The Charlotte-area United Family Services domestic violence shelter has evacuated its residents to “a safe place” in order to battle a recent infestation of bedbugs, said Libby McLaughlin, vice president of development and communication. The staff anticipates reopening the shelter in two to three weeks.

But the move has added to the difficulties the women face, which include other time constraints. Shelter rules dictate that, upon arrival, residents have 30 days to find a job and another place to stay.

The bites and rashes from the bedbugs have made it hard for some women to find a job. And the medicine given to fight the itching, such as steroids or Benadryl, has triggered the addictions of some women with substance abuse problems.

“People are saying to go back home,” said one anonymous shelter resident. “I don’t have that option, because I’m not going back home.”

One would hope that the normal rules of the shelter would be adapted during such a crisis.

While removed from much more dangerous situations in their homes, these women have still been suffering from a lesser kind of “domestic crisis.” It’s a lot to expect for women who may be losing a lot of sleep and suffering from stress, visible bed bug bites, and itching (which can be quite uncomfortable) to find new jobs and a new home within thirty days.

We’ve previously reported on another Charlotte shelter, the Salvation Army women’s shelter, which houses homeless women, and which has been battling bed bugs off and on for nearly a year. The Salvation Army has apparently spent $50,000 in the last few weeks on renovations aimed at eliminating their bed bug problems.

Meanwhile, the United Family Services shelter has invested in new flooring, mattresses and bedding. It has also purchased a new dryer and new metal frame beds. (It is not mentioned in the article, but I hope they are getting good, aggressive pest control treatment as well.)

Local public health officials stress bed bugs are not a health problem,

“This is not a public health pest,” said Lynn Lathan, environmental health supervisor for the Mecklenburg County Health Department. “They’re annoying, but not transmitting disease.”

However, I personally think that a condition which can cause serious skin irritation, visible welts all over your face and body, other allergic reactions, anxiety and loss of sleep is a health concern.

Nevertheless, the women at United Family Services have worse threats to worry about:

For women in the United Family Services shelter, there’s a choice: Face the bugs in the shelter, or face abuse at home.

“I have a choice of going back to my husband and getting punched in the eye or getting eaten by bugs,” said one anonymous shelter resident.

We can only hope things are better for these women soon.

• Bed bug news round-up: South Jersey apartment complex; Charlotte, North Carolina Salvation Army shelter
• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again
• bed bug news for 2007-11-13
• Bed bugs usually plague a city for a few weeks before being eradicated. Really, Waterbury Health Department?

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Ten months on, they’re in the news again. News 14 Carolina reports:

Last August, crews removed mattresses and spread polyurethane on the beds to stop bed bugs from hiding in the cracks. “Overall they were sympathetic, because they were amazed how one person could get bitten so many times,” said the woman.

In a statement, leaders at the shelter said “It’s unfortunate and a challenge. We’re being consistent and have hired a contractor to rework the plumbing and add a new washer and dryer to keep clothes and bed sheets cleaner. Along with new mattresses, we have recently added 60 new beds, and will add another 50 news beds in the near future.”

It’s not easy to get rd of bed bugs. And I hate to sound cynical, but it is probably quite a feat keeping a shelter bed bug-free even for ten months. Keeping in mind that many shelters are infested, the potential is always there for new guests at this shelter to bring them in.

That said, no one should have to live with bed bugs, and I am glad that the management is taking steps and I hope they have good, experienced advisors working with them on their bed bug treatment and prevention plans.

Unfortunately, fighting bed bugs can mean a less hospitable atmosphere to guests, who often carry their homes, in the form of their few worldly belongings, with them (a practice which likely contributes to the spread of bed bugs):

Last year, officials with the shelter suggested the bed bugs may have come from dirty clothing. They are now monitoring how many belonging are brought into the shelter to protect residents.

• Bed bug news round-up: South Jersey apartment complex; Charlotte, North Carolina Salvation Army shelter
• More on bed bugs at the Montana Rescue Mission in Billings
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs

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Starling said she went back the motel, captured some of the bugs and gave some to Gaston County health officials. Specialist Doc Thompson said they found three or four bed bugs in 20 of the rooms. He said the bugs can’t carry disease, but they can cause dermatitis. He said he advised the owner of the steps needed to get rid of the bugs and gave them 2 weeks to start with exterminations.

Officials “found bed bugs in 58 percent of the rooms available to daily rental.” I would venture that if they found 3-4 bed bugs in 20 rooms, even more may have infestations. PCOs tell us finding bed bugs in infested rooms is not that easy.

But that’s not the whole story.

Eyewitness News asked why the health department couldn’t just shut down the motel until the bugs are gone. Thompson said that a motel has to get a grade of 70 or less before they can shut it down. Even with the bed bugs, the Super 8 had a rating of 85. He said if they do not take steps to get rid of the bugs by next Thursday, then he can serve them with a notice of intent to suspend. Then after 30 days, if nothing has changed, the department can pull the motel’s permit and shut it down.

The hotel manager told journalists, “she has an exterminator who comes by once a month.”

Whatever routine treatments a building already gets won’t necessarily do it. I hope the hotel manager is getting good advice from a PCO who knows bed bugs, and that they’ll do everything they can to get rid of bed bugs quickly.

Once a month treatments are not likely to eliminate bed bugs. In my understanding, “the steps needed to get rid of bed bugs” include more frequent, aggressive treatment as well as ensuring infested furnishings are properly treated or discarded.

It is not clear to me whether even having bed bugs in all the rooms would constitute a grade below 70, worthy of shutting the hotel down, or if other violations would be needed to dip that number low enough. This is wrong. Bed bugs are a serious problem, even if they are not known to spread disease. Hotel guests who stay one night and port bed bugs home with them can bring home a problem that causes thousands of dollars of damage and months of suffering.

I am not litigation-crazy. I agree with some bed bug lawsuits and not others.  But if someone stays in a hotel room known by a hotel to have bed bugs, and gets bitten or brings bed bugs home, I hope they’ll sue the pants off that company.

It is very disturbing that customers will apparently continue to rent the 20 bed bug-infested rooms. Not only is the hotel given two weeks to even begin treating for bed bugs, which is far too long, but it appears they can keep renting out those rooms.

If they don’t exist, new regulations should be put in place to prevent hotels from renting infested rooms.

• Ventura County motel closure makes many families homeless at Christmas
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• entomologists podcasting; bed bugs and disease; another bedbugged motel closed; Singapore, Hawai’i

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“There’s a lot of folks who don’t bother to call us. They’re embarrassed. The social connotation goes back to the early 1900s; they were associated with slummy places. And that’s not the case now,” said Michael Waldvogel, an entomologist with the N.C. Cooperative Extension. The bugs are a problem all over the country, experts say.

Waldvogel says he has gotten reports of bedbugs from across the state — some tied to vacationers bringing them home from beach houses or hotels.

Perhaps a few of them can also be tied to the reselling of used, unsanitized mattresses in Charlotte, N.C. This woman claimed to purchase a heavily infested bedroom suite from another N.C. retailer. Judging from these two stories alone, we can see how easily North Carolina, or any other state, would acquire a bed bug epidemic.

Getting back to the article,

… getting rid of [bed bugs] isn’t simple. Waldvogel advises hiring a skilled professional, in part because it’s important to consider carefully what chemicals to spray in living areas such as bedrooms.

“The person who treats your home should spend more time with a flashlight than a sprayer,” he said.

We’ve heard that advice before, but Bedbuggers tell us this PCO is a rare find indeed.

At Bayer Environmental Science in Research Triangle Park, entomologists are working to develop new techniques and make existing products more effective against bedbugs. Training is a big component of Bayer’s work, said Byron Reid, product development manager.

“There are thousands of pest control professionals out there who have never had to do the bedbug job,” he said. Bayer runs a training facility for pest control operators in Clayton, N.C., where it can re-create bedrooms and apartments to train in proper techniques.

If they want additional training grounds, maybe Advanced Hotel Services in Charlotte could just hand over a list of hotels who purchased mattresses from them while they had 600 unsanitized used hotel mattresses in stock. And then the hotels could hand over a list of people who stayed in the rooms in which those mattresses are used.

I bet some of them are suffering pretty badly right now and would not mind some PCOs coming in and learning bed bug-fighting techniques in their homes. Break out those flashlights, fellas!

• inspectors find 600 unsanitized mattresses at Charlotte, N.C. used furniture store
• Stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment in Charlotte: let’s start the blame game
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again

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First, this item from NJ.com about an infested building South Jersey (Jamestown Square in Blackwood, NJ) makes me wonder: what if there was a newspaper item for every single infested building in New York?!? The New York Times would have to use a 4-point font. That’s the second bed bug infestation reported on NJ.com today.

Then there’s the Salvation Army Women’s Shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina, as reported by News 14. (Click the link at top right to watch the video.) The shelter houses 300 women and they’re busy “cleaning” and coating wooden bunk beds in polyurethene to seal cracks. They are instituting new rules about washing clothes frequently and not bringing in lots of stuff. But let’s hope they get a good PCO treating every two weeks until they are completely gone, because no amount of cleaning or sealing alone will do the trick.

• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• FAQ: dry cleaners and bed bugs

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So imagine my surprise when WBTV 3 in Charlotte had this to say:

Bed Bugs are Back

An outbreak of bed bugs in southwest Charlotte. Some people in Steele Creek are concerned these small bugs are taking over their apartment complexes. They met with police, code inspectors, and apartment managers to discuss the issue today. Exterminators told the group they’ve seen an enormous spike in bed bug calls since last year. Exterminators say a lot of these pests brought here by folks from overseas.

Every entomologist I’ve heard from has painted a much more complex picture of the causes of bed bugs’ return. Most PCOs (and note: they don’t like to be called exterminators anymore), also paint a more balanced picture of the causes. This Charlotte, NC CBS affiliate should be more responsible. This kind of one-sided report just stirs up bad sentiment against immigrants, and spreads misinformation, by neglecting to mention these other reasons for the return of bed bugs.

I’m glad Charlotte residents, police, code inspectors, and apartment managers met to discuss bed bugs, and heard from “exterminators.” But they’re not getting the whole picture.

If they want to know why bed bugs are spreading in Charlotte and elsewhere, they might consult this post we ran back in February, when a Charlotte used furniture warehouse was found to have 600 unsanitized mattresses in its possession. I’d like to link to the original article, but it has since been taken down by the newspaper (many news sites don’t allow access to old articles). We did quote it at some length in our original report.

The Charlotte Observer reported at the time that inspectors had ordered the mattresses to be cleaned or destroyed, but 600 of them were still in the shop a month later. It was unclear how many had already been sold. What’s more, the warehouse was still planning on “dumping” 200 of them. Now where do you suppose some of those mattresses ended up? Probably as beds for local people who convinced the store to sell them one (even though they were intended for hotel guests), or who found them dumped. It is unlikely that hoteliers shopping in the store did not purchase any of the used mattresses during that month. So some of us from elsewhere may also have been subjected to these unsanitized mattresses and the bed bugs that surely lived in some or many of them.

It would be nice if the media gave more care to covering such stories rather than simply blaming one segment of our society.

When I said it was not only travelers (of every kind), but also business people who were spreading bed bugs, I did not only mean those business people who were traveling and staying in hotels (though this is true too). Remember, some people can actually make money spreading bed bugs. Greed spreads bed bugs. As, for that matter, do stupidity, misinformation, turning-a-blind-eye, looking-for-scape-goats, and keeping-your-head-in-the-sand. But especially greed.

Before playing the blame game, look to yourself, look to your neighbors, look to those who want to make a fast buck and don’t have much foresight.

• inspectors find 600 unsanitized mattresses at Charlotte, N.C. used furniture store
• Thai trains play the bed bug blame game: blame backpackers for bed bug infestation
• Charlotte, NC Salvation Army Women’s Shelter has bed bugs again
• Bed bugs in another women’s shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina

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When ceritifed PCOs publish mediocre advice about bed bugs in the newspaper, it makes me a bit worried. Anyone who writes for a newspaper probably has internet access and can do some research.

Readers of the Marcos Island (Florida) Sun Times were given some poor advice today in the Ask the Bug Guy column, by columnist and PCO Peter Masi, of West Coast Pest Control. A reader asked about the resurgence of bed bugs and how to deal with them. Masi said,

. . . for the first time in many years and I’m talking 30 or 40 years, bedbugs are back! Why?

No one seems to know.

They were the scourge of the hotel/motel industry for years and back then, DDT was the cure. Of course, you can’t use that now!
First, make sure they are, in fact, bedbugs and not lice. They do leave the same type of marks when they decide to eat someone’s blood.

This all sounds rather awful, doesn’t it? I would try using the same powdered insecticide they use for lice. We know that will be safe as long as you follow the directions to the letter.

I’m not a certified PCO, but I have a few problems with this.

First, there will be other evidence (besides bites–which I don’t agree will look the same as lice bites) if you’re infested with lice: lice and nits, for example. On your person. Whereas people can go months without seeing a bed bug. Signs like little black specks and cast shells may come before a bed bug sighting.

Also, people primarily need to treat their heads with insecticides, for lice (using something like this), or their bodies, in the case of body lice. You might also need to use powder in the home, and this is what Masi seems to be referring to. But he should know that bed bugs don’t simply infest mattresses anymore (though this was more common back in the day.) Instead, they infest baseboards, ceiling and electrical fixtures, floorboards, bed frames, and the insides and bottoms of bedroom furniture, among other things.

What’s more, they spread quickly. It would be much better advice for people to have a PCO come out and inspect, to see if it really is a light problem. If you’ve been bitten for more than one day running, you probably have multiple bed bugs, and who knows how many. Very small infestations may clear up with cursory treatments (such as Masi suggests) and thorough vacuuming and laundering. But most people who think they have a small infestation because they’ve “only seen a few bugs” have a real infestation that needs prompt and careful treatment.

But what really annoyed me was this:

I’ll bet most folks on Marco Island will opt to just buy a new mattress. They’ll deliver the new one and take away the old one. We are an affluent community and I just can’t visualize most of you taking the time and painstaking effort to exterminate bedbugs.

The problem with the Bug Guy’s advice here is that while the author clearly understands bed bugs take time and painstaking effort to get rid of, nevertheless just finished giving poor advice as to how and do that.

And on top of that, Masi encouraged people with bed bugs to buy a new mattress from a company that delivers new mattresses in the same trucks in which they cart away the old ones, and he encouraged them to send their mattress away in the truck with the delivery guy. With these words, Masi provided a solution that is not guaranteed to get rid of bed bugs (since homes, as well as mattresses, are usually infested). It is likely that people will purchase new mattresses and these will become infested too, if bed bugs are still in the home.

More importantly, Masi also just gave lots of Marcos Islanders a nice recipe for spreading bed bugs to others. Since we know that one common method by which people get bed bugs is from new mattresses delivered in trucks carrying infested used mattresses, I would not encourage anyone to purchase a mattress from a company that does this, if they can avoid it.

I absolutely would not encourage anyone who suspected or knew they had bed bugs to send their mattress away in a delivery truck. If you have bed bugs, you can protect your mattress and keep it. Or, if you decide you want to get rid of it (preferably at the end of treatment, when a new mattress is less likely to be exposed), for Pete’s sake, destroy the mattress by slashing it up and leaving it on the curb (being careful to wrap it tightly in plastic so as not to spread bugs on the way out the door). Please do not expose other people to your problem. It’s as irresponsible as exposing them to a contagious disease: and I don’t mean the flu. Think mono. Or worse.

If keeping others from suffering does not motivate you, then give a thought to the fact that if bed bugs keep spreading due in part to carelessness. If you’re not careful to keep bed bugs to yourself, then once they’re gone, bed bug karma says you will get them again in time.

Unfortunately, so will lots of other people who were more careful than you were. Most people, I should add, get bed bugs through no fault of their own. But we all should take steps to avoid causing others to suffer needlessly.

So called “bug experts” should be more careful to give good advice; PCOs who know bed bugs and have been exposed to them are very cautious.

• Bed bugs in Sweden: Ikea, used mattresses, and the spread of vägglus
• Bed bug unfriendly mattress re-sellers: recommendations?
• Making mattress companies part of the no-bedbug solution
• So many bad bedbug-fighting practices, so little time

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However, this isn’t one of those stories. This is new news.

The Charlotte Observer reported Sunday that inspectors found 600 unsanitized mattresses at Advanced Hotel Services on Sugar Creek Road, Charlotte, N.C., a used hotel furniture store, during monthly spot checks in 4 months (October through January). “Used hotel furniture” is sounding like such a bad idea right now.

Some mattresses had fake tags that indicated they were sanitized when they were not. The inspectors do not know how many mattresses were sold in that condition.

Two different owners each say they never sold any, though an inspector was told by workers in January that some mattresses were set to go to a motel chain.

After failing to clean the mattresses following four inspections, the state ordered Advanced on Jan. 22 to destroy 374 mattresses on its sales floor, a state inspection report said.

Workers cut the mattresses, but an additional 200 or so in the store’s stock room were not destroyed because an owner said he was dumping those, Anderson said.

N.C. law requires sellers to sanitize used mattresses, couches and recliners at 230 degrees for two hours to kill bacteria and bed bugs, Johnson said.

Used bedding also cannot have stains, and sellers must glue on a yellow label that says the items are used. Sellers must sanitize even relatively new bedding — such as mattresses returned after a 30-day trial, Johnson said. The law does not apply to private, individual sales.

Most of us did not get our bed bugs from unsanitized mattresses, but they’re certainly a way in which bed bugs may have been spread initially. Especially if they’re making their ways into hotels. Or (in the case of other resold mattresses) the homes of our neighbors and co-workers.

My own city’s officials balked at a ban on reselling mattresses because of a sense that the poor really needed to save $50 by buying a used mattress.

Back in September, the NYTimes reported that

… Andrew Eiler, director of legislation for the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs, expressed uncertainty about the [proposed NYC] bill [to limit the re-sale of used mattresses]. A twin-sized mattress without a box spring can be bought for $40 from the Salvation Army, or about $50 less than a new mattress. “While $50 may not appear as a significant difference to some, it may be an unbridgeable gap to consumers with limited incomes,” he said.

I am sorry, but that’s bull. The poor really do not need bed bugs. I spent several years sleeping on a 3″ futon (not the futons most people in the west use, but the thin ones). It was immensely comfortable. I was somewhere between a cheap new mattress and a reconditioned mattress for cost, and I’d sleep on one forever rather than have bed bugs.

Shame on these foolish, foolish businessmen. And shame on the system:

After failing to clean the mattresses following four inspections, the state ordered Advanced on Jan. 22 to destroy 374 mattresses on its sales floor, a state inspection report said.

Workers cut the mattresses, but an additional 200 or so in the store’s stock room were not destroyed because an owner said he was dumping those, Anderson said.

If they can be given four months, four inspections, and still have the mattresses in the back room, maybe the inspections system is faulty.

Ever bought something special from the backroom of a store? In this case, it was no bargain.

And the article says that the majority of used mattresses sold elsewhere are also unsanitized:

About 60 percent of the mattresses inspected at stores and flea markets have not been sanitized properly or at all, Anderson said.

• Bedbugged North Carolina: Bayer’s training grounds for bed bug detection and treatment
• Stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment in Charlotte: let’s start the blame game
• Virginia Beach hotel sued over alleged bed bug attack
• Bed bugs in “refurbished” mattresses on Fox NY

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I am glad that I’m not the only one who takes photos of curb-side bedbug garbage. Now Gawker has joined in, and thankfully, found stuff tagged with a bed bug warning. See East Village Bed Bug Outbreak. Oh, Gawker, if only it was just E. 10th St. If only it were just the East Village. If only it were just NYC. Alas.

Also, file this under seriously gross bed bug discoveries: a woman in Cameron, North Carolina bought a bedroom set, and kept the plastic on the mattress and box springs for a year (until they got tired of listening to it rattling). When she took the plastic off, the bed was completely infested in bed bugs. If this is true, as she claims, it is seriously disgusting. It also poo-poos the idea that a mattress that comes shipped sealed in plastic will necessarily be bedbug-free. (Okay, so the mattress has to be completely brand new and clean before it enters the plastic, got that furniture companies?)

But, hello NC ABCnews-affiliate abc11tv.com, you need a proof-reader to correct the multiple misspellings of “bedroom suite,” not to mention multiple grammatical errors. Sure, Nobugsonme plays free and easy with the English language and encourages readers to do so as well. But she expects her major media outlets to have a handle on Standard English usage.

Finally, going through withdrawl has got to be awful. (I’m thinking more Trainspotting and less Sandra Bullock in 28 Days.) So perhaps people needing de-tox in Vancouver Island this past week were lucky to miss out on having had to go through de-tox and a bed bug infestation at the same time. Withdrawl Management Services closed down for a week between 1/25 and 2/2 due to a bed bug infestation:

Moira McLean, Vancouver Island Health Authority communications officer, confirmed that Withdrawal Management Services, a detox centre, is operated under VIHA.

Why is it closed?

“Bed bugs,” she replied, adding that the centre has been plagued with the pests since last summer.

Finally, pest control experts recommended the best course of action would be to spray the entire area.

That was done, and the current occupants were found alternative accommodation.

I am just hoping they make sure their problem is totally gone before they host any new clients. A week is not much time, and “spraying the entire area once is unlikely to suffice.

• Bed bugs invade Chicago’s Presidential Towers, and another Vancouver Island detox
• Itchy the Bed Bug: an Olympic Mascot for Vancouver
• Bed bugs in Sweden: Ikea, used mattresses, and the spread of vägglus
• Prince Edward Island infestations

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