Mark Sheperdigian has an excellent new article in Pest Management Professional about what apartment building managers need to be aware of when dealing with a bed bug infestation — the often unconsidered aspects of multi-unit dwelling life which help bed bugs to spread from unit to unit.

We’re all familiar with the problem of a single household discarding its contents (often unnecessarily) which then spread bed bugs to everyone who collects something from the pile.

However, bed bugs may spread easily in ways which are less obvious.

For example, have you also considered the potential for bed bugs being spread around a complex by a gentleman caller with multiple lady friends in the building, or by the visiting meals on wheels volunteer?

Or the way bed bugs might move around with adolescents who troop from one kid’s bedroom to another with Nintendos, game chairs, and other gear in tow? (These are what Sheperdigian cleverly dubs “Nintendo Trojan horses”).

Sheperdigian suggests apartment managers need to try to develop

programs that work to find and encompass all the networks, families and friendships that facilitate the move of bed bugs across a community.

Although I am skeptical most apartment managers won’t bother doing this — let’s face it, we hear so many won’t choose a knowledgeable professional, have adjacent units inspected, or follow-up on treatments — Sheperdigian shows us how very important these networks can be, if we really want to get rid of bed bugs in the building.

Instead of only searching adjacent units in a clover-leaf pattern, apartment managers may want PCOs to also inspect units frequented by tenants of an infested unit, or whose inhabitants are frequent visitors of an infested unit, or whose owners have the same visitors as the infested unit.

Sounds confusing, right?  All the more reason, frankly, to consider just doing a careful inspection of the entire building.

Other recommendations Shepherdgian outlines for apartment managers include

• Telling tenants about the bed bug problem and educating them about bed bugs (rather than keeping mum about the problem);
• Setting up assistance programs for those needing help (such as the elderly or infirm);
• Implementing programs for discarding items which must be removed, so removals don’t spread bed bugs in the building; and
• Reaching out to regular visitors (like that meals-on-wheels volunteer) to make sure they aren’t re-infesting units they visit.

More and more, apartment managers are talking about how to prevent and respond to bed bug outbreaks. Last week Renee brought to our attention a new draft training manual created by the Columbus Apartment Association (with the assistance of Dr. Susan Jones).

Bed bugs are difficult to treat, even for the most well-meaning and attentive building managers.  I applaud Mark Sheperdigian for outlining some of the angles which are commonly missed, and I know you’ll want to read the rest of the article here: Bed Bugs in the Apartment Department at Pest Management Professional.Similar Posts:

• Mark Sheperdigian on the limits of bed bug inspections
• Never assume the tenant who complains about bed bugs is the only tenant with bed bugs
• Residents at the Bella Vista apartments learn their building has bed bugs by watching the news
• Bed bugs in Washington, D.C.? Yes! And growing in number daily.
• Bed bugs in a senior apartment building in San Diego

Thank goodness the building is under the care of a community organization and landlord that is not willing to put up with this building being only 85% bed bug-free.

Remember this campaign to free a 20-unit Manchester, New Hampshire building (Langdon Mill Apartments) of bed bugs?

A group called NH Bed Bugs, spearheaded by members of the American Friends Service Committee and the Granite State Organizing Project, went to great lengths to try and solve the bed bug problem at Langdon Mill.

As the Concord Monitor reported Sunday,

They moved the families out of the building. They washed and dried all of their clothes and bedding on high heat. They threw out almost all of the furniture they owned – not just mattresses and couches, but tables and desks, too – and solicited donated replacements. After exterminators had sprayed everything, the families came back.

Unfortunately, when new mattresses were being brought back in on Wednesday, three units still showed signs of a bed bug infestation.

Though vastly improved, the building will continue to be treated.

Make no mistake, it is a vast improvement: the building has had bed bugs since 2005, and when NH Bed Bugs stepped in, every unit was infested.

NH Bed Bugs threw itself into the project, and learned on a large scale what individual bedbuggers learn: how difficult and expensive it is to get rid of bed bugs.

Maggie Fogarty, of the American Friends Service Committee told the Concord Monitor,

“. . . we couldn’t ask these refugee tenants to run every piece of clothing they had through a high heat cycle in the dryer. It cost us thousands of dollars to do it for them,” Fogarty said. “They certainly couldn’t afford to go out and buy all new stuff, even secondhand stuff.

“One of the problems we have not figured out is, how do you do this if you’re of limited means? How do you do this effectively?” she said. “It’s a very expensive problem.”

And Fogarty is mindful too of the difficulty of helping people get rid of this problem:

“We cannot convene hundreds of volunteers, and tens of thousands of dollars, for every building in New Hampshire,” Fogarty said. “We have to step back and look, systemically, how we can prevent this problem from spreading.”

[Emphasis mine.]

There are two important points here:

1. Bed bug preparations and treatment are time consuming and costly.  If people cannot afford the costs of bed bug preparations and treatment, or cannot manage the physical labor, then bed bugs will continue to thrive and spread.
2. Bed bugs are a fact of life and cannot be completely avoided.

Some steps may help curtail their spread and/or help stop them in their tracks when they are brought in:

• Everyone needs to be educated about how to avoid bringing bed bugs home;
• Residential buildings, schools, office buildings, public transportation, and other locations need regular professional inspections to detect bed bugs;
• Cracks and wall voids may need to be dusted and sealed, and other preventive measures taken to foil the odd bed bugs which may be brought in.

Similar Posts:

• Saatchi and Saatchi New York offices infested with Bed Bugs
• Frankfort, Kentucky Public Housing Authority plays the “bed bug blame game”
• 18-story Dayton apartment building infested with bed bugs to be treated with Vikane gas
• Bed bugs bite Edmonton
• Bed Bugs hit Johnson City Fire Station

It’s getting to the stalemate portion of the bedbugs-in-your-building experience:

Ted Kuhn Tower tenants are still living with bed bugs. And management is blaming other tenants who refuse treatment and/or bring in discarded bed bug-infested gear.

Here’s the problem: tenants who do cooperate with treatment should not be punished because others don’t.

Read the update on Ted Kuhn (affixed to a post from last month) here.Similar Posts:

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The KRDO article posted at this link is innocuous enough, but do click and watch the video. There is some misleading information there.

First, Colorado Springs Code Enforcement Officer Ken Lewis tells KRDO viewers that

“If you sleep in a bed that had bed bugs, you probably won’t see the bed bugs, or feel the bed bugs, but you’ll wake up with the little red bites all over you in the morning.”

This is rather misleading, since we know that many (and some would say most) people do not have any reaction to bed bug bites and so would have no idea they were bitten by bed bugs.

In the Pest Control Presents #23 podcast linked below, Jerome Goddard tells us that 70% of people do not have a skin reaction to bed bug bites (no mark, no itching, nothing). The other 30% have varying reactions to a bed bug bite (from small bumps to large inflamed welts).

With this in mind, city officials should not be implying that members of the public will know they slept in a bed with bed bugs, because they will get a reaction to bed bug bites.

But that’s not the only misleading statement in this newscast.

Reporter Tak Landrock ends the report by saying that,

“You will have to get rid of your bedsheets, your pillows, even your mattress, in order to get rid of them.”

This is not so.

Most entomolgists tell us that discarding mattresses is usually not necessary, and in fact, can help spread bed bugs around buildings, neighborhoods, and cities. Mattresses and box springs can be carefully encased in encasements carefully desgined and tested to keep bed bugs in, or out.

Moreover, bedsheets need never be discarded, since a hot wash and dry (or even a hot dry alone, on clean dry items) will serve to kill all bed bugs and bed bug eggs present.

If the Code Enforcement Department and the news media in Colorado Springs want to help halt the spread of bed bugs in that city, they would do well to give news audiences the most accurate advice about avoiding, detecting, and getting rid of bed bugs.

Update: the journalist who wrote this article updated it on Friday to correct the information about discarding mattresses and sheets. Please see the first comment below for details.

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This is the source of the statistic that 70% of people do not react to bed bug bites:

Gabcast! Pest Control Presents #23 – 10 Questions With Jerome Goddard, state medical entomologist for Mississippi

Dr. Jerome Goddard, the state medical entomologist with the Mississippi Department of Health in Jackson, Mississippi discusses the potential for bed bugs to spread diseases.

Similar Posts:

• Boston Globe on the second hand furniture “industry” and bed bugs
• LiveJournal’s januarychill: a day in the life of someone with bed bugs
• Colleges react to bed bugs: Loyola (Chicago), Boston University, Brigham Young (Hawaii)
• More Toronto bed bug stories from Joe Fiorito
• Patrons claim they are being bitten by mysterious bug at upscale Chicago restaurant

TheStar.com | Joe Fiorito updates us on prior bed bug story

“… when bedbugs spread to her apartment, and when the Toronto Community Housing Corporation could not respond to her complaints…, she booked a fumigator on her own and paid… to take care of the problem. She has now been reimbursed by TCHC.” This public housing agency in Toronto seems to be taking bed bugs seriously.

Bed Bugs Force Orlando Family To Throw Out Furniture – Central Florida News 13

Tenants in Orlando “throw out mattresses and wash all of their clothes, but the bugs are still there.” This video reminds us that tenants, landlords, and journalists need to be better educated about bed bugs. Tossing furniture out is not the way to get rid of bed bugs.

And, finally, the first ever Bedbugger.com “Aim Higher” award goes to this shelter resident, who declares living in a shelter with bed bugs “beats sleeping outdoors:”

Billings Gazette (letter to the editor): Staying in Mission beats sleeping outdoors

“As a resident of the Montana Rescue Mission, I have experience with bedbugs. They aren’t fun, but no worse than a few mosquito bites at a barbecue. Anyone who says they prefer to sleep on the streets isn’t credible.”

Absolutely, sleeping on the streets is almost always worse than bed bugs. But I disagree that they are no worse than mosquitoes. For many of us, much worse. Bed bug bite reactions vary from not noticeable to extremely uncomfortable. Some are so allergic they end up in the hospital, while others on the “itchy” end of the spectrum lose sleep and experience discomfort.

In any case, I believe strongly that people living in shelters should be entitled to accommodation that’s a darn sight better than sleeping rough. Isn’t that the point?Similar Posts:

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