• Street Mattresses, Larkin and Sutter, San Francisco
• San Francisco mattress photos
• Reader Angie’s bed bug photos
• Heavens, when will it end?

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• Halifax: where the bed bug “blame game” is the law
• Bed bugs in “refurbished” mattresses on Fox NY
• Bed bug unfriendly mattress re-sellers: recommendations?
• Stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment in Charlotte: let’s start the blame game

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• San Francisco mattress photos
• Heavens, when will it end?
• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• California fights bed bugs: good news from the golden state

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• Manhattan Mattress Mystery
• Moon Over Manhattan Madness
• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• Untitled, 2007

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Now, it was the 3rd of September, and one of the busiest moving weekends of the year. So normally, I would assume some stuff would just be discarded because it was old or did not fit in the moving truck. But I have good reason to think that the first two cases were bed bug-related.

First, there was this futon, on East 15th Street between 2nd and 1st. It had been slashed, down the center, so its stuffing was falling out. Where you see white, the innards are sticking out.

Why would anyone do that, unless they were trying to prevent others from using it? Why would anyone want to prevent others from re-using their refuse, given the general concern for the environment?

Bed bugs, of course.

Next, there was this mattress, propped against a light pole on 1st Avenue at 13th Street.

The camera phone photo is not great. You can barely see the black fecal stains which were clearly visible and unmistakeable, along the piping on the side leaning against the pole. Shame on them for neither marking nor destroying this item. Although I could see fecal stains on one side, it would be possible for someone to miss them, at least until they got it home. And desperate people who do not know bed bugs might think it was a harmless stain.

Finally, there was this lovely still-life a block or so down 1st: dirty off-white mattress, black futon, and a colorful bag of yarn (maybe eight different balls, nice yarn). Who would toss that yarn? Big balls, many of them. How hard is it to move a bag of yarn? And nice yarn is expensive.

This third set did not obviously look like a bed bug case, to me. People do move, and it’s a good time to toss beds that need replacing, as the off-white mattress clearly did. Still, two out of three is pretty bad.

While my friend and I had lunch, a woman walked by carrying the yarn.

• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• curbside mattresses
• Sweet Dreams Project: Astoria businessman donating mattresses to those with bed bugs
• Bed bug news round-up: USA Today, Minnesota Star-Tribune, and the Astral in Greenpoint

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Miss Heather’s blog newyorkshitty.com, that is. To say it’s a Greenpoint blog that documents pictures of dog poo, (and many other kinds of sh*t, like fugly new buildings) in Greenpoint does not do justice to the beauty and humor this website exudes.

Today, Miss Heather saw the joy with which we received yesterday’s bed bug couch photo, and raised it, to the tune of a Greenpoint, bug-infested mattress and furniture gallery, circa May 2006 to August 2007. It includes photos curbside photos taken outside the infamous Astral. It is sad and beautiful. Like Aux Revoir Mes Enfants, and the music of the Smiths. And the mattress photos of social interloper, in San Francisco.

I’ve noticed a trend: Manhattan hotels and tenants apparently toss out their beautiful mattresses, intact and unmarked, to bite someone else another day, hoping no one will suffer the distaste of seeing a “bed bugs” sign taped to them, or their innards peeking out where they were slashed. They are misguided. And they’re guilty of spreading bed bugs to others.

But the Bedbuggers of Greenpoint (artistic and creative lot that they are) are prone to leave humorous and tragic warning notes, like “Do not use, it bites!” While I hope that everyone will remember to slash and destroy, as well as mark (because there is always someone who will think your intact bed with writing on it looks a-OK), there is a great deal to be said for the notices being left, which warn, and spread the word.

Remember too, it’s good for others to know that bed bugs are in your neighborhood, even if they aren’t thinking of taking your refuse home!

Thanks Miss Heather, for documenting the horror.

Note also that The Bed Bug King is taking our Dos and Don’ts, and raising us a How and a Why. Touché!

• HPD seminar will be coming to Greenpoint– thanks to community lobbyists!
• Winter scene in Williamsburg, with curbside mattresses
• Greenpoint HPD Bed Bug Seminar
• Bed bugs in NYC: if we could just get Bill Murray on the case

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Three blocks from the last photo, this one was taken Thursday evening on 50th Street between Second and Third
Avenues by iphone Interloper.

The East Side is getting awfully itchy.

• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• Manhattan Mattress Mystery
• Bed bug registries
• Sunday, Buggy Sunday

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Close up of single female bug on mattress. She is upside down and eggs are below her head and elsewhere.
photo: L.Sorkin

To see even more close up: click photo, then “all sizes” then “large.”

• closeup of female bed bug with eggs
• close up of bed bugs on mattress
• More of Lou Sorkin’s photos
• bed bug nymphs, bed bug eggs, bed bug feces, on wood

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Female with eggs under piping (near top edge, left). Many bed bugs near right side in middle area between top and bottom of mattress.

(Click photo, click “all sizes”, then “large” to zoom in!)

• closeup of female bed bug with eggs
• close up of bed bugs on mattress
• close up bed bug with eggs
• Amazing photos from Lou Sorkin

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NYC discarded mattress photo by Jennylc, another mattress-snapping rock star.

• 48th Street between 3rd and Lex, last night
• curbside mattresses
• more discarded mattresses
• Reader Angie’s bed bug photos

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