The Daily News reports that New York City is going to get a bed bug education campaign.

The article reports that there will be town hall meetings about bed bugs in Washington Heights (1/28), Astoria (2/5) and Bushwick (3/12).

Housing officials will roll out the campaign with a town hall meeting Jan. 28 in Washington Heights, where the creatures have rampaged through tenements, churches, bodegas, taxi garages and upscale co-ops overlooking the Hudson River.

Residents there have been under siege: The number of complaints has skyrocketed from 62 in 2005 to 366 last year, when 119 landlords were hit with violations.

More community forums will follow in two other neighborhoods with recent bedbug outbreaks: Astoria on Feb. 5, and Bushwick, Brooklyn, on March 12.

Tenants, homeowners and community leaders will be taught in English and Spanish how to identify bedbugs, exterminate them in a safe and low-cost manner and guard against future contaminations.

Just as important, they’ll be told what not to do, like spray an apartment, which can scatter the pests, or pour gasoline on mattresses, which poses a fire hazard.

This is all good, but I hope it will be just the start of a wider campaign to raise awareness. Television, billboard, newspaper, and bus shelter advertisements should be implemented to raise awareness, though there has been no suggestion this will happen. If the city wants to fight bed bugs, it is going to cost money, but not nearly as much as continuing to ignore the problem would have cost us in lost tourist income.

Awareness is just the start; as we’ve been saying for a long time, we need local government to track infestations. Someone needs to know where the bed bugs are and how widespread infestations are. Calls to 311 are just the tip of the iceberg. The city is still in denial about the true scope of the problem.

Another goal of the campaign: Alerting immigrants with limited English to watch out for unscrupulous merchants.

“Selling refurnished mattresses to Dominican immigrants who think they’re brand new - without telling them they’ve been reserviced - is a big business in my district,” said City Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Washington Heights). “Unfortunately, many of those mattresses are crawling with bedbugs.”

This is important. The resale of mattresses should be banned. It should be illegal to pick up and resell any items marked as infested with bed bugs. And people need to learn to mark them as such.
Ultimately, though, the city is going to need to take a tougher line with landlords and tenants. Tenants must report bed bugs, landlords must treat them properly, PCOs must be contracted to come back until bed bugs are gone.

City inspectors should consider employing bed bug dogs to help them detect bed bugs, since visual inspections are time consuming and quick inspections often miss bed bugs.

Finally, financial assistance will be needed on several levels: homeowners and landlords may need assistance with proper treatment. And elderly, disabled, and other people will need physical and financial assistance with doing proper preparation for treatment.

I hope the city will institute a bed bug task force and staff it with entomologists who are true experts on bed bugs–and I hope these experts will be listened to and their suggestions followed. And soon.

This is no hero on a white horse, folks, but it is a start.

Check out the Daily News story here.

Update later in the day on 1/15:

Here’s a video from ABC7 Eyewitness News at 5 pm today.  (Click on the number “2″ next to the bed bug photo, to see the video.)

It is not clear what the city is going to do, besides hold these meetings and work on the mattress resale issue. I guess we will know more tomorrow when the plan is officially unveiled.

The ABC7 video features Jeffery Eisenberg of Pest Away, and a Pest Away tech reporting that they use two chemicals in fighting bed bugs (Suspend and Gentrol).

The newscasters quipped to one another at the end,

“You said you’d get a new bed, right?”

“And you said you’d get a new house!”

Sorry ladies. It’s not that easy.

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Marge was putting baby Maggie to bed. En route to Maggie’s crib, Marge was saying goodnight with the baby to some of the stuffed animals. Last toy was a Krusty Klown doll…

and then…

And then it happened. A bona fide bed bug cultural reference on the teevee!

No, not the fake night, night bed bugs of pre-resurgence days, but 2007 bed bugs:

Bed Time Krusty Doll: Don’t let the bed bugs bite! Krusty’s anti-bed bug spray sold separately; may contain poison.

A neat and simple joke. That everyone can get. Thank you, Stephanie Gillis and colleagues!

Midnight Towboy originally aired on October 7.

And let me offer you a special treat. For Midnight Towboy was not the first episode to treat of scary bed bugs. From The Tracey Ullman Show days where The Simpsons began as shorts and available from Simpson Crazy, do take a minute to watch the first short in the series, Good Night, wherein Marge tells Lisa to sleep tight…

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(The following is not really bed bug news, but a reminder of a time not long ago when encountering a bed bug in a place of business was a bit like finding a hair in your salad, but maybe more common.)

(These last two are not really bed bug stories, but they tell us something about how widely known bed bugs are becoming: they’re starting to mean something in popular parlance once again.)

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Remember in the olden times (like, more than eight months ago) when a news article would mention bed bugs, and then there would either be a whole detour about how bed bugs are coming back, or worse, a photo of a dust mite? (For examples, see this Children’s BBC article from 2005, or Fox News video from January 2007, which is visually chock full o’ bed bugs, until about 3/4 of the way through, when they mysteriously start tossing in still photos and video of dust mites!)

Well, now bed bugs are simply mentioned in articles, as if people know exactly what they are and how they’re spreading. It’s refreshing, and scary too, non?

The frontmen of the bands The Arctic Monkeys and The Rascals stayed in a bed bug-infested French farmhouse while collaborating in the studio next door, as reported by The Sun and New Music Express.

The Sun reports their album is as yet unnamed. Any suggestions, Bedbuggers?

I like “Bed and Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.”

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“Bed bugs,” said Diann Waters, bed bugs in home. “All over my baby.”

Diann Waters may tell her son, “don’t let the bed bugs bite” before he goes to sleep, but it looks like they did anyways.

“He done scratched them and stuff. They from bed bugs.”

Waters lives in Over-the-Rhine. Recently, she spotted insects on her furniture.

“First thing that came to my mind was that I got to get it out of my house,” said Waters. “I had to throw my furniture away. My daughter seen a bug and I figured that’s what it was, but it had eggs all the way around the lining of my furniture.”

Waters isn’t alone. Neighbors say a woman threw out a mattress and rug because it was infested.

Hopefully now the people of Cincinnati will be getting some real help. The article also hints about some of the alliances forming in the fight against bed bugs:

Carles Tassell is involved with an apartment association that’s joining forces with the city to form a task force to fight the pests.

“Bed bugs don’t care what race you are, how much money you make,” said Charles Tassell, Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Association. ” They care that you’re human. They are equal opportunity pests.”

I was curious about that group, so I googled them. Turns out, they are a trade association of apartment buiding owners and managers, and developers in the multi-family housing industry.

(Was that a pig with wings that just flew overhead?)

Yes, not only did the Cincinnati public health official declare bed bugs a public health issue, but the multi-family housing landlords’ trade group is signed on to fight bed bugs. While all this seems like a logical, obvious step, on the one hand, you have to recall that elsewhere in the country, Mayors are turning a blind eye to bed bugs and landlords are trying to discuss ways to avoid paying for treatment. Smart landlords will understand that beating bed bugs and halting their spread helps business. And turning a blind eye is disastrous.

Since this group is part of a national one for owners and developers of multi-unit dwellings, perhaps other cities may follow suit.

The news video suggests people tossing out bed bug-infested furniture put a sign on it. While it’s true that this can help, it is not as effective as destroying the item. Taking a box-cutter and slashing sofas and mattresses, is one way to make sure no one uses the item. If you are tossing out a piece of furniture like a dresser or desk, Bedbugger S. suggested removing one part to the garbage pile at a time, until each piece is carted off. (So people will find, for example, a table leg, rather than a useful table.) This will work if you are not trying to get rid of items all in one day.

But remember: though articles and videos like this portray it as the normal response to bed bugs, tossing things out is not usually a great solution: in most cases, it won’t get rid of bed bugs, and it also spreads them to your neighbors, meaning they come back. Instead, a good PCO can treat most furniture along with your home, and they’ll tell you if “tossing out” is needed, and how to do it safely.

The video also mentions that in addition to a furniture pickup hotline for infested refuse, the city is working on a system of “citations” for landlords who won’t treat the problem. Click to watch.

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Yesterday, Joe Wessels of the Cincinnati Post reported that city officials were forming a commission to fight the problem:

The Bedbug Remediation Commission, a five-member panel of local health, social service and elected leaders, is in the process of forming and will try to find ways to better educate the public about how to combat and prevent bedbug infestations.

“It’s just crazy that we have that in our city in the 21st century,” said City Council Member Chris Monzel, who is working with West End state Rep. Dale Mallory to establish the panel. “We need to do whatever we (the city) can to eliminate this.”

That’s exactly what we think too–something must be done. Surely something can be done? And yet local, state, and federal governments have been so slow to take action.

What made Cincy’s politicians take note? According to Wessels,

Workers for the Council of Aging have refused to make home visits to some seniors’ residences because they are infested. The workers complained they were being bitten and unwittingly carrying the parasites back to their own homes.

Residents of a Race Street building plagued with bedbugs have taken to sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the structure to keep from being bitten while they rest. The pests are so thick in the building that Tuesday they were seen during the day, extremely rare for the nocturnal creatures.

“Bedbugs do not typically live outside,” said Erich Hardebeck, vice president of Covington-based Permakil Pest Control, who was called in by rehabbers of a neighboring building to see if the bugs had spread to it.

Cincinnati’s bed bug problem sounds bad, but the things that are happening there are happening everywhere that bed bugs are taking over.

What exactly are the city’s statistics on bed bugs?

Cincinnati Health Department officials said they had received 179 bedbug calls through July 20, including 28 from West Price Hill, 21 from East Price Hill, 21 from Westwood and 10 from South Fairmount. Calls have picked up recently from Over-the-Rhine and the West End.

There is plenty of evidence that NYC’s problem is every bit as bad, per capita, and possibly much, much worse. NYC says only around 1190 actual cases were identified by the housing department based on complaints to 311 in the period from Summer 2005-Summer 2006. It’s striking that no one has cited any statistics for the period from Summer 2006-2007; one can only imagine they are much worse. At the same time, as I’ve written many times before, Mara Altman, in her odious Village Voice story last December, cited the head of one local PCO who claimed to get 85 actual bed bug calls per day (at the end of 2006). Clearly, 311’s statistics are just the tip of the iceberg, as Cincinnati’s probably are too.

Cincinnati’s government officials are smart: they see things are bad, they see them getting progressively worse, and they’re going to get some folks together and work on it.

New York City’s City Council also has a “Bed Bug Task Force.” However, except for a hearing about the issue of reselling used mattresses, we have not seen any public discussion on this issue yet. Except for a fact sheet on the health department’s website, which tells people to clean and that they may need a PCO, NYC has not admitted that bed bugs are a problem, let alone a serious one. They certainly won’t admit it’s a public health problem.

Let’s compare with their counterparts in the Cincinnati-Hamilton County area:

“We believe strongly that the insect should not be allowed to crawl over children while they are sleeping,” said Chris Eddy, Hamilton County’s environmental health director. “We took the position two years ago that (bedbugs) are a public health crisis. We believe that we need to be able to use the nuisance complaint code to get rid of these.”

Bed bugs are a public health crisis? Darn right they are. But sadly, few other public health departments are making a statement like this. And they should be–talking about bed bugs, and taking action on bed bugs.

How did this happen in Cincinnati? Last month, there was a Town Hall Meeting. The Enquirer reports in another article that, in a very effective move, one woman apparently turned up carrying a bag of dead bed bugs from her apartment:

City Councilman Chris Monzel and State Rep. Dale Mallory, D-West End, are working on the issue after hearing at council’s Health Committee on Tuesday what Monzel called “heartbreaking” stories.

One woman, he said, brought a plastic bag of dead bugs to a town hall meeting last month about the problem.

After talking to an exterminator, representatives from area apartment associations and the Council on Aging of Southwest Ohio, Monzel said he decided to try to improve enforcement of city regulations or beef up ordinances to stress that the bugs have become a public health problem.

I am absolutely in love with Cincinnati City Council right now. They actually heard heartbreaking stories three weeks ago and they are doing something? Break out the vikane and the UHauls, kids, and let’s move over there: Cincinnati is a good town.

Hey, I love New York too, but it’s been a year since Caitlin Heller, Bugsinthehood, and several others spoke at a NYC City Council Hearing related to the bed bug issue (which was, sadly, officially only about the resale of mattresses issue). You bet your patootie they had some heartbreaking stories. Where’s my Bed Bug Remediation Commission? Where’s my admission that our city has a serious problem?

Could it be that NYC fears that to admit their problem publicly would mean a loss in tourism revenue? Is this really the only reason we aren’t seeing any action around here?

What is being done in Cincinnati? The Post makes it clear that public education is part of the plan. The Enquirer says the plans also include a hotline residents can call so that infested furniture is picked up quickly. The Bed Bug Remediation Commission also plans to “plan to work with second-hand stores to make sure they’re not reselling infested mattresses and furniture.” Above all else, improving enforcement of existing regulations, and “beefing up” ordinances where necessary, is exactly what is needed to help curb this problem. Bravo, Cincinnati!

Bed bugs are not going to go away overnight, but for goodness’ sake, do something.

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• Last week’s Town Hall Meeting in Cincinnati

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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.

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I’ll count it as a “tipping point” that bed bugs are now the fodder of talk show opening monologues. I am still waiting for Maya Rudolph to appear in a smart Saturday Night Live sketch about them, but I suppose she is still healing. I do understand.

If the embedded video above does not work for you, please click here.
Thanks to the clever reader who tipped me off to this!

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Shhhh! If you’ve seen it, don’t spill the beans!

• Do not watch this if you have an active bed bug infestation
• Bed bugs where you don’t expect to find them: Divan, 2004
• The strange case of bed bugs in Bushwick
• Bed Bug Hotel

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This article in the Quad-Cities Online reported yesterday on bed bug infestations in a public housing complex in East Moline, Illinois. The reporter quotes one resident who has been battling bed bugs since fall.

“I work too. My tax dollars are going to support places like this (government run low-income housing). If people knew how disgusting this is, I’m sure they’d be upset,” said a resident of the Joseph Fulton Homes. The woman asked to remain anonymous.

Interestingly, a number of comments to the article also note that low-income folks should not have to live like that. At least one commenter (going by the name “some anonymous person”) mentions that “only the poor have to live like this.”

Well, not exactly. While it’s true that in this case, it’s a low-income residence, sadly, people of every social class and walk of life are having to deal with bed bugs. Many, many people we hear from at bedbugger.com — low-income, moderate-income and middle-class– have a problem getting their landlords to treat the problem promptly and effectively. The rich are perhaps in the best situation, since they have more possibility of moving, but this problem is not easy for anyone, and everyone who suffers from bed bugs suffers and takes a hit. And it can afflict anyone at any time.

We need better government support for fighting bed bugs, because nobody should have to suffer this problem for long (and a week is too long).

A second local public housing complex, a senior apartment building called Warren Towers, also has units with bed bug infestations, a story which was covered by the Quad-Cities Online on May 30th.

In other news, even though I have a google alert which tells me when people mention bed bugs in the news or in their blogs, I don’t usually mention non-bed-bug-blogs in our news round-ups. There are just too many people blogging their infestations on a daily basis to keep up.

But today, one caught my eye: this professional blog at LibraryJournal.com, suggests that folks are starting to talk about their bed bug infestations not just amongst their nearest and dearest, or in the workplace, but amongst colleagues they may not know well. That’s good news: talking about bed bugs means more people learn about the problem, how to spot it, and its likelihood of appearing in their lives, too.

Bravo to Heather McCormack at Library Journal, and Heather–we hope your Brooklyn bed bugs are on their way out!

Meanwhile, Lisa Hoffman’s Scripps News article on bed bugs (the one also published in the Knoxville News) continues to make the rounds of syndication, now in the Albuquerque Tribune.

Next, for anyone in Boston who does not have to work next Wednesday, the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation is having a Bed Bug Conference.

2nd Greater Boston Bed Bug Conference: Extermination and Legislation
Wednesday, June 13, 2007, 8:30AM - 3:00PM

There is still time to register! Registraton is $25.00 and includes lunch and refreshments. (Click the link above to get to the ABCDC site and download the registration form.)

Sponsored by the Greater Boston Bedbug Task Force, this event will provide updated information about the bed bug outbreak to more than 200 exterminators, inspectors, health providers, property managers/landlords, tenants and housing advocates, as well as members of the general public.

There’s also information at the same link for local residents to apply for a grant from the ABCDC to fight bed bugs in your home. Allston Brighton residents take note! We’re big fans of the ABCDC’s bed bug-fighting attempts (some of which are mentioned here), and we’d be glad to hear about other community organizations that are trying to help people with bed bugs, or help people avoid getting bed bugs in the first place.

And finally, today some tenants in a Jamaica, Queens apartment set off a roach bomb which exploded, harming them and damaging their apartment and belongings.

Authorities say the explosion shattered the windows of Apartment 4E at 164-30 Hillside Avenue just after 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

Some residents inside the apartment were overcome, and at least two were taken to the hospital.

The force of the explosion reportedly blew pieces of the fourth-floor window onto a construction shed and the street.

Fire officials said the roach bomb explosion may have been sparked by a pilot light or a refrigerator compressor.

In case the fact that bug bombs do not work to rid your apartment of bed bugs did not dissuade you from using one, they’re also apparently potentially dangerous.
ABC 7’s photo shows what looks to be much of the apartment’s contents pushed up against the (blown-out) window.

I realize the news reports this as a roach bomb, but since there are (for good reason) no over-the-counter bed bug bombs, since we know people attempt to use bombs made for other pests to eradicate bed bugs, and since Queens is experiencing a lot of bed bug infestations, I do have to wonder if that might have been the case here.

Don’t try that at home, kids!

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• Toronto Star: Within five years, bedbugs “will be more common than mice, roaches, carpenter ants”
• Surrey, B.C. public housing infested with bed bugs
• More bad news about Denver’s bed bug-infested Halcyon House

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