Bed bugs are covered by some local newspapers every week.  But some syndicated stories reach a lot of readers.

One compelling story from the Springdale Gardens Apartments in Austin, Texas appeared on Wednesday on KVUE.com (click to read story or see video).

Yahoo! News picked up the video from the KVUE story on Friday, where it doubtless got many more viewers.  And Yahoo! accompanied this with a McClatchy syndicated news story (which appeared in papers all over the US on Friday) about the resurgence of bed bugs, and the recently reintroduced Butterfield Bill, the Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009:

Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield just introduced legislation that would authorize $50 million that’s already in the Department of Commerce budget to train health inspectors how to recognize signs of the insects.

The Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009 also would require public housing agencies to submit bedbug inspection plans to the federal government. It would add bedbugs to a rodent and cockroach program in the Department of Health and Human Services . It also would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research bedbugs’ impact on public mental health.

Butterfield’s letter to congressional colleagues about the legislation attracted lots of attention: It was topped with a full-color picture of the insect sitting on human skin.

“Unfortunately, in recent years, the United States has seen a resurgence in bedbugs,” the letter reads. “That’s right — they’re back in the sack — and biting.”

There is much more discussion of the bill in the news this time around, and — though libertarian news sites in particular enjoy jumping on this kind of bill — there’s a lot less snark and sniggering on the ‘net about the bill than there was last year.

I love how Dr. Michael Potter (of the University of Kentucky) puts the health issues caused by bed bugs in the spotlight:

“Most health departments say, ‘Hey, we don’t deal with bedbugs,’ ” Potter said.

Those who’ve suffered outbreaks say that the anxiety it induces can be debilitating. Potter said many sufferers tossed out furniture and could spend thousands of dollars on repeated treatments from pesticide companies. They call him about anxiety, insomnia, shame and the incessant annoyance of itchy red welts on their skin.

“They’re, like, ready to blow their brains out,” Potter said. “It’s emotionally distressing. Anyone that has never had a bedbug problem is not one to judge whether we’re dealing with a medical, emotional public health issue.”

Did you catch that?

Yes, Dr. Potter said, “Anyone that has never had a bedbug problem is not one to judge whether we’re dealing with a medical, emotional public health issue.”

Go Dr. Michael Potter!

In fact, anyone watching the video from Austin of stressed-out mom Sommer Jackson showing off bite marks on her adorable infant, or Sommer’s neighbor Laketra Jackson who threw out all her bedding and still has bed bugs, should get that this problem is a big deal.

See: Boom in tiny bedbugs is causing big trouble.Similar Posts:

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In the television news spot below from WQAD.com in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois, it is noted that

Environmental Health Specialist Jackie Hall of the Scott County Health Department [where Davenport, Iowa is located] says cases of bed bugs have been very rare in the county. Their most recent report of these was in October of last year.

Because the Scott County Health Department has not had a call about bed bugs since October, 2008, and they are assuming that this means that there have been no bed bug cases in the county since then.

We suspect they are probably wrong. After all, people of Davenport, did anyone tell you, that you should notify the Scott County Health Department, should you find bed bugs in your home? I suspect they did not.

Davenport, Iowa is part of the Quad Cities of Iowa/Illinois (which actually now includes five cities: Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa; and Moline, East Moline, and Rock Island, Illinois).

Reporters in the story below from Davenport imply that locals only need to worry about encountering bed bugs when they travel. Not so — two large local complexes — Joseph Fulton Homes East Moline, and Warren Tower in Rock Island County — suffered from publicized bed bug infestations in 2007.

So if you suffer from bed bugs in Davenport, at home or in a public place, please, call your local Health Department and let them know!

Update 4/20: According to the Reporter News Online, public health officials in Abilene, Texas also claim to not have a local bed bug problem.

Bedbugs may be biting in some parts of the country, but so far, Abilene does not seem to be plagued by the pesky little insects.

“I am not aware of any problems we are having with bedbugs in our area,” said Kay Durilla, nursing program manager for the Abilene-Taylor County Public Health District. “However, it seems it is a recurring problem along the East Coast.”

Not just the East Coast. Bed bugs are in all 50 states, according to national pest control companies.

Again, people of Abilene, TX: if you have bed bugs, be sure and let the Abilene-Taylor County Public Health District know that bed bugs are a problem in your area.

The truth is that unless Abilene is inside a sealed airtight bubble, and no people or goods are allowed in and out, there are or will soon be bed bugs in Abilene.

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The Daily Aztec (an independent student paper) reported yesterday on the bed bug situation at San Diego State University. Officials there say there are currently no known bed bug cases, though the article notes there have been bed bugs found on campus in recent months.

One place bed bugs were discovered: the “egg chairs” in the Counseling and Psychological Services office. (This makes sense: people with bed bugs are under a lot of stress, and liable to seek help!) Director of the center, Dr. Sandy Jorgensen-Funk:

“We immediately shut down the chairs,” Jorgensen-Funk said, “so that they weren’t used by students, as soon as we found this out.”

Jorgensen-Funk added that the chairs were then treated for a second time in November and again last month.

“We didn’t know what they were,” she said. “We just wanted to make sure that we weren’t exposing students to a problem.”

Whether any students were exposed to the problem before the treatments were conducted is not known at this time.

The existence of bed bugs in the egg chairs strongly suggests the existence of bed bugs elsewhere on campus.

Here’s why: the bed bugs did not spontaneously arise in the egg chairs. Someone who had been exposed to bed bugs sat in the chairs, and the bed bugs stayed there. They could have climbed off a person, or walked directly out of a person’s bag.

They may have come from a dorm. Or a student’s off-campus home. But either way, we have to consider that if the bed bugs hitchhiked to one location, they can (and probably did) go to others as well.

We do not know how many bed bugs were seen in the chair, but it is also possible that the bed bugs were not harboring in the chair but climbed up into it to bite the person. Rooms, structures, can be infested as easily as pieces of furniture. The actual harborage could have been a nearby desk, a crack in the wall, another chair.

It is highly likely that anyone who sat in the chairs was exposed to bed bugs, and may possibly have taken them to other places — classrooms, library, cafeterias, dorm rooms, off-campus housing, etc. Bed bugs are hitch-hikers.

However, although the presence of bed bugs in the egg chairs suggests bed bugs are somewhere else on campus, The Daily Aztec reports having heard several bed bug reports from various residences which were found to be “unsubstantiated after discussions with the Office of Housing Administration and Student Health Services.”

Benita Mann, manager of custodial and maintenance services for the OHA, said there hasn’t been any known bed bug problem in campus housing for some time.

“Several years ago we had a problem,” Mann said, “but those buildings have since been torn down.”

Yet those bed bugs did not spontaneously appear in the egg chairs. Whoever responded to the egg chair bed bug infestation must sure have been asking himself or herself “who brought those bed bugs in, and where else did bed bugs from the chairs end up?”

If students come to the on-campus health service suspecting bed bugs, the health service wants to see an actual insect sample before they take a bed bug complaint seriously:

Dr. Gregg Lichtenstein, medical director at SHS, said complaints of bed bug bites isn’t something SHS sees very often.

“It’s not anything regular,” Lichtenstein said. “We see people who come in with bites of various sorts on an occasional basis – and most of them are, frankly, flea bites.”

Lichtenstein said that student inquiries about bed bug bites are rare, and no one can actually recall seeing a bed bug being brought in to confirm a diagnosis.

While it is absolutely true that one cannot diagnose bed bugs based on skin reactions, it is also absolutely true that it is difficult — except in heavy infestations — to catch a bed bug.

Students simply cannot be expected to find, catch, and bring in a bed bug sample.

Instead, when bed bugs are suspected, the room should be inspected, either by a trained pest professional willing to spend a lot of time doing so, or perhaps by a bed bug sniffing dog.

Lichtenstein also misunderstands the health problems posed by bed bugs:

“Bed bugs are not vectors of disease. They may be annoying, but that’s about it.”

Yes, bed bugs are not known vectors of disease. But bed bugs are more than annoying. They can trouble students (who may have difficulty getting help, especially if evidence is not obvious). They can make people lose sleep and create stress. This in addition to skin reactions from bed bug bites which vary from nothing to severe. And in very, very few cases, people have had life-threatening allergic reactions to bed bug bites.

Not only do colleges need to react well to suspected bed bug infestations. Colleges also need to be proactive against bed bugs.

Here’s why: we are told that as many as 70% of the population may not react to bed bug bites (per Dr. Jerome Goddard the state medical entomologist with the Mississippi Department of Health in Jackson, Mississippi); this means many people may not suspect they have a bed bug problem until it is very far advanced — so far advanced as to be visually obvious, even in daytime.

And if your bed bug infestation has gotten to that point, bed bugs may have already spread beyond that particular room.

College officials need to understand that it is hard to see a bed bug or catch it in the act, since they generally feed in the wee small hours, and are designed to hide between meals in tight cracks, undetected.

They also need to understand that bed bugs are a problem no one should have to put up with — even if they are not yet known to spread disease.

Finally — and the article does not engage with this issue at all — college officials need to realize that bed bugs travel off-campus too.

Students exposed to bed bugs may bring bed bugs home from campus, causing their parents expensive problems of bed bug detection and treatment. And other students will just as surely bring bed bugs onto campus, from hotels or from home. Faculty and staff will likely do so too.  Bed bugs are a pest of exposure, and no one is immune.

Since bed bugs have come back with such a vengeance in society at large, having bed bugs enter a college campus is inevitable. Being reactive is not enough, given the problems of quickly detecting bed bugs before they spread around. And college administrators who realize this, and are proactive, have a better chance of getting bed bugs under control.

Ultimately, I have a hunch that a good proactive and reactive bed bug program may seem expensive at first, but will save money in the long run, over other approaches.

To read more about how colleges are dealing with bed bugs on campus, see this post which considers the model of Texas A&M, which proactively uses bed bug sniffing dogs to detect bed bug problems before students do, and TempAir to treat bed bugs in one shot with thermal remediation.

Heat also features at the University of Florida, where mattresses and other infested items are heated in a makeshift oven, as part of bed bug treatment, according to this article frem Channel 2 in Charleston.Similar Posts:

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This USA Today article from Wednesday gives a rundown on recent bed bug battles in a number of US colleges and universities, such as Ohio State, and the University of Florida.

This is an issue that administrators are increasingly thinking about in advance of a crisis arising (as evidenced by recent sessions on bed bugs at a conference for college administrators), and this is a good thing.

USA Today gives a lot of attention to Texas A&M, where an administrator says of bed bugs:

“They’re taking off right now,” says Dan Mizer, associate director of residence life at Texas A&M University.

It sounds like Mizer is being proactive and has an aggressive plan in place to deal with bed bugs:

Texas A&M has spent $37,000 in the past year to fly in bedbug-sniffing dogs. This fall, Mizer plans to call in a Minnesota outfit called Temp-Air, whose eradicator heats the room overnight to 130 degrees, killing the bedbugs but leaving students’ belongings unharmed. His other secret weapon: eternal vigilance. “When we get a report, we get the pest-control staff, and we respond. These bugs can take over quickly.”

The school is being proactive about finding bed bugs, and has plans to deal with them efficiently. Perhaps they’re being advised by the world class bed bug researchers in TAMU’s own Center for Urban and Structural Entomology, like James Austin.

Local news outlets picked up the “bed bugs in college dorms” idea after USA Today’s article was published, and UPI distributed a short version of the story.

WFMY News 2 interviewed North Carolina public health officials as well as Wake Forest University students about whether they’re concerned about bed bugs:

(The video was much more interesting than the accompanying article.)

WLWT in Cincinnati goes further, giving students tips on how to search dorm rooms for bed bugs:

They should be inspecting the mattress, the box spring and areas around the mattress and box springs,” Scherzinger Pest Control technical director Patrick Boland said.

Boland also said that students should check the headboard and the bed frame itself. Students should also check their home before they leave as well.

Experts said that people should look in the folds and seems of their mattresses. Bedbugs can also be spotted by the black fecal material they leave behind.

Not just mattresses, though! The whole room should be inspected for bed bugs of every size and color (from translucent unfed 1 mm nymphs, to rust-colored, bulging just-fed 6 mm adults), fecal stains, cast skins, and bed bug eggs. These photos may help.

And college students need to know that you may never react to bed bug bites, and may still be the nightly meal for bed bugs.

Also see this video from NBC 10 in Providence, R.I. Similar Posts:

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The latest college to be hit (or, at least, to admit it): The University of Texas at Dallas campus, reports NBC5 in Dallas / Fort Worth.

The university acknowledged that they’re dealing with an infestation of bed bugs. School officials said 15 units on campus were found to have bed bugs. The school has received more than 100 complaints.

Hmm. 100 complaints for 15 student apartment units seems like a lot. Did each unit have to complain more than six times before anything was done? Or is there another explanation for that?

Entomologist Dr. Mike Merchant said bed bugs are basically fleas for humans and that apartments and hotels are dealing with the problem more frequently.

“The incidents of bed bugs has gone up considerably,” he said.

Merchant said that bed bugs are not native to North Texas, but that they stow away in luggage and clothing during international travel.

Dr. Merchant is obviously trying to make the bed bug information more accessible to people. Now, I know Dr. Merchant would not want this to happen, but I think calling bed bugs “basically fleas for humans” might mislead some people into thinking similar steps are needed for treating both infestations.

A lot of people already make the mistake of trying to treat bed bugs with products made for other insects. Now where did I put my flea collar? (Seriously, do not put a flea collar on your person. I have seen someone recommending that on another website and I do not think it is a good idea.)

I also like it where Texas tries to deny responsibility for the problem: “they’re not native to Texas”. Unless I am mistaken, bed bugs are no less “native” to Texas than anywhere else on earth. Before being eradicated for 50 years, I am sure North Texas had their fair share of bed bugs, which enjoyed a reign of hundreds of years.Similar Posts:

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You can click here to see a map of the last 90 or so visitors to the site. It will look different from what I describe below, because I am writing about what I saw there about 4-5 hours ago. Now it’s almost midnight in New York, and the Aussies are starting to surf in.

For those of you who don’t know, webpages can tell where you’re coming from (though not very specifically). They know the location of your ISP. For most people, this comes up as somewhere near where they live, though it’s not always precise and sometimes it’s just the country. It also tells the webmaster what internet browser you use (Go Firefox!) and whether you like Macs or Windows machines. No, I do not know your name, or where you live, don’t worry!

This may all seem very “meta,” so far, but we know that our readership consists of four kinds of people:

a) People who have, or think they have, or recently had, bed bugs.
b) People whose work makes them concerned about bed bugs (pest control professionals, entomologists, politicians, landlords, hotel managers, social service agencies, government officials, are just some sectors that I have heard from).
c) People who have heard about bed bugs and are concerned, and want to know more.

I think that group (a) is in the majority, and although most people don’t comment, most commenters fit in group a. In any case, the Bedbugger.com readership is a map of bed bug concern, and you’d be pretty safe betting its a map of where bed bugs are popping up–with the caveat, of course, that our site pops up more in US search engines than those abroad, and also that our readers are overwhelmingly English-speakers, though we have dreams of breaking down those linguistic barriers!

This is where the last 89 readers were reading the blog (circa 6:30 this evening):

1. San Diego, California, United States
2. Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
3. Walden, New York, United States
4. Long Island City, New York, United States
5. New York, New York, United States
6. Plattekill, New York, United States
7. Hull, Quebec, Canada
8. Durant, Iowa, United States
9. Miamiville, Ohio, United States
10. Gibraltar
11. Calgary, Alberta, Canada
12. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
13. Humble, Texas, United States
14. Germantown, Maryland, United States
15. Rowland Heights, California, United States
16. New York, New York, United States
17. New York, New York, United States
18. Hadley, Kentucky, United States
19. Buffalo, New York, United States
20. Hveragerði, Arnessysla, Iceland
21. Pine Falls, Manitoba, Canada
22. Livonia, Michigan, United States
23. Bayside, New York, United States
24. Woodhaven, New York, United States
25. Denver, Colorado, United States
26. New York, New York, United States
27. United States
28. Waterloo, Quebec, Canada
29. Los Angeles, California, United States
30. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
31. Santa Maria, California, United States
32. Beamsville, Ontario, Canada
33. Kansas City, Missouri, United States
34. Corona, New York, United States
35. Barker, Texas, United States
36. Readville, Massachusetts, United States
37. Palo Alto, California, United States
38. Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
39. Mill Valley, California, United States
40. Ridgewood, New York, United States
41. Mehama, Oregon, United States
42. San Francisco, California, United States
43. Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, United States
44. Swedesburg, Iowa, United States
45. Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
46. West New York, New Jersey, United States
47. Lancaster, Blackpool, United Kingdom
48. New York, New York, United States
49. Miami, Florida, United States
50. Anaheim, California, United States
51. Harrow, Harrow, United Kingdom
52. Wilsonville, Oregon, United States
53. Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
54. Forest Hill, Ontario, Canada
55. Wayne, New Jersey, United States
56. Kecskemét, Bacs-Kiskun, Hungary
57. Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
58. Short Hills, New Jersey, United States
59. Seattle, Washington, United States
60. Jackson, Mississippi, United States
61. Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
62. Secaucus, New Jersey, United States
63. Long Island City, New York, United States
64. United States
65. Tranbjerg, Arhus, Denmark
66. Naples, Florida, United States
67. San Francisco, California, United States
68. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
69. Gainesville, Florida, United States
70. Edmond, Oklahoma, United States
71. Hempstead, New York, United States
72. Everett, Massachusetts, United States
73. United States
74. United States
75. São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
76. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
77. Bismarck, North Dakota, United States
78. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
79. Downers Grove, Illinois, United States
80. United States
81. Bend, Oregon, United States
82. Henderson, Nevada, United States
83. Montréal, Quebec, Canada
84. Sunnyvale, California, United States
85. Arlington, Texas, United States
86. United States
87. New York, New York, United States
88. Fairfax, Virginia, United States
89. Rochester, New York, United States

You might expect that most of these people came from the bed bug hot spots. We get lots of readers from Chicago, Boston, NYC, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto. So it’s surprising that 89 people came from such a wide variety of places:

68 from at least 33 states (only 12 of these from NYC, San Francisco or Boston);
11 from 5 provinces in Canada;
4 from 4 cities in the UK (none of them London);
1 person each from: Hungary, Ireland, Denmark, Brazil, Iceland, and Gilbraltar.

In New York state, 10 of the 17 visitors were from NYC. And of the 10 in NYC, 60% were in Queens, where, unlike Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, each neighborhood has its own name used for the purposes of the postal service: Ridgewood, Corona, Long Island City, Woodhaven, Bayside, New York, are all in Queens, and part of NYC. Remember the Queens Gazette speculating that Queens was the “ground zero for NYC’s bed bugs? Well, I am still not sure it’s true, but it seems plausible: we certainly have a lot of Bedbuggers in Queens.

I peeked at the traffic report for the site because I have a geeky side and I find it interesting to know where you’re coming from. However, looking at it can tell us something about the bed bug problem. This is not a scientific study, but just a snapshot of our site’s traffic does tell you who’s worried about bed bugs (and, we can assume, many are worried because they have bed bugs).

Most of those cities were not capitals or the biggest cities in their regions or countries. A small percentage are from those places you think are hot spots. It should serve as a warning sign that bed bugs, like Bedbuggers, are everywhere, and way more spread out than you thought.Similar Posts:

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