UPPER WEST SIDE—It seems there is a little detail about the condo conversion at 30 Lincoln Plaza that may have been overlooked: “You failed to mention that the building is infested with bed bugs…the management has confirmed this and is handing out pamphlets and they have even had a bedbug sniffing dog in some apartments..who knew! I would think this situation is going to really boost sales on those $1,185,000 647 sq/ft one bedrooms.” Bedbug sniffing dogs?!? Excellent. [CurbedWire Inbox]

While it’s always surprising to find out another building has bed bugs, it’s a good thing that the building management is aware and is taking action. I hope they undertake aggressive treatment throughout. (Imagine, hypothetically, the legal activity that would ensue if some units were infested but did not identify the presence of pests, were not treated, and were sold infested.)

This item from Curbed.com reminds me that a lot of the interesting bed bug “news” in the last four days has been leaked via gossip blogs: legal gossip, real estate gossip, ivy league college gossip (although this one probably had another itchy culprit).

Unlike “real” news–which is covered in the newspapers, and on TV and radio–like the spread of MRSA drug-resistant staph bacteria, which tragically killed a 7th grader in Brooklyn, bed bugs aren’t yet confirmed to cause disease and death. They have been unofficially confirmed to cause distress, stress, anxiety, sleeping trouble–and in rare cases, allergic reactions so severe they can kill. But nothing compared with the threat of deadly MRSA. I saw an ABC news segment here in NYC Friday night–kids at the school that youngster attended, were carrying bottles of purell, and startled parents and teachers were looking on in amazement as they reported washing their hands after using the lavatory (ABC7 produced multiple clips in which the students admitted this was new behavior.) The segment also featured a poster on the door of the school, and though it was not shown close-up, I am pretty certain it warned that the school had been exposed to MRSA and that people had to take precautions not to catch it.

Since bed bugs aren’t on the same level of threat, the reasoning seems to go, we don’t need to actually warn people about bed bugs in specific locations. And so “bed bug reports” are confined to the realm of gossip blogs.

Yes, it is true that hotels, real estate developers and brokers, restaurants, theaters and other businesses that are reported to have bed bugs in the mainstream media, will face worried customers and may lose business. The hotel industry in NYC, in particular, will be hard hit. One can only assume Mayor Bloomberg chooses to avoid confronting and admitting the true number of infested homes and businesses in this city (which I first considered in this post), because it would scare off tourists, who contribute so much to the city, as well as negatively affecting real estate, and maybe even how people spend their leisure time (and money).

But it does not follow that if we do not discuss bed bugs, publicly, then they will go away. The opposite is true: as long as businesses are in denial, or putting up a bed-bug-free front, the problem will keep spreading at an alarming rate, and eventually, I believe, the hit on businesses will be greater.

• Maya Rudolph’s former loft (again): bedbugs ADD value!
• Bed Bug Helloise is shocked…
• The strange case of bed bugs in Bushwick
• What means this *TIPPING POINT*?

ShareThis

In it, he describes the treatment, and repercussions meted out to the alleged source of the infestation.

Oh, and the Chairman also says they don’t have “an infestation.” Whatever that means.

The memo contains some strange claims, including assertions that:

a) “A single treatment by an exterminator usually controls bed bugs and prevents reinfestation for several months.”

Not so, assuming traditional methods (sprays, powders and the like), most cases require multiple treatments.

b) Treatments occurred on June 18th, again the next morning, and again a week later (based, apparently on additional bed bug sightings in the same area.

This is odd, since the memo also rightly admits it is normal to see some bed bugs after the first treatment. Why did they keep spraying before the expected 10-day follow-up?

c) “They do not show themselves during daylight hours, only at night in the dark.”

That’s not necessarily true.

d) “[Name of PCO firm] has said that it is very unlikely that these bugs could be transmitted to your home. However, for the next several days, please closely examine your clothing and any materials you take out of the office.”

it’s definitely possible you brought them home. And be vigilant for several months or more, since one or two bugs can establish themselves in time. You may not be allergic and so you may not feel bites; in such circumstances, you might not notice visible evidence of bed bugs for many, many months. Until they are everywhere and you are seeing them in the daytime.

e) “Note also that [name of PCO] has assured us that [name of law firm] does not have any infestation and will continue to proceed with an aggressive course of action to remedy the situation.”

Um, how many bed bugs do you think you have to have, to have an infestation?
Because I’d say you do have one.

f) Oddly enough, they think they know the original source of the bed bugs:

“During the course of the extermination, a box was identified as the source of the bugs and was immediately removed from the premises.”

Possible, but really? Can you be sure the bed bugs came from the box?

g) And finally, most distressingly, this statement:

“The individual who we believe brought the insects into the firm came forward on Tuesday, June 19, and is no longer associated with the firm.”

We don’t know the details. Assuming this employee was fired only for allegedly bringing bed bugs into the firm, and assuming this person did not intentionally or knowingly bring the bed bugs in, perhaps s/he has a good case for wrongful dismissal. I really, truly hope so. That would be a bed bug lawsuit I could get behind. Because even if the employee brought the bed bugs in, it is quite possible s/he did so unknowingly.

Oddly enough, it may take months for the other employees to get that. But when some of them unknowingly take bed bugs home, they will understand that the blame game does not work with bed bugs.

This is the first time I have heard of anyone being fired because of bed bugs. Things are starting to get really ugly.

• Covington, Kentucky IRS building infested with bed bugs
• Cadwalader, Wickersham, and Taft’s alleged bed bugs, part two
• Fox NY claims it became infested with bed bugs “a few weeks ago”; tipster tells Gawker they fired employee who brought them in
• Another top NYC lawfirm gets bed bugs

ShareThis

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

ShareThis

Put it out of your head! Um, yes, some insects will eat bed bugs, but it really isn’t a good treatment plan.

House centipedes have been known to enthusiastically eat bed bugs, a fact which endears them to me. If you see one, you might want to let it live, as it may be feasting on your bed bugs. But keep your distance, a disturbed house centipede can sting you.

Masked assassin (masked hunter) bugs also eat bed bugs, and their presence in the home is said to be a sign bed bugs are present. But I don’t know anyone who’s seen one. And watch out, they have a nasty bite of their own.

Fire ants are also said to eat bed bugs. I’ve heard that the traditional cure for bed bugs in the American Southwest is to throw your mattress on a nest of fire ants. They quickly consume the bed bugs, it’s said. I believe people really do this, though am not sure how you then get rid of the fire ants and reclaim your mattress. Again, you don’t want them stinging you.

I do not recommend seeking out predators as a form of treatment. You can’t acquire them in quantity (there’s no centipede mail order), and you can’t get rid of them once you have them in the home. All of them, en masse, could cause you serious problems.

Sorry to disappoint. Read our FAQ for advice on how to get a PCO who knows bed bugs. “Natural solutions” such as freshwater diatomaceous earth are a possible preventative, or useful part of a treatment plan. But predatory insects are not a good idea indoors, and anyone who is being bitten or seeing bed bugs should get a PCO in to treat, repeatedly, until they’re gone. Or they will breed, and your problems will be much worse.

• After a fire, bed bugs “rain down from ceilings” into other apartments
• FAQ: Should I do my own pest control for bed bugs?
• Eastern Nazarene College: students cannot bring in ANY used furniture
• NYC office of Very Important International Law Firm has bed bugs

ShareThis

We’re told that within 2-3 months, assuming the red tape is cut swiftly enough, glue traps should be available for sale which use a bed bug pheromone to attract bed bugs to aggregate there.

This is very exciting: if bed bugs could be detected quickly, perhaps even in the absence of any signs or symptoms, well, maybe every infestation could be treated in its infancy.

• Another bed bug trap in the works
• Bed bug aggregate pheromone traps “within two years” says Dr. Gerhard Gries
• Potter’s Studies on Suspend, Kicker, Phantom, Bedlam, Sterifab; new information about bed bug behavior
• How can I catch a bed bug? How do I know I have bed bugs?

ShareThis

Add it to this one from December.

• I’d like the name of that therapist
• Caryn, on fighting an infestation in 2004 vs. 2007, and a few words about the banner
• Caryn’s bed bug free again.
• Edmonton couple moves from an infested building, to another infested building

ShareThis

… because of the sunlight that will help eradicate the bugs.

Regarding your bed,

Never redo your bed right away. Leave it totally undone as long as possible. Bed bugs will asphyxiate.

Where is this mis-information coming from? We have to get the correct information out.

• Gentrol may make bed bugs worse
• New York City: Who’s responsible for paying for bed bug treatment? Complicated, in some cases.
• FAQ: Are bedbugs a health issue?
• FAQ: I am not in the US. Can you tell me where to buy XL ziplocs, or what mattress covers are called in my country?

ShareThis

Bed bugs eat blood. That’s all they eat. They’ve been eating blood since the Herbert family was living in a cave. Maybe longer. They’re not going to evolve into cockroaches, as you say, not within millions of years. Anyone who is hoping this will happen needs to go back and do some reading about evolution.

I don’t think Brent is an Aussie at all. He’s posted on Indymedia sites in Portland and NYC as well as Melbourne. And these are not his websites, they’re Indymedia affiliates, where citizen journalists can publish their articles. One reader suggested that Indymedia doesn’t have much credibility, but that’s irrelevant. When people google “bed bugs” looking for treatment protocols, it isn’t hard to find his articles. I have nothing against Brent Herbert personally, and I think that like many of us, he’s trying to be creative in dealing with a difficult situation that can seem nearly impossible to eradicate. Like many of us, he’s also worried about the environmental effects of pesticides as well as their effects on individuals.

Most of his posts argue something along the following lines: conventional pesticides require several applications, they’re worthless, and also dangerous, and therefore we should forego them entirely. Instead we should isolate our beds, which will starve the bed bugs who will then go to the next home and bite our neighbors instead.

There’s so much inaccuracy there, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ve responded on Indymedia to the NYC and Portland posts, and here on our blog, explaining that if you do not use currently available pesticides, your bed bugs will not walk away from your home. They will not get hungry and leave. They will bite you in the daytime at your desk or chair, and they will even run up your leg while you stand. They will live, hungrily, for a year, maybe more, in your home, trying to bite you. Each time they succeed, they’ll either grow, or multiply.

Meanwhile, they will spread to others around you, who will use the same pesticides, in large quantities, to try and get rid of them. As your neighbors get them, they may come back to you. Meanwhile, your goal of avoiding damaging the environment or your health with dangerous pesticides was not met, since now multiple neighbors are having to spray the same. Since you refuse to responsibly eliminate your bed bugs, wrongly thinking they’ll go away in time, you’ll cause a lot of suffering. If pesticides are bad for people and the environment, you’ll cause much more of them to be used.

Yes, the current pesticides to fight bedbugs are not perfect. They leave a lot to be desired. They have to be used repeatedly. Experts say there are some pesticide-resistant bed bugs. But I have not heard yet of a case where a bed bug infestation could not be eliminated, if persistently treated. The exception to this is where you have a multi-unit building, where the bugs can keep coming back from other units. Especially if some of your neighbors refuse to use pesticides on their bed bugs… That’s probably a much bigger problem than pesticide-resistance. People in this situation can’t eliminate their bed bugs. With a Brent Herbert next door, you’ll be spraying pesticides indefinitely, to no avail.

The alternative to using currently available pesticides is to let the problem grow. Period. Don’t kid yourself.

Update (12/16):  Brent’s latest article (see  and Melbourne and Portland versions) has taken the information we’ve provided that in previous comments and responses to his articles, where we insisted that his bedbugs would not walk away from his apartment hungry, because his bed was secured, but would instead start trying to bite him in chairs during the daytime, and would even run up his legs when he’s standing around.  Now he’s responding to this idea, saying that they are crawling up his legs and he swats them dead each time, because:

Bed bugs have a very noticeable and distinctive crawl, since they have not adapted that crawl to be undetectable, being creatures of the deep night that they are, and so when a desperate bed bug crawls on you during the daytime hours you know it instantly and that turns out to be a very poor survival strategy for bed bugs that wind up getting swatted dead right on the spot.

Do others find the bedbug’s “crawl” on your skin to be detectable, always, and instantly noticed, during the daytime?

• don’t think you can fight bed bugs without pesticides
• more lousy advice about bed bugs
• The Bed Bug of the Future
• Amanda at Apartmenttherapy.com, part 5

ShareThis

But I am even more worried that some people think they can avoid “chemicals” in fighting bed bugs. Brent Herbert, who posted an article on the Indymedia website, recommends “isolating the bed” (with instructions similar to those many of you use, and which you can find in our FAQs), and he includes some insecticide in the bowls the legs of the bed stand in.

Yet whether or not anyone was actually going to use any pesticide to treat his bed bugs (they haven’t yet) seems to be irrelevant to Herbert. He talked to the landlord about the exterminator coming as a hypothetical (if, not when).  Herbert seems to be entirely missing the point. He recognizes that bedbugs cause psychological torment, but not that that will be multiplied exponentially as their numbers do the same.

The first commenter on this post praised the suggestion of isolating the bed as a bed bug cure as an “eco-conscious, resourceful, and affordable” response.

I really think people miss the point that the massive amount of pesticides that will eventually be used when this untreated infestation is eventually out of control and requires constant re-spraying (and, in addition, spreads to many neighbors) will be much worse for the environment than some careful, concentrated treatment by a licensed pest control operator. They’ll also, incidentally, cost more and take much longer. You can’t cut corners here. These bugs are like no other household pest.

I am as eco-conscious as anyone. But spreading bed bugs causes more damage to the environment– both in pesticides being used, and also consumption of plastic bags and tossing out of furniture–both practices which are wasteful of resources and which multiply as the bugs spread to new homes.

If you care for the earth and its inhabitants, nip your problem in the bud as efficiently as you can. Get professional help. Back it up by doing your own research, isolating your bed, “Whatever gets you through the night–” absolutely.

But don’t think you can isolate your bed, or spray a little sweet rice or lavender or murphy’s oil soap around (as others recommend) and skip the extermination entirely. You’re likely to need professionals to spray 3 or more times, by most accounts. But that is vastly preferable to everyone in your vicinity treating them month after month (which can happen when things get bad).

Get cracking, Brent Herbert, or you’ll spread them to everyone else, which makes their elimination from your home and theirs nearly impossible, not to mention costly, harmful to the environment, and soul-destroying.  I am not trying to give you a hard time. But I’ve heard a lot of stories in the last few months, which have convinced me this is a pest problem nothing like cockroaches, mice, rats, or any other household vermin.  It’s not even akin to scabies or lice, or an STD.  Bed bugs are much harder to eradicate than any of these.

I know a lot of “bed bug information” sites on the net are run by pest control companies. This one isn’t. We at Bedbugger know what we know from learning the hard way: one bite at a time.

• Brent Herbert’s plans for bed bug world domination!
• Ryerson University: a study in unenthusiastic bed bug control practices
• A Few Comments About Peterborough
• HPD seminar will be coming to Greenpoint– thanks to community lobbyists!

ShareThis

We are reliably informed that the Fox News tower in midtown Manhattan has bedbugs. Dangerman reports that they originated on the VIP couch. . .

Is Claudia teasing us? Don’t believe everything you read, folks, but if they do have bed bugs in the VIP couch at Fox News, then I’m sure some people will leak more news of this. Remember Ralph Lauren. And maybe we’re about to see some important people getting on the “Stop Bed Bugs!” bandwagon tout suite.

I won’t get behind an unproven rumor from an unknown source. But from a sociological perspective, it is interesting. As bed bugs spread, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of these kinds of rumors, I think.

• More rumors of bed bugs at Fox News
• Fox NY claims it became infested with bed bugs “a few weeks ago”; tipster tells Gawker they fired employee who brought them in
• Bed bug news round-up: USA Today, Minnesota Star-Tribune, and the Astral in Greenpoint
• Vancouver official blames hanky-panky for bed bugs in nice areas

ShareThis