• bed bugs in Toronto; Vancouver; Billings, MT,
• bed bug news for 2007-11-09
• Bed bugs in homeless shelters, casinos, hotels, apartments: Waynesboro, Atlantic City, Greenpoint, Toronto
• bed bug news for 2007-11-16

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Terry says, “A pest control program for bed bugs is very detailed. You’ve got to get all the crevices. We are doing a little more than we really need to, but it’s to make sure we don’t have a problem in the future.”

That means Terry’s son, Tony, has to bag contents of every locker in the school, and then spray those contents with an insecticide.

Tony and his mother are wearing only gloves now, but when the heavy fumigation gets underway, they’ll be wearing face masks, too.

I am interested in these methods, since I have not heard PCOs here talking about spraying into bags of belongings. Perhaps a PCO would tell us what this might be.

I initially thought it was a good thing that Bracken County Schools were taking bed bugs seriously after finding a bed bug in school, since cities like New York City are so slow to take action against similar situations. My initial positive sense was based on Bracken County’s willingness to treat schools for bed bugs. I thought that their treatment of every school in the district was based on a sense that bed bugs must be more widespread than in just this one school.

Now, however, I am becoming more concerned about the community’s response, especially their apparent obsession with pinpointing its source. It betrays a lack of education about bed bugs and their behavior, which appears to be a prevalent problem elsewhere too.

Parents in Brooksville are divided about the schools closing an extra day just for bed bugs.

Elizabeth Aulick, a mother of two Bracken County students says, “Yeah, it does concern me, but the letter I got said they only found one bug. If it’s one bug isolated to one child, keep him home for a few days.”

A mother of three Bracken County students, including one at the Middle School says, “I guess it’s a little unexpected. I never expected something like this, but I guess it’s a good thing. Just to be on the safe side. It didn’t both me, I said, ‘Well, that’s fine.’”

The school fumigation in Bracken County is getting the full support of the county health department there.

I am glad the health department in Bracken County recognizes bed bugs as a concern, since many don’t. However, I have to say that what’s being said about the child in this case is absurd.

People in Bracken County must not associate the schools’ bed bug issue, if they indeed have one, with this one student who may have had the bed bug on his things or on his clothing. Bed bugs can live and breed in schools or in school buses or public transportation, and they can crawl onto students at any of these locations (as well as many others). As we have taken pains to explain in the past, the presence of a bed bug on a person or their things absolutely does not prove the person brought the bed bug in.

All parents, including those of the child who was bitten by the bed bug, must search at home and have a qualified PCO inspect if anyone is complaining of bites or if they see any bed bugs or possible signs. However, it is crucial that parents and school officials realize that bed bugs are not lice, and do not live on people. They crawl on, feed, and run away. If a bed bug is found on a person in a school, it does not mean the person brought the bed bug to the school.

I would assume the Bracken County School officials know this, since they are treating every school, and not just the one the bed bug was found in. And yet it does not sound like the parents or media have been picking up on that fact.

If the child did indeed have had an infestation at home and brought them into the school, then his family, too, caught them from somewhere. They spread easily. And everyone should be alert. Everyone should be asking where this family might have picked up bed bugs: parents’ workplace? YMCA? School? Bus? Motel? Because where they got them, you can get them too.

However, the child should not be blamed, nor should he be kept home. People with active infestations need to take some steps to avoid spreading bed bugs. Treating the child himself as if he were contagious is an ignorant mistake.

• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs
• NYC Bedbuggers: time to have some local politicians over for a bite or two
• New York City public schools continue to be treated for bed bugs
• Spring break bed bug warnings!

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Bracken County schools will be closed Friday after a middle school student was found to have an infestation of bed bugs, and one of the bugs was found in a classroom.

Bracken County Schools Superintendent Tony Johnson said in a release Thursday that the health department was contacted after the discovery, and that the schools will be closed in order to perform pest control treatments in each school as a precaution.

NBC WLWT5.com says that the school is being closed today, but that Monday and Tuesday were already scheduled as days off. Still, this gives schools more time to do their work. WLWT also adds:

Health department officials will oversee measures intended to prevent the spread of bedbugs, and the student will receive treatment, officials said.

This is interesting: it does not say the child’s parents will be directed to get treatment. It implies they may be taking care of it.

The most interesting thing here is that they found one bed bug, in one school, but they are treating them all. Oh, and they’re talking about it. The New York City Department of Education could learn a thing or two from them about how to deal with bed bugs.

More than a year ago, one of the first posts on this blog suggested that Lexington, KY was taking bed bugs more seriously than New York City. The same could definitely now also be said of Bracken County.

But is Bracken County’s response too enthusiastic? Is this overkill?

• Warning to Bracken County, KY: don’t get caught in the bed bug blame game
• Rockford, IL: half of Red Roof Inn shut down due to bed bugs
• More on the New York City schools and bed bugs
• New York City public schools continue to be treated for bed bugs

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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.

• bedbugs at Stanford University dorms (again)
• Stanford U bed bugs: being fought with enthusiasm and wisdom
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back
• Boston University’s bed bugs: if we don’t talk about them, they’ll go away

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The article suggests hospitals as a source of some recent bed bug infestations in Swansea, South Wales:

Marc Everitt, the owner of Swansea-based pest control firm Pest-Ex, said: “No-one is safe – bedbugs don’t go by postcode and they can affect anyone. We have seen a massive increase recently.”

Mr Everitt said he had also dealt with a number of infestations that had broken out after people had stayed in hospitals.

“We’ve had cases where elderly people have returned from hospital and have suddenly found that they’ve got an infestation,” he revealed.

“It’s difficult to prove a direct link. But the evidence suggests that that’s the place the bugs are being brought back from.”

He added: “The problem is that even if you don’t have them, you can catch them off your neighbours and so they spread very quickly and very easily.”

Watch the horror as bed bugs cross the UK and Ireland via our Clustrmap of readers’ locations.

Anyone planning a return from the hospital might do well to follow some of the recommendations in our travel FAQs for not bringing bed bugs home: here, and if you are pretty sure you were in a place that had bed bugs, then also read this.

Yes, people staying in hospitals often have much more serious things to worry about than bringing bed bugs home, and it’ a shame they have to think about this as well as staph infections, and whatever they went to the hospital for in the first place. I can only imagine having to deal with bed bugs after a serious illness, injury, or surgery: prepping for treatment, exposure to pesticides, the cost — what a nightmare.

We have sometimes heard people on the Bedbugger Forums consider whether they got their bed bugs during a hospital visit. In related news, this article details a bed bug infestation in a Canadian pediatric unit, and this article mentions how Cincinnati’s Pamela Mackey came home from a hospital, opened an envelope they’d given her, and found a bed bug inside.

• What do you wish people knew about bed bugs?
• The Times (UK) on bed bug epidemic in the USA
• bed bugs clear Port Jervis, NY Hospital’s mental health unit
• Did I get my bed bugs on Ebay?

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First, this item from NJ.com about an infested building South Jersey (Jamestown Square in Blackwood, NJ) makes me wonder: what if there was a newspaper item for every single infested building in New York?!? The New York Times would have to use a 4-point font. That’s the second bed bug infestation reported on NJ.com today.

Then there’s the Salvation Army Women’s Shelter in Charlotte, North Carolina, as reported by News 14. (Click the link at top right to watch the video.) The shelter houses 300 women and they’re busy “cleaning” and coating wooden bunk beds in polyurethene to seal cracks. They are instituting new rules about washing clothes frequently and not bringing in lots of stuff. But let’s hope they get a good PCO treating every two weeks until they are completely gone, because no amount of cleaning or sealing alone will do the trick.

• Salt Lake City Firehouse closed due to bed bugs
• FAQ: dry cleaners and bed bugs
• More on bed bugs at the Montana Rescue Mission in Billings
• bed bug news for 2007-11-13

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It’s a state residential substance abuse program for women nearing the end of a prison sentence. (Withdrawl: bad. Withdrawl plus formication brought on by a bed bug infestation? Nightmare.)

NJ.com says,

… after four state inmates at the halfway house were forced to sleep in the basement lounge to escape the critters, staffers were forced to purchase a number of steam cleaners to eradicate the problem.

“They have become resilient,” said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheuer. “The heat is the one sure way to ensure they’re going to go bye-bye.”

Heat is good, but they might want to work with a professional PCO who knows bed bugs, to supplement their steaming regimen. (They are hopefully using dry steamers to prevent mold growth?)

I truly believe you need some expert help when fighting bed bugs. (And no, I do not make my living from offering such help.) Maybe after working with them a while and soaking in all the bed bug knowledge you can, then that’s another story. Good luck to these folks.

And please, journalists: cut the “critters” talk. There’s no Disney movie in which a beautiful princess lives with her cuddly woodland friends, the bed bugs.

• Bed bug news round-up (New Jersey is notably silent)
• more on bed bugs in New Haven: they’re only using steam cleaning?!?
• Bed bug dog Joni: fighting bed bugs in New Zealand and Australia
• Bed bugs in Norwood Apartments, Washington D.C., say tenants

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This is the information on the Division of School Facilities website:

What’s New at DSF?
DOE Provides Bed Bug Kits for Schools

Bed bugs are increasingly becoming a problem within residences of all kinds including homes, apartments, hotels, dormitories and shelters throughout the United States. Although at present there is no evidence of a major infestation or harborage within NYC school buildings, these tiny insects have been occasionally showing up, mainly on clothing. While bedbugs are not known to be dangerous or transmit disease, their bites, initially painless, later cause large itchy skin welts.

Schools are not an ideal location for bed bugs to reproduce, because they are nocturnal insects that require feeding prior to reproduction; but in the event that bedbugs do show up in our schools, the DOE’s Pest Management Unit is providing a Bed Bug Kit to deal with specimens.

This information really needs to be updated, since the news media has reported 72 bed bug cases at 43 schools as of February 2007. Bed bugs in NYC schools are not a remote possibility as implied by the DOE website, but a current problem.

The kit includes: • A Four Step Specimen Collection and Mailing Procedure brochure with photos; • A step by step Protocol to follow if a suspected bed bug is captured; • A sample parent or guardian notification letter; • A Specimen Data Submission Form; • The Department of Health’s bed bug fact sheet, “Stop Bed Bugs Safely” in English and Spanish. Click here to download a PDF with this information. In the event a suspected bed bug is captured, school administrators are to open the kit and follow the enclosed protocol and procedures. If you have any questions please contact the Pest Management Unit at (718) 707-4493, E-mail, Pest Control@schools.nyc.gov, or call 311.

The protocol above is only for bed bugs found in schools in NYC. But the Stop Bed Bugs Safetly PDF is the same one available since last summer on the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene website (click for PDF). It’s not bad, though it implies that pest control professionals need to clean and “may” need to use pesticides. And while I appreciate the aims of IPM, I fear this makes people think professional pest control is not always necessary, since they think, “hey, I can clean!”; in most cases, in my experience, bed bugs do require a lot of pesticides applied repeatedly at 10-14 day intervals, or professional thermal, cold, or Vikane gas treatments.

This pamphlet from the NYC DOMHH also wrongly implies that the problem with using foggers or bombs is that they spread nasty chemicals throughout your home. The real problem with foggers and bombs, as I understand it, is that they can spread bed bugs throughout your home and to your neighbors, and make it much harder to get them out of the home.

• NYC schools closer to having bed bug legislation
• Excerpt from article re NYC Department of Ed policy
• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs
• Gianaris’ Bedbug Legislation Passes

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You may recall how Dr. Michael Potter comments on thermal treatments for bed bugs:

STRUCTURAL HEATING. Elevating the temperature within buildings has been used to eradicate pests ranging from grain insects to termites. Structural and containerized heat treatments are also being developed for bed bugs. Companies such as TempAir (Burnsville, Minn., 888/838-4035) have begun licensing the patented technology to interested pest control firms. Portable heaters and fans are used to gradually heat the air within rooms to about 125 to 130°F while monitoring with strategically placed sensors. A licensing and royalty fee is typically required along with the initial equipment purchase.

While heat treatments hold promise, eliminating infestations by raising the temperature within a building may not be so easy. As observed with cockroaches, bed bugs may seek out cooler areas as the temperature within rooms builds. Whether some bugs will be able to survive by moving to cooler locations (including adjacent units) still needs further study.

TempAir, the company mentioned by Potter, sells machines for thermal remediation of bed bugs, such as smaller portable machines for pest control, and little trailers that bake your bed bugs.

This describes how the process works. Please do not try to replicate this in your home — it is dangerous in terms of fire, may well be illegal, and may well cause your bed bugs to thoroughly spread throughout your home or into walls, making them harder to eradicate.

TempAir does not offer the actual services, though. You may be able to call them to find a PCO or operator in your area. Apparently Excelsis is using bed bug dogs to find bed bugs and TempAir heat technology to bake them to death in Chicago.

Last year, one of their machines was tested by Purdue researchers. I hope we will see the results soon.

• The Wall Street Journal on “new” bed bug-fighting tactics
• The iceman cometh.
• Cooper Pest evaluates ozone treatments for bed bugs, finds current methods ineffective
• PCTOnline on its bed bug seminar last week

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Also see the classic (2004) by Doggett: “The resurgence of bed bugs in Australia with notes on their ecology and control.”

And you were excited about the new Harry Potter installment coming out tomorrow at midnight?
Looks like we have something to keep us busy until then. Thanks, Stephen Doggett!

And for those who keep claiming bed bugs are not in any way a health concern, please note that Dr. Doggett is a medical entomologist.

• bed bug life cycle photo
• Bed bug infestations on the increase in Australia, says The Age
• New NYC DOHMH factsheets on bed bugs
• FAQ: What are bed bugs? Do I have them? What else could be causing this?

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