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Ohio fighting to get Propoxur for residential bed bug applications

nobugsonme — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:11:20 +0000

The Ohio Department of Agriculture has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for an emergency exemption to allow the use of the pesticide Propoxur in residences; more than a dozen additional states are supporting this request, The Columbus Dispatch reports.

The pesticide is currently in use for crops, on flea/tick collars, and in commercial applications. This would simply be an emergency extension of its use inside residences.

Why Propoxur?

As Doug Caruso reports for The Columbus Dispatch,

In tests at the University of Kentucky, the chemical killed 100 percent of the bedbugs exposed to it within 24 hours and kept on killing after eggs hatched, Beal said. That compared with a 16 percent kill rate after 72 hours for a commonly used household insecticide against one strain found in Cincinnati, and 40 percent in another strain.

Make no mistake: while safety to humans and pets is an important factor when decisions are made about which pesticides are legal for which use, political and financial interests do factor heavily. The Columbus Dispatch notes,

Introduced in 1959, Propoxur was removed from home use in the 1990s under a law that sought to reduce people’s exposure to insecticides. When manufacturers decided which uses to allow, [Matt Beal, assistant chief at the Ohio Department of Agriculture] said, they kept the chemical for application to crops and commercial buildings because they sold more of it for those purposes.

[Emphasis mine.]

It will be interesting to see if the exemption is granted, and whether this helps us in our battle against the red menace.

Update (11/12):

Is it just me or is the New York Times trying to put a spin on this issue with their headline,

“Ohio Wants to Use Industrial Poison on Bedbugs at Home.”

[Emphasis mine.]

Eek! Industrial poison! Oh no!

(Meanwhile, the people with bed bugs are saying, “yes, please!”)
Similar Posts:

Yet another person tries to self-treat for bed bugs and sets building on fire

nobugsonme — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:17:04 +0000

Cincinnati.com reports that fourteen people living in a Hamilton County, Ohio apartment building were displaced overnight by a fire caused by someone spraying alcohol-based pesticides while smoking:

Fire investigators have determined the blaze was started by a resident spraying for bed bugs while smoking, said Capt. Steve Conn, spokesman for the Colerain Township Fire Department.

“They were spraying for bed bugs, and it had alcohol in it,” Conn said. “One of the residents lit up a cigarette, and it basically flashed and started the room on fire.”

[Emphasis mine.]

This is very dangerous, obviously, and it is a good thing no one was seriously injured, and that most of the residents have been able to return home.

This Hamilton County Public Health document (click for PDF) reminds residents who rent that

If you rent a home or apartment within Hamilton County (excluding cities of Cincinnati, Norwood, Sharonville or Springdale) and you think you have bed bugs, please contact the Hamilton County General Health District at (513) 946-7832. Health District sanitarians will work with your landlord to eliminate the problem.

Self-treating for bed bugs is often ineffective and can be dangerous, as this story reminds us. And this is not the first fire caused by attempts to get rid of bed bugs.

People in Hamilton County have other options for bed bug treatment; what about tenants and low-income homeowners living elsewhere who don’t?Similar Posts:

18-story Dayton apartment building infested with bed bugs to be treated with Vikane gas

nobugsonme — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:16:42 +0000

On August 22nd, an entire 18-story apartment building in Dayton, the Biltmore at 210 N. Main St., is being treated for bed bugs with Vikane (sulfuryl fluoride) gas fumigation. Residents will be evacuated for a week (to friends’ homes, or to a local hotel).

The Dayton Daily News reports that this process is only being undertaken after two years of unsuccessful spraying of individual units:

Because the infestation has resisted floor-by-floor fumigation for two years, [Denver-based building owners] Aimco said, the building-wide attack with the deadly gas is now the only option.

Aimco spokeswoman Cindy Duffy said residents should be ready to return Aug. 30. She had no cost estimates for the project, but said the money for the fumigation and relocation would come from Aimco’s operational budget.

Interestingly, last October, AIMCO evacuated a Philadelphia building for thermal treatment. We have not heard any follow-up on that case; it would be interesting to know why Vikane was chosen in the Dayton case.

It’s important to note that when an entire building is treated, residents, management and staff will likely need to be educated about how to avoid bringing in bed bugs again — because if they can be brought in to the building once, they can be brought in again, and again.

Management should also have some continued inspection policy. Some PCOs might want to use additional treatments such as a mechanical dust to nip future infestations in the bud, and methods like caulking to help prevent future infestations from spreading.

However, nothing is more important than making sure residents and staff know how bed bugs spread, how to avoid and spot them, and that they will suffer no repercussions for reporting them swiftly in future.

Future reports of bed bug bites or sightings must be met with swift attention — and not just attention to the unit where the complaint was made.

The Dayton Daily News also notes that

The Biltmore, which receives Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 8 subsidies, isn’t the only apartment building in the area with bedbug problems.

(Incidentally, you may recall that a few weeks ago, HUD told a landlord in Florida that tenants did not have to pay to treat their bed bugs, as the building owner was insisting.)

The Dayton Daily News also illuminated the details of the spread of bed bugs in Dayton:

Tom Hut, a supervisor with Public Health — Dayton & Montgomery County, said he’s receiving a dozen queries a day, mostly from apartment dwellers, about bedbug infestations. That’s a jump from a dozen queries per week in 2008, he said.

This is troubling: if we assume Hut is only getting calls about bed bugs Monday-Friday, that’s still five times as many bed bug queries per week now as in the prior year.

Dayton needs to take bed bugs very seriously.

See the full story in the Dayton Daily News: Bedbug war to empty downtown apartments.

Note: as bbbites and cilecto pointed out in a thread on this story in our Bedbugger Forums, be aware that there’s some odd advice in the Tips for Avoiding Bed Bugs inset, for example, “Regularly launder bedding in very hot water, especially when coming back from a trip.” Unless you travel with your own bedsheets (which we do not recommend), this does not make much sense. For more detailed travel advice, see our Travel FAQs.Similar Posts:

A tale of two bed bug-troubled cities: Cincinnati, Columbus

nobugsonme — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:12:56 +0000

My report about the Hillrise Apartments in Cincinnati the other day highlighted what can happen when local officials stop inspecting rental units based on bed bug complaints.

As you’ll recall, funding was cut at the end of 2008 for the Cincinnati Health Department’s bed bug inspection program.

Here’s another story with bedbugged tenants, this time in Columbus, Ohio, where the Franklin County Board of Health is able to inspect homes based on tenant complaints.

NBC4i reports that some residents of The Pointe Apartments on Harrisburg Pike, fed up with bed bug bites, have evacuated their homes for hotel rooms:

[Tenant Chris White] called officials after an exterminator hired by the property managers didn’t show up May 6.

The property manager wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Neighbors are helping each other look for bed bugs in their cushions and mattresses.

“It’s not my responsibility to do this. It’s the apartment complex. I’m helping friends out,“ he said.

Residents received a letter from the complex officials saying that exterminators would arrive on May 6, but residents said the exterminator never showed up.

Franklin County health officials went door-to-door inspecting apartments.

For the second time since last fall, health officials are issuing orders for pest control as soon as possible.

[Emphasis added.]

Obviously, if there are inspectors who can come in and issue pest control orders, this does not mean bed bugs will necessarily be eradicated quickly and fully.

However, tenants who can call upon such services stand a much better chance than those who can’t. And of course, they are able to call again, if the problem persists, as it did in this case, and the inspectors can become involved again.

Note: the Franklin County Board of Health (this is their bed bugs page) is part of the Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force, a group that stepped up, according to this article in the Columbus Dispatch last September, when local officials started to become aware of the problem and its effects in Cincinnati.Similar Posts:

Towels under the door: when cities abandon tenants with bed bugs

nobugsonme — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:10:55 +0000

This is what happens when local authorities cannot help low-income tenants get help and treatment for bed bugs.

WLWT in Cincinnati reports that the Hillrise Apartments for Seniors in College Hill still has a serious bed bug problem. Cincinnati, you’ll remember, did not fund its Health Department’s bed bug inspection program in their last budget, and ceased doing bed bug inspections in January 2009.

The Cincinnati Health Department had to cease inspecting for bed bugs even though requests for assistance had gone from 70 requests in 2007 to 750 in 2008.

The residents at Hillrise Apartments appear to be living without proper bed bug treatment, claiming they’ve had bed bugs for years. In fact, we ran a story on Bedbugger about bed bugs in the Hillrise Apartments back in October 2007, when they were already said by tenants to have “spread from one end of the building to the other.” And that was over nineteen months ago!

The video linked below shows senior citizens attempting to ward off bed bug bites with 91% isopropyl alcohol (a contact killer if sprayed directly on a bed bug, this won’t prevent bed bugs from biting) or attempting keep them out of apartments with a towel stuck under the door. The video shows bed bugs crawling and fecal traces in the corners of a room that must have had bed bugs for a very long time.

WLWT notes that many residents have sought medical help for the bed bug bites and

The problem is so bad that local hospitals have actually called the Health Department looking for help for Hillrise residents.

The Cincinnati Health Department says landlords are responsible for treating to get rid of bed bugs, but as as we noted above, the Health Department no longer sends inspectors to identify the problem and educate residents about treatment options:

The Health Department said it did have a program that would check for bed bugs and then educate residents on their options, but that program was cut months ago when the city slashed its budget.

Please go to Seniors Battle Bed Bugs At Infested Apartment Complex – WLWT Cincinnati to read the full story and watch the depressing video.

And think long and hard about what happens when local public officials have good ideas about fighting bed bugs, but no funding to implement them.

And before anyone asks, yes: I get that the economy stinks. However, it’s more expensive to treat bed bugs when an infestation is allowed to get very bad. And obviously, the longer it goes on, the more citizens will get bed bugs (increasing treatment costs exponentially).

We’re talking about a city in which a recent study found one in six people had had bed bugs. One in six, according to the Spring 2008 Greater Cincinnati Health Survey conducted by the University of Cincinnati Institute for Policy Research.

And that was in Spring 2008; I do expect that number to grow.

If infestations are allowed to go on for years, with insufficient or no bed bug treatment, not only do the residents suffer, but bed bugs also continue to spread to others and infest more people’s homes, causing more suffering, costing more money.

I wonder how many more people in Cincinnati and the surrounding area have bed bugs as a result of this particular infestation being allowed to go on for years. Similar Posts:

Interview with Paul Wenning of The Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force

nobugsonme — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:08:20 +0000

Renee Corea of New York vs. Bed Bugs has another new interview — this time with Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force (COBBTF) Chair Paul Wenning of the Franklin County Board of Health

New York vs Bed Bugs: We are very impressed with the task force and understand it’s a volunteer organization?

Paul Wenning: We’ve known it was just a matter of time before bed bugs became a large problem in Greater Columbus. I had a series of conversations with officials from Cincinnati and Hamilton County (Greater Cincinnati) in the early autumn of 2008, and the astronomical rise in the number of cases there over a five year period convinced me that we had to take action and quickly. I began conversations with Dr. Susan Jones, from the Ohio State University Extension Office, who is also a leading expert on bed bugs. We quickly created a Bed Bug Summit, to which representatives of the City of Columbus, the suburbs, and County agencies were invited. It was well attended, and at the end of the program, I asked for volunteers to help establish a Bed Bug Task Force for Columbus and Franklin County. We held our first meeting in November, and I set forth a series of goals and objectives for the group to discuss.

I know you’ll want to read the rest:

The Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force: an interview with Paul Wenning — New York vs Bed Bugs.Similar Posts:

None Found

Bed bugs in two patient units of a Columbus, Ohio children’s hospital

nobugsonme — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:10:53 +0000

A Columbus hospital has recently had bed bugs in two patient units, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Misti Crane writes:

Bedbugs found in two patient units at Nationwide Children’s Hospital prompted aggressive cleaning and the relocation of patients, according to a statement issued by the hospital.

It said the problem, which has been eliminated, was not due to poor sanitation, nor was it a health threat.

The hospital has hired a pest-control expert and is using a specially trained dog that can detect the presence of bedbugs. The hospital has many units of varying sizes, but officials would not say which units or how many rooms were affected.

“We will continue to take whatever measures are necessary to address this issue, which has unfortunately become chronic in central Ohio,” the statement says.

It’s not the first hospital to become infested with bed bugs, and it won’t be the last.

Bed bugs are hitchhikers: they come into hospitals with people, and other people may then leave the hospital with bed bugs too.

It’s important for hospitals to have a plan for this eventuality, so they can immediately take the necessary steps to get rid of the problem.

via The Columbus Dispatch : Hospital takes action against bedbugs.Similar Posts:

Bed bug sniffing dogs abound

nobugsonme — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:51:24 +0000

Dog Nose

Originally uploaded by jason044

The dog’s nose is a potentially powerful tool in the fight against bed bugs. It’s a war where the enemy is notoriously stealthy. We need all the help we can get.

Bed bug canines are always popular in the news media. Like some other bed bug-related services (such as structural fumigation and thermal treatment), every region does not have easy access to canine bed bug detection teams, so the news stories both do companies the favor of spreading the word about their existence, but also help bed bug sufferers, who might not know this option is out there. Luckily for us, they are popping up in more and more geographic areas.

One recent bed bug sniffing dog business was started in the Cincinnati area by LeAnne Montgomery and her husband John. LeAnne is better known to longtime participants on our Bedbugger Forums as “bugbait” — she was an active Bedbugger who came to the site to get support in dealing with her own bed bugs, long before the couple went into the bed bug dog business and started Canine Bed Bug Finder.

LeAnne and John did not have access to a bed bug k9 service when their home was infested. You can read a recent story here about the Montgomerys’ new bed bug sniffing dog Hershey, who was trained at Florida Canine Academy. Congratulations to LeAnne and John — I hope Hershey finds a lot of bed bugs!

There was also a recent story in the news about a new bed bug sniffing dog in Las Vegas.

Finally, Ontario’s Michael Goldman (of Purity Pest Control) and his bed bug sniffing dog Kody (who is said to have been the world’s first bed bug sniffing dog) were featured in a Discovery Channel story last week.

The segment on Kody starts about six minutes in (you can move the cursor past the iceberg story after the initial brief commercial). Click here to see the story.

It’s important to note that all bed bug sniffing dogs and handlers are not equally skilled. Dogs and handlers must constantly train in order to maintain the dog’s skills.

If you need help determining whether you have bed bugs, do your research, ask for k9 recommendations on the forums, or references from the handlers.

Are there any other specific questions readers should ask a bed bug dog handler, before hiring him/her? Please share your answers in the comments below.

Thanks to the anonymous tipster in the forums who pointed me to the segment on Kody!Similar Posts:

Self-treatment for bed bugs probably caused Cincinnati fire

nobugsonme — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:07:21 +0000

This article from Local 12 in Cincinnati, Ohio reports that a resident’s attempts to self-treat for bed bugs likely contributed to a fire last night in Scottwood Avenue in Bond Hill.

Investigators believe the resident was treating a bedroom with a mixture of alcohol and bug killing solution. A cigarette may have ignited fumes generated by the mixture.

Oh dear.

I assume the alcohol is 91% rubbing alcohol, which some people use as an inexpensive contact killer for bed bugs. Many people probably overdo it. It is important to remember that even a common household item such as rubbing alcohol is flammable (and also generates fumes which may cause danger). And, honestly, you are probably not doing any good if you are trying to saturate your home with any contact killer (alcohol or otherwise).

Smoking around alcohol or pesticides is just a very bad idea. And pesticides should only be used appropriately and according to the label instructions.

Bedbugger understands how expensive bed bugs are to get rid of, but we still recommend getting a professional who is knowledgeable about and experienced with bed bugs to treat your home. (With the usual caveat: all bed bug professionals are not experienced in efficiently and successfully killing bed bugs.) Not only is it usually quicker and more effective to get someone with experience to do this job, it is also usually much safer than doing your own pest control. We say this as consumers; if you could do it more easily or cheaply, believe me, we would happily tell you.

And if you apply anything at all, please, please be careful. This isn’t the first fire we’ve heard of (apparently) being caused by DIY bed bug treatment. There have been other cases where misuse of pesticides in bed bug treatment have led to injury or death. Another man, in New Jersey, caused an explosion and fire using bug spray. And then there are the bug bomb injuries and deaths.

A recent survey showed that 14.5% of the people in Cincinnati have had bed bugs. Of these, 31% used only an over-the-counter spray to treat for bed bugs.

And those are the do-it-yourself folks who only used an OTC spray. I am not sure of the definition of over-the-counter: does it include professional-grade materials available for public purchase? If so, we can only guess that an even larger percentage self-treated with more powerful materials, dusts, etc.

Seeing bed bugs or suffering from bed bug bites is unpleasant and can cause serious sleep deprivation and stress, and sometimes more serious health problems. Lots of people in Cincinnati are desperate to get rid of bed bugs, and many of them cannot afford to pay for professional treatment. Stories like this remind us that this can be a dangerous situation to be in.Similar Posts:

Cincinnati stops bed bug inspections; MSNBC touts Cincinnati’s educational campaign; hmpf.

nobugsonme — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:05:05 +0000

Cincinnati’s health department got almost 11 times as many requests for help with bed bugs in 2008 compared with 2007 (the number jumped from 70 to 750). And the Cincinnati Enquirer reports today that they’ve now ceased inspecting for bed bugs.

Hmpf.

We knew this was coming when the 2009 budget did not include the $291K needed for this purpose. The City is trying to find this money from other sources.

MSNBC sings the “Cincinnati has bed bugs” song today:

Health officials said the best way to combat the city’s bed bug problem was to raise awareness, and now the whole world knows about the area’s resurgent pests.

But awareness is only one factor in the fight against bed bugs.

MSNBC also notes that while 15% of Cincinnati residents has had bed bugs, only 31% are using licensed pest control specialists to get rid of them. It is important to understand that licensed PCOs are not necessarily experienced or knowledgeable about bed bugs. You’d be surprised by how many licensed PCOs still don’t “get” bed bugs. And don’t forget that even knowledgeable PCOs may be stymied in their bed bug treatment by the inability to treat neighboring units in buildings. (This may come down to money, tenants’ or landlords’ refusals to have inspections or treatment of adjacent units.)

Inadequate or incomplete bed bug treatment (which likely includes most self-treatment, and probably a lot of professional treatment as well) is likely a key factor in why more than 10 times as many people called the Cincinnati health department in 2008 compared with 2007.

It’s really hard to get rid of bed bugs even if you know what you’re doing.

Public education and the willingness to receive such reports likely accounts for some of it too: how many more people suffered from bed bugs, vs. how many more called the city about the problem (where they might have kept it to themselves).

But come on, Cincinnati!

Don’t you realize citizens and city alike will have much worse financial problems if in 2009, you see a rise in bed bug cases?

And come on, news media!

Let’s put two and two together. It isn’t enough to be the city that understands the depth of its bed bug problem. They also have to come through with more than awareness: cold hard cash, legislation, action.Similar Posts: