The article said,

“Student Housing has been informed of a few cases of bedbugs on campus for about the past six to seven years,” Imogen Hinds, associate director of student housing, wrote in an email to The Daily. “We have not had cases every year. Some years we do have more than in others.”

Actually, last year alone, they were at East Flo in December 2006, and Alondra in January 2007.

Nevertheless, the impressive-sounding bed bug protocols described in these various articles suggest that the way bed bugs are handled at Stanford is better than that at any other college where we have details of treatment. Which isn’t many, since colleges tend to hush this up. Having bed bugs repeatedly in different places, and fighting them aggressively, is the best case scenario when it comes to colleges and bed bugs. (Compare that with having them in the same place over and over.)

Nevertheless, it does seem like Stanford needs to implement more steps to avoid infestations. Students are being given some education about preventing and detecting bed bugs by the university, but I am sure more could be done.

• Bed bugs under discussion at university housing officers’ conference
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• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• Bed bugs at Stanford again
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back
• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)

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First, WLNS of Lansing, Michigan warns that bed bugs are the pest of the 21st century, that they “wreak havoc on your skin and your life,” their incidence has increased 75% n five years (oh, I’d say much more than that), and fighting an infestation is costly, upwards of $300 per room. After scaring the living bejaysus out of the good (Lansonians? Lansineers?), what one, tiny pithy nugget of practical advice do they give?

When returning from a trip, experts say it’s a good idea to vacuum out your suitcase.

Well, it’s not bad advice, but is that the only thing you’ve got for us WLNS? Looks like your readers might need them a few Bedbugger FAQs.

WVLT in Tennessee also seems to have latched on to the phrase “bug of the 21st century.” (All right, which entomologist let that one out of the bag? Well, if it replaces that nursery-rhyme mumbo-jumbo, then we’re on to a good thing, I guess.)

More suggestions here, including suitcase-vacuuming (again, I’m sensing a pattern here), and the warning to those who are thinking it’s a bedsheet issue,

If you’re leaving for a trip, don’t think taking your own bedding will help. They live in the mattress.

Just make sure and check the bed before bringing your stuff to the room.

Well, sorta, but not quite: they also live in the baseboards, bed frame, electrical sockets, light fixtures, ceiling, floor, and sofa, among other places. The information is more plentiful for Tennessee than for Lansing, Michigan, but the quality is a bit hit-or-miss. They’re obsessed with bed bugs being “in the mattress,” but they also warn people not to toss vacuum bags in the trash, and so on. (Tennesee is also playing a bit fast and loose with the rules of punctuation, spelling, and grammar, so compulsive proofreaders and your high school English teacher should steer clear!)

OSU’s student paper The Lantern reports that an infested grad student dorm at Ohio State University is getting some serious “fumigation” in response to bed bugs. The collection of all students’ non-washable belongings—isolated, bagged, placed in red carts—sounds promising. It’s a bit mysterious what will happen to that stuff (in the red carts, they have to be red carts!), but hopefully it will be picked through with a fine-toothed comb by PCOs with bed bug knowledge, and returned.

If this is so, and if OSU also follows up at 10-14 day intervals (follow-up was not mentioned at all in the article), this would not be unlike the Stanford bed bug protocol, which we believe to be the best reported in any response to college dorm bed bugs. (You can scroll down this list to see past coverage on Bedbugger of Stanford bed bug cases, and gawk at the love fest I’ve put on for Stanford upon hearing the descriptions of how San Francisco’s Crane PCO and the Stanford admin dealt with those cases. It’s beautiful, really.) I only note this because reports have also come from many other colleges of poor bed bug procedures.

Update 5/25: 100 rooms on 3 floors are being treated. Bed bugs were found on the 9th and 11th floors, and they’re treating the 10th as well. (What about the 8th?)

Finally, Australians appear to have been battling bed bugs a wee bit longer than those of us in the US. (Canada, too, a bit ahead in the Bed Bug Olympics.) So no surprise that they’re at the forefront of innovation: this dry steamer does the bed bug killing job, without getting your stuff all wet (that’s dry steam, i.e. no mold!) Their website says,

Duplex Cleaning Machines has a variety of industrial and commercial strength steam products to tackle bed bug epidemic including the Jet Steam, Tosca and JetVac range.

The JetVac Professional Plus is an ideal solution to the bed bug problem as it delivers 160°+ Dry Steam with a tool which applies the steam evenly without blowing the bugs away and then also vacuums away the dead bugs and their eggs.

Wait, they have a steamer named Tosca? Puccini must be tossing in his grave.

But the question on everyone’s mind: when will my PCO have one? I can just see it now, integrated pest management: first, they bring in the bed bug dog. Then the dry steaming and caulking. And finally, the chemical and mechanical onslaught begins. Well, the bug of the 21st century needs the PCO of the 21st century, no?

• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back
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• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)

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Cimex lectularius, more commonly known as bedbugs, was confirmed plaguing three residences in the fall — Alondra, Granada and one Rains apartment. Stanford Student Housing is on a mission to inform students about these blood-feeding insects and has kicked off a comprehensive educational program about bedbug precautions and identifications.

“Since bedbugs are a worldwide issue that is showing signs of continuing growth, we want students to be aware of the overall problem and how they can help protect themselves and Stanford,” said Associate Director of Student Housing for Operations Imogen Hinds. “This phenomenon is occurring at most Universities around the country where students come and go and live in close-knit communities and share quarters.”

Stanford is unusually aggressive about treating bed bugs in student dorms. Compared with other colleges (and you can read about these by clicking the “college, whose administrators often do not fully understand bed bugs, their tenacity, and how easily they spread, Stanford really seems to be on the ball. This is just one example (search for “Stanford” in the search box to see more.) But despite their efforts, the bed bugs do keep sprouting up in different dorms, as they are at other colleges around North America. (Note to mom and dad: if the dorm has bed bugs, fast forward to the next vacation visit home, and you may have them too.)

Now Stanford is adding a proactive step to their bed bug war: they’re trying to educate all their students about bed bugs, because students who know about bedbugs have a better shot of recognizing the symptoms. Students who know there’s no shame attached, and that they won’t be blamed (or told it’s because their rooms are messy!) are more likely to come forward. And since Stanford’s PCO uses a pretty thorough plan of attack (including not just application of pesticides and mattress covering, but also having students wash and dry and bag clothes, and procedure that involves bagging and conviscating everything else in the students’ rooms and picking through the stuff bit by bit before returning it), early treatment may be very effective. According to another article in the San Jose Mercury News,

A Stanford housing official said the university takes evidence of the bugs seriously.

“When we discover bedbugs in a room, we proceed with ensuring that anything that can potentially have bedbugs on it is kept within the room until our pest control personnel can confirm that there is no risk of further infestation by releasing the item,” said Imogen Hinds, the associate director of student housing operations, in an e-mail.

Eighteen plastic garbage bags with everything one might keep in a college dorm room sat in the wide second-floor hallway of the Alondra dorm on the Stanford campus late Friday. A black Apple laptop was sealed in one bag. A sign on the door had a picture of a tree frog, beckoning visitors to “Come on in, Baby!”

They don’t just stick kids with stuff that may contain bed bugs in another dorm room, thus infesting other rooms and buildings. They’re also following up, post-vacation, with additional treatment for rooms treated before the break.

The information campaign includes a bed bugs page on the student housing website.

Other colleges might learn a thing or two.

• Bed bugs at Stanford again
• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)
• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• Stanford still fighting bed bugs

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All of the students’ belongings which were in the rooms where bed bugs were found (down to notebooks and laptops) were conviscated and searched carefully by PCOs before being returned. (I doubt most home sufferers get that kind of professional assistance, and we should.)

Clothing was washed and dried on hot and bagged.

The students were moved, but unlike most colleges, Stanford took care not to move the bugs, which as we know, can be transferred easily in even one unwashed item of clothing or book.

I do think they have a good shot at containing this, and if so, I do hope they’ll share with other colleges how they do it.

• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)
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• Bed bugs at Stanford again

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On the one hand, students were removed from the dorm rooms which are being taken apart (carpets removed), and their belongings were “quarantined” in sealed plastic bags for 6 weeks. The students were not allowed to take their belongings with them. That’s good, but I am not sure about the reasoning behind the six week quarantine. If there are bugs in their stuff, they can live for up to a year (some say 18 months) without feeding. I am not sure how long they can live in a sealed bag, but I am also not sure anyone else knows. If the Stanford folks do, maybe they’ll share.

The quarantine process will end six weeks after it began last Sunday. The rooms will be torn apart, with the carpets ripped out, furniture removed and walls repainted.

“We’re doing the entire process that needs to take place to make sure that the bedbugs are gone,” said Assistant Director for Housing Operations Imogen Hind. “It’s a more costly operation, but it’s one we feel needs to be done in order to ensure that the bedbugs don’t return.”

Hind and Housing Director Roger Whitney also stressed student awareness about how to detect bedbugs, and urged students to tell the proper authorities if they detected any.

“The bedbugs come into the building with people, and they can spread through bed linen and into wood,” Whitney said. “If students see symptoms like spots of blood on clothing or rashes, they need to get medical attention.”

Gold stars to Stanford for not simply moving the students and their stuff, as other colleges generally appear to do, for educating students about the signs of bed bugs, and for taking this seriously. Most importantly, Stanford seems to realize that hushing things up does not make a problem go away. But this is at least the second dorm to be infested this year (another, Lagunitas, was infested earlier), so they’ve had some time to realize how easy these bed bugs spread.

I’d also like to know about the spraying protocol. Nothing in the article about the schedule of treatments or methods, though I’d guess if they know about bagging and how easy it is to spread bedbugs, and if they’re planning on a six week war on bed bugs, they must be on the right track. I’m hearing some buzz lately about every two weeks sounds like a good rate of attack if you’re spraying.

• Bed bugs at Stanford again
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• Boston University’s bed bugs: if we don’t talk about them, they’ll go away
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back

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