We’re familiar with bed bug dogs, here at Bedbugger, but it is interesting to read of the situation in NZ.

“She’s not big, she’s clean and she’s a clever dog,” Mr Morley said of the three-year-old. “She can get into little places and sniff inside mattresses.”

Well, I bet she’s less clean when she comes out of some of those mattresses.

Yesterday Joni worked through 20 rooms and even detected bedbugs that were behind a headboard fixed to the wall.

When she finds something, she will tap at it with her paw before Mr Morley asks her to check again with her nose. After bedbugs are found, each surface of the room can be treated with steam within a day whereas chemical treatments could see a room shut off for many days. Mr Morley says the combination of Joni and steam produces a 98 per cent success rate. Manual treatments have a 20 per cent success rate.

I found this interesting, and I’d like to hear more about companies working with a combination of dogs and steam. What it sounds like Morley is describing is a situation in which the dog pinpoints the exact location of bed bugs (or eggs, which the article tells us she can also detect), and then that area is carefully steamed (I assume with a dry steam machine). Steaming that pinpoints a specific area does seem both more reliable and easier than steaming the whole area, hoping to strike bed bug gold.

I’d also like to know what that 98% success rate represents: I assume it means 98% of cases need not be serviced twice. (Or does it mean most cases eliminate 98% of their bed bugs? Big difference, no?)

This does sound promising, though as a customer, I would not mind if they then employed a bit of residual or mechanical (dust) killer to seal the deal. When it comes to killing bed bugs, I don’t think there’s such a thing as overkill.

It sounds like Joni does a lot of sleuthing looking for bed bugs in hotels, and a regular run through with the bedbug dog and an industrial steamer would be greatly reassuring to me as a prospective hotel guest.

In Australia, similar dogs are used to sniff out termites, which mainly affect the coastal urban areas of the country. Joni was trained in Queensland, one of five dogs around the world trained to sniff out bedbugs.

I think this may be based on outdated statistics, since I know of at least five bed bug-sniffing dogs currently working in the United States! Nevertheless, it does sound like bedbuggers in New Zealand and at least some parts of Australia have or will soon have access to this service, which is spreading quickly, as is (unfortunately) the need for it.

• Bed bug dogs in the news
• Consumers, before you hire one, find out what that bed bug dog can do!
• University of Florida tests bed bug dogs
• Abbey the Bed Bug Dog: news report

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Health department inspectors were called to the East State Street and Bell School Road hotel after a guest found the tiny bugs crawling in the sheets of his bed. The inspectors closed 56 out of 108 rooms.

Dixon resident Robert McLean said he first spotted the little brown bugs on his sheets when he woke up Friday. Initially, he saw three or four bugs, but he said a search of the mattress revealed countless more, some of which he collected on pieces of clear tape.

“It was like a Halloween nightmare,” McLean said. “You almost want to bring your own bedding from now on.”

Unfortunately, bringing your own bedding will not prevent bed bugs. You’d have to bring your own building, frankly, and set it up over there, away from the hotel.

McLean said he reported the bugs to the hotel’s front desk, who sent a maintenance crew to look at the bugs. They took pictures, McLean said.

The hotel shut down the 56-room wing for 48 hours, during treatment, and will keep the room the guest was in closed for 5 days. However, we know that one traditional bed bug treatment is rarely enough. I hope the Red Roof Inn is being very aggressive with treatments. I would love to hear from PCOs as to what protocol they would follow in a hotel. After all, when individuals have bed bugs at home, we have to sleep in the room to draw the bed bugs out to cross the pesticides. If hotels are using traditional spray treatments, won’t customers be forced to sleep with bed bugs?!?

One also has to wonder how many other people were bitten in this hotel, and reported the bed bug bites. Or did not realize it and took them home. Could this much of a hotel be affected and the hotel be completely unaware of it?

Winnebago County appears to be inviting anyone with bed bugs in that area to call and report them to the Health Department:

[Winnebago County Health Department spokeswoman Sue] Fuller said anyone who finds bed bugs are asked to call the Winnebago County Health Department at 815-720-4100 to file a complaint.

This is interesting — I have not heard many city health departments invite such calls.

This story reinforces my idea that those who find bed bugs in hotel rooms should not simply tell the management, and then post a review on tripadvisor.com to warn others. They should also call the local health department (a number they can get via the room’s phone book, before they flee). Health departments may not consider bed bugs a health risk, but they should. And if enough people call, they may take action.

Update (11/2): the Rockford Register Star now reports the rooms are now reopened–except for the one where the bed bugs are found.

• Schools in Bracken County, KY shut down due to bed bugs
• Disney guests paid off to keep quiet about bed bugs
• Bed bugs in hotels: how to report (and check up on) bed bug infestations
• Virginia Beach hotel sued over alleged bed bug attack

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NY1 news reported Thursday that Fordham senior Michelle Hopkins has filed a suit for negligence and unspecified damages over bites incurred in her “dorm” room (click “dial-up” or “broadband” next to the photo at the NY1 site to see the clip).

The interesting twist is that she is not suing Fordham; it’s not their space. Instead, she’s suing four parties: the lessor, owner, management, and booking franchisee of the New Yorker Hotel, where the ad hoc dorm rooms are located. She suffered an allergic reaction (including an asthma attack) that sent her to the hospital. Severe allergic reactions are rare but not unheard of around here: a few readers have gone to the ER under similar circumstances, with a life-threatening reaction.

Students from several NYC colleges are housed at the New Yorker, due to housing shortages. According to 1010WINS,

Hopkins, a Fordham University senior, was living in a room on one of four floors leased by Educational Housing Services Inc., a firm that leases and adapts living space for student use. (They have nine residences in Brooklyn and Manhattan.)

Educational Housing, the New Yorker Hotel Management Co. Inc.; Ramada Worldwide Inc., which has a booking franchise relationship with the hotel; and the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the Unification Church), owners of the hotel, are named as defendants in Hopkins’ lawsuit.

CBS TV news also has a video segment on this. Luckily, Hopkins was only in the room for one week; 1010WINS reports EHS promptly moved her to another location, and she has since been rehoused by Fordham (extreme caution was exercised in these moves, since bed bugs are easily transported).

I also hope something is being done for others in the vicinity of the infested room. Other students need to be educated about the signs of bed bugs, and a good PCO should inspect all the adjoining rooms and those above and below the infested one.

This isn’t a great time to live in a hotel room. I’d guess that the high turnover in nearby units means hotel rooms are more vulnerable to infestation than apartments or student dorm rooms. Perhaps colleges need to find alternative solutions for housing shortages.

An interesting note: Hopkins’s lawyer is Alan Schnurman, also the lawyer for a number of other recent bed bug lawsuits: Eunice Juarez (who sued Disneyland), Alison Trainer (the opera singer who sued the Phoenix Hilton), Leslie Fox, who sued the Nevele Hotel in Ellenville, NY (in the Catskills), and Ellyn Gliksman-Sullivan, who sued her Park Slope, Brooklyn landlord.

• FAQ: Where can I read about bed bug lawsuits? Can you help me find a lawyer?
• Stanford bed bugs: university fights back
• Stanford still fighting bed bugs
• bed bugs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Cornell University dorms

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One woman is interviewed who used to work as a motel housekeeper; she started getting bitten at work, and she quit her job because of it.

“If I’m getting bit up like this, making me sick, I’m sure other people are too,” said Laquita Grimes.

I just hope she did not take them home from work with her. It’s tragic that she had to quit her job because of this. I wonder how many more people take bed bugs home from work, and are faced with the expense of eradication.

The motel where Grimes works tells 13News they have sprayed and that the problem is now under control, but the management admits bed bugs are a problem reputable hotels and motels across the country are dealing with now more than ever.

While I am glad the motel has treated for bed bugs, I am not reassured by being told “they have sprayed.” “Under control” might be enough for pests like cockroaches, but bed bugs need to be eliminated. While this is not permanently possible in a hotel or motel, where new bed bugs could arrive any day, managers of lodging establishments need to do more, on an ongoing basis.

I hope that they realize that regular treatment is necessary for bed bugs. The motel needs to clean extensively to remove bed bugs and their eggs, and treat aggressively, including follow-ups every 10-14 days by a PCO who knows bed bugs (not simply by motel staff). They also, in my opinion, need a bed bug protocol, which should include training staff to recognize signs of bed bugs, and maybe some kind of preventive treatment, since bed bugs will be brought in again and again.

Click the button to read the story or watch the video.

• Gaston County, N.C. health officials to hotel: bed bugs not a serious violation
• Hotel housekeeping staff offered $25 bounty per head on bed bugs
• Bed bugs at Hawai’i’s Halawa Correctional Facility
• Bed bugs in hotels: how to report (and check up on) bed bug infestations

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A teacher (Sonya Johnstone) who was attending the conference saw what she thought were bed bugs in her bed. The next day, she met up with a colleague who had broken out in red welts.

The two compared notes about their rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn.

“I told her about my room, so we checked hers and sure enough, when we flipped up the mattress by the headboard, we saw a bunch scurry off,” Johnstone said, describing the area as sprinkled with black pepper-like feces.

“When you look at the granite counters in the hotel and how nice the room is, you would never expect to find these things here.”

And then a third conference-goer, staying 7 floors away in the same hotel, had what sound like serious bite reactions.

The women were on the hotel’s fourth floor, but a colleague from the 11th floor showed off tell-tale bite marks “all over his body — across his stomach and back,” Johnstone said.

The Hilton’s Saskatoon general manager Lynn Flury said there has been no confirmation the sightings by guests are indeed bed bugs.

“In one room there is something, but we are still waiting on a report,” she said, adding nothing was found in the complainants’ rooms. “It could be little black beetles that hide under flower pots have found their way in.”

Bed bugs also closely resemble wood ticks, she noted.

Little black beetles? I am sorry.

As far as I know, neither beetles nor wood ticks hang out in groups under mattresses.

“It’s a tricky thing. If it is (bed bugs) we will take aggressive steps, even if it means shutting down an entire floor to do it,” she said. “We take this very seriously.”

The hotel has a regular intensive cleaning process that involves using a black light to search for things not visible to the naked eye. At the same time, Flury said, “we don’t live in a perfect world.”

I know that the customer is not always right (truly, they’re not!) but when three hotel guests present with stories of bed bugs in the bed, and obvious welts, I would think the manager would spring into action.

And Sonya Johnstone knows a bit about bed bugs. In fact,

Johnstone is certain the crawlies were bed bugs. She recently watched a CBC Marketplace segment on the insect, she said, in which she learned to identify the flat, brownish-red bugs and where to find them.

Yes, I can hear the hotel manager’s eyes rolling into the top of her head, “You saw a news report, huh?”

It’s true that a little knowledge is often enough to make one look for bed bugs, but not always enough to help them identify them properly. But actually, the CBC video is highly educational. It’s also in-depth and 15 minutes long: there’s a lot of footage.

The more people see bed bugs of all life stages, in videos and in photos, the more apt they are to recognize them.
My sister-in-law found a bed bug in a store changing room after seeing the in-depth bed bug segment on Dateline. If you truly know what they look like, they don’t look like ticks, or flower pot beetles. But the key is, you must know what they look like.

My advice to you, dear reader, is to circulate that CBC video. Watch it. Get your non-bedbugged friends to watch it, especially before they travel. Get your teenager going to camp or your kid going off to college to watch it. It shows how to inspect a bed for bed bugs. And it shows the effects of bed bugs, which will help your loved ones understand what you’re going through. The aim is not to freak people out, but to educate. It used to be normal to check for bed bugs when sleeping away from home. Unfortunately, it should be the norm now too.

I firmly believe that if Sonya Johnstone, and you and I can learn to identify bed bugs from photos and video, and learn how to find them in a hotel room, then so can hotel staff, restaurant staff, day care staff, people working in travel, and so on. Everyone can and should learn about bed bugs and the signs of bed bugs. And yes, it is true you can be bitten and still have lots of trouble finding bed bugs. But in most cases where people suffer significant bites in hotel rooms, they later inspect and find bed bugs or clear signs.

And hotel chains, take note: customers are not idiots. Yes, sometimes people think they have bed bugs and don’t. But three guests, in three rooms, and on two widely separated floors, with similar stories? This is something to take seriously. I hope hotels realize that members of professional organizations do have sway over where their conferences are held.

• Bed bugs where you do expect to find them: Boston Globe on hotels hiring bed bug dogs
• Disney guests paid off to keep quiet about bed bugs
• HPD expands bed bug seminars
• Bed bug travel pracautions getting around

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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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Advocacy group fights bed bug outbreak

VANCOUVER - Community advocacy group the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users VANDU is trying to fight a massive outbreak of bedbugs in that city’s Downtown Eastside by gutting infested rooms.

The group’s Anne Livingston says residents have had six weeks notice to decide what to do with their possesions.

After the rooms are gutted, crews move in to spray with powerful chemicals to kill the bed bugs.
Livingston says residents get to bring 60 pounds of clothing out of their apartments that will be laundered and returned to them.

Anne Livingston and VANDU were mentioned here in a post in March. Last summer, they got a $51,000 government grant to provide a round of 2 PCO treatments for bed bugs in two badly infested Downtown Eastside hotels. The residents also got replacement furniture and beds.

The city commissioned a study which said 1/2 of those rooms were bed bug free two months later.

Although the funding was probably was not enough treatment to achieve a higher success rate (which would likely require more PCO visits in many cases), the VANDU activisits definitely know what they’re doing. Back in March, we quoted an article in which Livingston said,

“You really need to create a system whereby you can knock on the door, get a room prepped, get the spray guys in and come back in 10 days and do it again,” said Livingston.

“And then, the real project is to not have people pulling bedbug-infested garbage out of the alley into another place. This creates constant reinfection. So that’s why it needs to be a neighbourhood campaign.”

Livingstone said bedbugs are a growing problem everywhere in Vancouver, and trying to get rid of them in the city’s poorest neighbourhood is money well spent.

Education, as we keep saying, is key–for residents of every treated building, I might add, whether it’s an SRO hotel, an expensive NYC co-op apartment building, a tenement, or a homeless shelter. (Remember, I live in NYC, where well-to-do professionals shop at bohemian flea markets, and yuppies take used furniture off the curb.)

I applaud the work of Livingston and the other folks at VANDU. I know with more funding and support, they will be able to continue to make a huge difference in peoples’ lives.

I hate that community activists like VANDU and the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston have to step in, since I think we need more infrastructure and government assistance helping people get good bed bug treatment and supplies they need (from XL ziplocs to furniture). Both of these groups have had government funding, which is great. I just think they probably need a lot more.

And is anyone in NYC or San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto, or anywhere else doing similar work? We’d love to hear about it.

• Vancouver community activists urge city to pay for bed bug eradication
• Government money needed to help people pay for bed bug treatment
• 80% of Single Room Occupancy units in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are infested with bed bugs; also Rensselaer Polytechnic’s dorms
• Itchy the Bed Bug: an Olympic Mascot for Vancouver

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But this story was interesting on several levels, so I thought I would blog about it.
A blogger (Lex Friedman)tells a tale of a friend spending the night in a(n allegedly) bed bug - infested room in a hotel in Santa Monica. (The author’s own room did not have definitive evidence of bugs). The relevant point is that the friend, Jeremy, who (allegedly) found enough bed bugs to make a little display of them on the hotel comment card (a lovely touch, I have to say), was asked to pay for the night he would have spent there had they not fled.

Blogger Lex’s conversation with hotel manager Robert:

Robert: Listen, I KNOW there are no bed bugs. I have a signed document from Terminix, who was in room 202 TODAY respraying for bedbugs, and this signed document says they’re all dead now.

Did you catch that? Respraying?

Lex: Well, Rob, I have photos of living bedbugs crawling around. Apparently they haven’t seen this document.

Robert: We don’t have a bedbug problem.

Lex: Was Terminix in the room today?

Robert: Yes.

Lex: Why were they RE-spraying the room, Robert?

Robert: I have a signed document from Terminix.

Lex: Right. The ones the bugs themselves didn’t countersign. But why was Terminix RE-spraying the room?

Robert: They have said that any bugs there were dead.

Lex: Robert, they were in the room because BEDBUGS WERE IN IT TOO, right?

Robert: Yes. But now they’re dead.

Elsewhere in the post, the blogger describes how a hotel worker says that the hotel puts customers into rooms the day they’re treated for bed bugs, whereas the practice at another hotel he worked at was to wait 30 days before letting the room again.

This is all second and third-hand, you understand, but it speaks to a few issues that have come up here before. First, as Parakeets keeps saying, the policy at many hotels appears to be to pretend they’ve never had bed bugs. Granted, we’re only getting Lex’s side of the story, but this does appear to be the case here.

Also, if this conversation occurred as described, the manager (Robert) appears to believe that bed bugs are instantly and entirely wiped out when a room is sprayed. We know this is not the case. I have a hunch that Robert does too. If not, then the PCO is not doing their job.

Bottom line, someone has blundered.

Consumerist has another interesting article, which reference’s Lex’s story, here.

• What is a bed bug infestation? One bed bug? Twenty bed bugs? 200 bed bugs?!?
• Hotels beginning to be “certified by” bed bug dogs
• Gender, race, and being bitten by bed bugs
• Rockford, IL: half of Red Roof Inn shut down due to bed bugs

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Those of us in multi-unit dwellings often daydream about having our whole buildings tented and fumigated with Vikane. It’s one way to get rid of bed bugs in a building (large or small) that’s out of control. You can do it to your house, or your whole building, but you can’t do it in a single apartment (hence the daydreams). It’s not legal everywhere, from what I gather, but is worth looking into. Everyone (humans and pets) must be evacuated before treatment, and the unit is covered in a tent so that the gas does not escape.

Only a trained and licensed professional can or should use Vikane gas. You should never try to replicate this kind of treatment using any kind of substance. It is extremely deadly.

Here’s Dow’s brief article on vikane gas fumigation for bed bugs, and Bowman Termite and Pest of Hawai’i on Vikane fumigation for bed bugs (this one tells us that the procedure takes one day and kills all bed bug adults, nymphs and eggs, if done properly).

Pest Control magazine clarifies that three times as much Vikane is used for bed bugs as for termites. And they outline Vikane’s benefits:

“We have recommended fumigation with Vikane on several extensive bed bug infestations where we felt that conventional treatment strategies could not bring a resolution to the problem quickly enough,” said Scott Crowley, technical director at Lloyd Termite Control in California. “When we use other treatment methods, re-treatments are frequently necessary. However, when we use Vikane and take some extra precautions, we can be sure that all of the bed bugs in the structure have been eliminated.”

The extra precautions that Crowley recommends include inspecting all personal belongings which may have been involved in the transference of bed bugs, as well as proper laundering of bedding and clothing which may have been exposed.

Frank of The War on Bed Bugs on Vikane:

(A) Vikane chamber can also be used to treat furniture and possibly vehicles. The technique sounds promising and does not cause significant damage to human health or environment. However, the cost of Vikane gas fumigation is significantly higher, and it is impossible to treat a multi-family dwelling without the co-operation of every unit. The long-term effects of using Vikane gas are also not clear.

Like Frank, I’d like to know more about the possible long-term effects. I have a hunch that gas is nor harmful to us or pets, because we don’t re-enter the home until it has been aired out for a time and the gas has fully dissipated (which is an advantage of a gas over other substances which might be applied). But I’d like more information on that.

I’d also love to have a ballpark figure on the costs of Vikane gassing a 3-bedroom house, say, or a 3-family house, or a 35-unit apartment building. If anyone has done it or knows how much it would cost, please tell us (and include the region or rough geographical location, if you will).

We also seriously need details on anyone who is licensed and able to provide Vikane gassing of a moving truck full of bed bug infested items. If you know of anyone who does this, anywhere, please let me know. Entrepreneurs, do you realize how many people from this site alone would frequent such a service? It would open up “moving” as a viable option for getting away from bed bugs, which it really isn’t now.

Dow’s FAQs on Vikane for termites note that many real estate transactions now require homes to be treated for termites before the sale goes through. For bed bugs, no other treatments but thermal and Vikane can potentially offer 100% success (and I stress that thermal and Vikane have to be done by people who know what they’re doing). Vikane seems like a good option if you’re selling a home or building and have bed bugs. What’s more, if the provider guarantees their work, buyer and seller can have peace of mind on this issue.

Further reading:

This is the Environmental Protection Agency (USA EPA) page on Vikane gas fumigation.

This is one example of a success using Vikane.

This is a site for people concerned about pesticides, which suggests Vikane may be dangerous even when used correctly. The issue is likely to be controversial, but I wanted to share this link so readers are aware of it and can do further research if they’re concerned.

• reader question: bed bug treatment options
• Ryerson University: a study in unenthusiastic bed bug control practices
• Vikane Fumigation Successful in New Jersey
• “Bombs don’t work on bed bugs.” Citation, anyone?

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