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
• Fox employee suing building management, maintenance over bed bug bites
• Bed bugs at Hawai’i’s Halawa Correctional Facility
• Case study: bed bugs survived dry cleaning… and resurfaced 6 months later (update)

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The article is a pretty standard “bed bugs are spreading in our area” story. However, the section entitled “The Facts” gives a hint of how far the news media has come as far as understanding bed bugs.

For example, this anticipates the “Oh, we all have bugs in our bed” response:

Although all of us will be living with dust mites, they are not a patch on ever-multiplying bed bugs.

And this gets people beyond the “bed bugs live in your mattress” fixation:

Their daytime home will be in the cracks of walls, the fibre of mattresses, behind pictures and in wallpaper and headboards.

And this gets people beyond just looking for visible itchy bites, which do not afflict all with bed bugs:

Tell-tale signs of infestation, apart from bites on the skin, include small blood spots on bed sheets and tiny black marks by mattress seams, caused by the bugs squeezing out excess blood to crawl back into their hiding spaces after they feed.

While the media are still making errors, and the comments to this article give a sense of how much the public still needs to be educated, I am glad that journalists are now giving much more information about bed bugs and their signs.

Remember when we were told to flip mattresses to look for bed bugs, as if it were always so easy? Or that tossing out mattresses was a solution to one’s bed bug problems? We have a way to go, but we are making progress.

The to those in Scotland: other areas of the country are also experiencing the same. Click to see a map of Bedbugger readers in Scotland and the rest of the UK and Ireland. (Hint: the incidence of Bedbugger readers appears to correspond to the population density of a given area.) Dundee, Glasgow and Clydeside, Aberdeen, Fife, and other regions also have bed bugs.

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that bed bugs are everywhere.

• Forget black mattress stains, bed bugs, shells, and eggs: NMPA press release tells consumers to look for “blood spots”
• Queries from Bed Bug Helloise: hanging clothes storage?
• Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida residents: do not use the DE from your pool
• Bed bugs spreading in Finland too

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