.m. to noon Friday, Dec. 7.” Public education is the key to beating bed bugs.

Stamford, CT: The Advocate - Flooding and failing health leave residents seeking help (flood evacuees get bed bugs in hotel)

“During the spring nor’easter, a Stamford senior housing complex was flooded, and residents were forced to move to a hotel temporarily. Upon returning home, residents discovered their building was infested with bed bugs.”

Some Crazy Garbage: Away, ye critters

A blogger’s first-hand account of a Pest Control Operator’s visit. Yes, google alerts sends me multiple such posts a day from various “newbites” around the world. But this one was entertaining to read, even as it conveyed the tale of woe you have come to expect.

• Bed bugs at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
• Portland’s public housing and bed bugs
• Comment dites-vous le bed bugs en français?
• Surrey, B.C. public housing infested with bed bugs

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

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

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

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

Day 52

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Public Health Commissioner William Hacker, M.D., recommends that people who think they may have a problem with bed bugs seek advice from their local health department or health care provider.

Accurate identification of the insect followed by treatment by a licensed pest control company is the most effective means for addressing bed bugs. DPH has developed information to help citizens understand more about these insects.

Additional information can be obtained from the local health department, area pest control specialists or the DPH Web site.

You may also call DPH staff members, Erica Brakefield, technical consultant in the environmental management branch, at (502) 564-4856 Ext. 3732; or Vonia Grabeel, program administrator in the environmental management branch, at (502) 564-4856 Ext. 3724.

The Kentucky Public Health Department website’s bed bug page also has links to a PDF bed bug fact sheet (which we’ve linked to for some time) and a flyer of consumer information related to bed bugs.

It is new as of November 2, 2007, and includes such suggestions as:

Do’s and Don’ts (where have I heard this phrase before?)

• Do not pick up any used furniture or mattresses/box springs from the roadside or your garbage containers.
• If you have gotten furniture from a rental service, always check the seams and any creased areas for bed bugs.
• When traveling, check all motel rooms thoroughly before setting your luggage on the floor or bed.

Bed bugs prefer to hide close to where they feed. However, if necessary, they will crawl several feet to obtain a blood meal. Initial infestations tend to be around beds, but the bugs eventually may become scattered throughout a room, occupying any crevice or protected location. They also can spread to adjacent rooms or apartments.

Well, some good, and some not so good advice here. I’ve heard bed bugs can crawl 20 feet, or 100 feet (depending who you ask). I am not sure about 100, but “a few feet” seems like an understatement.

And while I am at it, can I just ask people not to rent furniture? Please don’t. Like curbside furniture or freecycle/Craigslist booty, it just is not worth it. If you think life without a TV or sofa bites, imagine not being able to sit in any of your chairs or lie in your bed or lounge around watching that TV without being bitten. It is not worth it. I speak as a woman who sat for many months in a metal folding chair after my sofa started biting me in the arse (almost literally). I did not pick up a secondhand sofa, but I know what it is like to not have one, and believe me: a sofa with bed bugs is a lot worse than no sofa at all.

Still, I applaud Kentucky’s attempts to notify the public, and I especially appreciate their invitation to Kentucky residents to call the Public Health Dept. with questions or complaints or concerns about bed bugs. You can call them, and they have given the names and phone numbers of appropriate contacts.

Bed bugs, a health issue? Who woulda thunk it?!?

• Kentucky: pro-active against the epidemic
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…
• Educating the public about bed bugs: Toronto to host bed bug forum for residents April 2nd
• Bed bugs in hotels: how to report (and check up on) bed bug infestations

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Still, I was skeptical (you can’t believe everything you read, especially on the internets, etc.), but then Claudia followed up with the comment on my post, with:

That’s what my producer friend there says. I believe him.

And, Dear Reader, at that point I believed her.

But we heard no more news of bed bugs at Fox News (NYC) until today, when this came down the pipeline. Another “rumor” passed on by another person working in the media, this time Chris Ariens at The Huffington Post, who wrote yesterday:

TVNewser has learned that a small area of the Fox News Channel newsroom has evidence of insects believed to be bed bugs. What is not known is how the insects got into the basement-level newsroom of the News Corp. headquarters. Most likely, an employee or guest unknowingly transported the poppy seed-sized bugs on their clothing, which then made their way into the fabric or carpeting.

Or, possibly even more likely: since another part of what I assume is the same building was allegedly battling bed bugs a year ago, they were not entirely eradicated and have come back. They can spread from one part of a building to another, as may have happened at Cadwalader’s office building.

Since this kind of resurgence happens all the time with individuals in their homes, even when people go to extreme lengths to avoid it, I do not doubt it can happen in an office, where it’s less likely items will have been quarantined and searched as carefully as can be.

Or maybe the “source(s)” of the bed bugs keep coming back and reinfesting the place.

Hint to FoxNews: if “a small area” has evidence of bed bugs, a larger area may indeed be affected. I’d keep looking.

Update 11/19:

This is the original TVNewser post. It says an exterminator was brought in late last week and “those who sit near there have been alerted to take precautionary measures including sending their clothes to the dry cleaner.” Hmmmm.

• Fox NY claims it became infested with bed bugs “a few weeks ago”; tipster tells Gawker they fired employee who brought them in
• Bed bugs at Hawai’i’s Halawa Correctional Facility
• Case study: bed bugs survived dry cleaning… and resurfaced 6 months later (update)
• those “wee flat bronze coloured things with a black spot” that come out at night

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(The following is not really bed bug news, but a reminder of a time not long ago when encountering a bed bug in a place of business was a bit like finding a hair in your salad, but maybe more common.)

(These last two are not really bed bug stories, but they tell us something about how widely known bed bugs are becoming: they’re starting to mean something in popular parlance once again.)

• bed bugs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Cornell University dorms
• Bed bugs in casino and senior apartments in New Jersey, Binghamton University (again) and another dust mite photo in the news
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16
• Boston University’s bed bugs: if we don’t talk about them, they’ll go away

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It contains lots of solid advice about not picking up curbside furniture, being wary of Craigslist finds, and searching for fecal spots and blood stains. But it also contains some advice we don’t normally see. Especially pertinent, this comment from our friend Lou Sorkin, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. (Hear him talk about bed bugs and other pests today–Tuesday–at 10:40 on 99.5 WBAI in NYC, or listen to the streaming live audio here.)

The telltale signs of their presence are itchy welts on your body, frequently in clusters of three or more. You might see tiny red or brown marks on your sheets where you’ve crushed bugs in the night. If you suspect infestation, check under carpets and in moldings, and survey mattresses, box springs, and bed frames. Look for feces and shed skins. And look for nymphs: “Ninety-nine percent of papers written on bedbugs neglect to mention that a bedbug starts as a tiny egg and hatches from it to become a [1- to 1.6-mm.] nymph that’s translucent white,” says Louis Sorkin, entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History. “If people knew to look for nymphs, they could head off the problem much sooner.” The bugs pass through six stages of development and feed at least once during each, which means you can get bites before there are full-grown adults visible. If you think you have a problem but can’t find anything, press packing tape or a lint roller underneath carpet and in the corners of beds. Nymphs and eggs will stick to it.

Lou is bringing up a really important point here: many people first see a bed bug that is a fed or unfed nymph. And neither bed bug will look much like the image of an adult bed bug typically pictured in a media story. The first five photos in our page with photos of bed bugs and signs of bed bugs convey the enormous visual difference between fed vs. unfed first instar nymphs, and between nymphs vs. adults. Since people who have not yet had bed bugs often hear of them via the two-minute segment on Fox, or an article in their local paper, it would be best if more news outlets would feature a visual comparison giving people some awareness of this range when and if they do encounter a bed bug.

The article warns people against self-treating with Raid or foggers / bombs, and talks about the importance of dealing with clothing properly, notifying neighbors, and getting a professional in.

What I found most interesting was the final paragraph, which was centered around the need for action on the part of the city:

SEE SOMETHING (DISGUSTING), SAY SOMETHING

Last week, bedbugged tenants mounted a Craigslist-based attack on their Greenpoint building, and protesters in front of the Department of Health demanded action on asthma-exacerbating roaches and rats. They’re not the only ones who think the city could do more to crush creeping menaces. “Bedbugs are a major mental-health issue. I get tired of the Department of Health saying, ‘It’s not a physical issue, so we’re not going to focus on it,’” says Upper West Side council member Gale Brewer. She (and many exterminators) advocate a campaign along the lines of the subway-safety ads to spread word about bug-suppressing preventive steps. Other strategies: certification of bedbug-specialist exterminators and bans on mattress resales. To fight other pests, exterminators would like the DOH to enforce pre-demolition extermination laws more aggressively and hire more pest-control experts to manage parks and public spaces. For its part, the DOH says it has retrained staff after the KFC/Taco Bell rat debacle and is working on plans to combat residential bedbug and rodent problems.

I am really glad that Gale Brewer, who originally proposed the ban on reselling used mattresses in NYC, is still speaking out against bed bugs and their very real negative effects on health. I hope we will get an update on the NY City Council Bed Bug Task Force that was begun over a year ago, but is yet to take action (to our knowledge).

The recommendations here–enforcement of pre-demolition extermination laws, the mattress re-sale ban, and the certification of bed bug specialist PCOs are all good ones. We’ve been talking about the need for a public education campaign (subway ads, TV ads, and so on) since Bedbugger.com started.

Finally, Kirsch said, when describing what to do when you determine you do have bed bugs,

Don’t terrify yourself with horror stories on the Internet; check informative sites like Bedbugger.com.

Informative is good: thanks, Melissa Kirsch! We’re doing our best to get information out there and help people with bed bugs stay as calm as possible, so they can fight bed bugs in an effective way.

I hope we can also have something to do with getting people involved–maybe not so calmly–in fighting for change in public policies, like the ones suggested in this article. It’s always a good time to call your city council representative, or to write to the mayor, about bed bugs. Wherever you live, whether it’s New York, Halifax, Melbourne, or Lexington, Kentucky, take a moment to tell a local politician that bed bugs had a serious impact on your life–whether it was on your family, your finances, your job, and your health.

New Yorkers:
Click here to email Mayor Bloomberg.
Click here to look up and email your city council representative.
Click here to email Gale Brewer about the Bed Bug Task Force even if you’re not in her district.

And here’s a few words from the Rolling Stones–way back in 1978–that still ring true:

Don’t you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side,
Bed bugs uptown!
What a mess– this town’s in tatters
I’ve been shattered
My brain’s been battered, splattered all over Manhattan

Pop this mp3 on your iPod and muse on how little things have changed. And don’t forget: email your city council representative and remind them there are, once more, “bed bugs uptown.”

• NYC Bed Bug Task Force / City Council Update
• Update on New York State bed bug legislation (parental notification re: bed bugs in school)
• Finally, somebody does something: Cincinnati’s new Bed Bug Remediation Commission
• Urgent: if you’re in Cincinnati…

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